Objective: With a foundation of what RPA actually is, it’s important to start thinking about how RPA can be applied. In this learning experience, we’ll take a look at what bots can do and how they can be utilized in different areas of an organization.
Bots are RPA: specialized software robots that automate high-volume, repetitive, rule-based tasks in an auditable and reliable way…but what do bots actually do? And how can that help save my organization time, money, reduction in errors, etc? The answer to both of these questions really depends on the manual efforts that take place in different areas within your organization.
Take, for example, processing sales orders. Regardless of the size of your organization, there is some place that your company is tracking customer relationship data (in a CRM, xls, some other system of record) where data needs to be updated in the case of a sale. Additionally, most organizations also leverage an enterprise resource planning application as part of the sales process, which helps them manage things like purchasing inventory, finance, marketing, and human resources - all which may have records/data that need updating to reflect the sale. Typically it then becomes the responsibility of the finance/accounting team to make sure that data is appropriately replicate between those two systems…among other proprietary applications an organization may use. That’s not only time consuming, but can also be an error prone process.
Bots could be leveraged in a situation like this to support the sales activities end to end, from creating sales order entries, to replicating data between systems, and even automatically generating and sending invoices/renewal reminders.
To Do
Explore Where Bots are Commonly Applied in Human Resources
One area that many organizations find valuable automation opportunities is in Human Resources. Processes like on-boarding, off-boarding, contractor engagements, and recruiting efforts are typically very repetitive, and typically represent a pretty high-volume of work, especially in larger organizations. Take a look at this case study from Dell on how they achieve a productivity boost of up to 85% by leveraging RPA in their HR department.
Bots also Find Useful Application in Finance
Another area that organizations find RPA bots to be useful is in Finance. Watch Brad Shafton, of medical device manufacturer Hologic, discuss how RPA bots provided breathing room for the organizations finance department to evaluate the tasks that are most critical for them to focus on vs the work they can delegate to a bot.
Understand ‘What Can Bots Actually Do?’
Knowing what bots can do also boils down to knowing what the RPA Automation Anywhere platform is even capable of. As you watch Micah Smith break down “What Can Bots Actually Do?” think about the types of processes within your department or organization that may be a good fit for the triggering, data acquisition, data use, and delivery capabilities of a bot.
Summary
Understanding the processes that other organizations have found as good opportunities for automation is a great way to start exploring what bots are actually capable of. Learning about some of the capabilities of RPA bots on Automation Anywhere is also a great way to start creatively approaching and uncovering automation opportunities within your organization. As you reflect on the case studies and discussion above, what tasks are keeping your group from moving as quickly as you might like? How would the automation of some of your daily tasks free you up to better engage with your customers and more thoughtfully approach how you can bring value to your organization?
Resources
Videos
The Digital Transformation Journey at Qualcomm
RPA for Healthcare
Extracting Data from Forms with IQ Bot
Blog Posts
How Healthcare is Embracing Digital Transformation
Top 5 Automation Use Cases for the Front Office