The ongoing shift toward automation and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies is rapidly reshaping the modern workforce. There’s a popular misconception that AI is merely a tech shift when, in reality, it’s largely a talent shift now required for most businesses to leverage growth and innovation.
Although initial trepidation may accompany a change toward AI, the good news is that any team can adapt. Success in an AI-fueled business landscape is all about implementing the right reskilling and upskilling.
One major element of the automation evolution is robotic process automation (RPA). RPA provides exciting opportunities for all kinds of organizations, allowing their workers to focus less on repetitive tasks and more on engaging valuable aspects of their work. However, RPA remains purely theoretical for many business leaders, who need a more practical sense of where current technology stands.
This article presents an overview of RPA and its most important implications for businesses today.
What is robotic process automation?
Robotic process automation is an adaptation of technology based on the unique input of a given business toward facilitating daily operations and cutting expenses. Nearly all businesses run on rule-based processes that can be translated to RPA. With RPA, repetitive or mundane tasks that may have once taken up the time of business owners or users can be accomplished via configured software, known more colloquially as a “robot.”
RPA tools essentially apprehend and interpret data that can then be utilized or applied in a new way. This could mean that your RPA is set to send out weekly product catalogs to all of your existing customers or that you no longer have to manually enter every word of a routine/repetitive task into your team’s shared communications platform.
RPA represents something of a middle ground between machine learning and fully intelligent automation. Ultimately, RPA manipulates data and instigates responses within digital systems that can save businesses massive amounts of time and labor.
6 things to know about robotic process automation
If you’re a business leader considering RPA, there are key things that can inform its use within your team. One of the major boons that RPA offers is reducing redundant tasks befalling team members, resulting in boosted morale. Everyone likes their workload to be lighter, but RPA goes a step further by taking away the need for human activity in tedious or mistake-friendly tasks like copying and pasting data or completing forms.
An offshoot bonus of these types of tasks being handled by RPA is that compliance with regulations is a foregone conclusion. RPA “bots” can work across multiple user interfaces and utilize machine learning to learn patterns over time. They’re not subject to human errors that can arise from repetition.
Below, you’ll find six more key features of RPA that may be helpful to your team’s processes.
1. Applications of RPA are already quite common
Have you recently called into one of your utility companies and been routed to an automated call center? Do you auto-log into the same computer-based program multiple times during your workday? Even if your smartphone no longer asks you for your PayPal password, you are using RPA already. RPA features are infiltrating every corner of human commerce and communication and have been doing so for years.
The upsurge in RPA’s popularity amid the rise of the distributed workforce is centered on RPA’s natural applicability to remote work. Through a combination of natural language processing and machine learning, RPA can simplify everything from the forms awaiting your new clients when they register on your business’s website to the way that your company aggregates the data driving its revenue.
2. RPA can liberate your team from monotonous tasks
RPA alleviates the need for your busy team members to tire or frustrate themselves with tasks like data entry, terminology research, form filling, and other mundane, manual tasks that eat up a great deal of energy.
Freed of these kinds of daily chores, team members enjoy increased productivity and less stress, which adds to greater worker satisfaction overall. Any improvement here is reflected in other, revenue-generating aspects of the business, with better moods leading to bigger contributions from each team member.
3. RPA can create upskilling opportunities
Everything from the rapid adoption of e-commerce to the continual evolution of cloud technology has required a rethink on what team members can be expected to learn and how quickly. Optimizing your hybrid teams in 2020 requires a vigilant eye toward available upskilling. Instituting an RPA strategy within your team does more than digitally relegate everyday tasks; it also allows the members of your workforce the chance to boost their skills on the job.
Maybe you already have a world-class remote creative team that leverages its communal knowledge of the field and your company’s processes to achieve the best results. RPA allows that same creative team to learn new ways of accomplishing old, familiar tasks, pushing their creative abilities into corners of your business they would never have considered before. If your graphic designer also learned how to utilize a new Citrix program through simple interaction with your team’s RPA, that can only benefit everyone on your team.
4. RPA can yield greater consistency
For nearly all types of businesses, consistency translates to profit. What’s more frustrating than realizing you have been mindlessly completing the same task for an hour, and 10% of your efforts don’t match the other 90%?
With RPA, concerns about consistency go out the window. Your RPA bot, when programmed to your needs, can complete the same task all day without making a single error. The ramifications of RPA’s accuracy for commonplace processes, such as inventory, onboarding, invoicing, recruitment, accounting, and report generation, are enormous.
5. Scaling RPA requires the right team
As your project bounty grows, so should your RPA. It can be tough to know how to scale RPA-centered tasks when a business is in rapid flux, pivoting to meet new market demand, or suddenly needing 10 new team members.
Smart scaling often requires the input of an automated testing strategy. Hiring a remote test automation team from an independent global talent pool like that on Upwork allows you to enjoy peace of mind about the way your company’s RPA is iterating.
6. RPA requires continuous adjustments and updates
Like every component of the ongoing digital revolution, RPA is a living science that changes swiftly. No matter how perfect your settings or how adroit your system is, maintenance and adjustments will be a continual part of your team’s relationship with RPA.
Changes may be necessary as your team looks at the further onboarding of remote workers, scales in size, or makes necessary pivots in project development strategies. Treating your RPA system like its initial iteration is evergreen will cause you headaches from the start.
Approach every aspect of what you feed into your RPA as though it’s temporary (because it is) and you’ll get a great deal more out of helping the RPA develop.
Explore the potential of RPA with independent expertise
Actively implementing RPA into your team’s daily operations is a bit like designing your own virtual assistant. Since you and your team have the opportunity to decide what programs and user interfaces your RPA will address, you can truly create a digital helpmate that maximizes your desired results.
