Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
Introduction:
In today’s world increase in population has caused increase in demand of almost everything. To keep up with the increase in demand industries and organisations push their employees to do more and more work. Due to increase in competitors in every field organisations are trying to find way to increase their rate of work along with efficiency and quality. This has caused various organisationss to turn toward automation. Automation can do daily repetitive task without getting tired with almost hundred percent efficiency every single time and faster than human work force can. While looking towards automation one of the biggest players in the field of business process automation is RPA.
Robotic process automation (RPA) is the use of software with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning and capability to handle high-volume, repeatable task that previously required humans to perform. These tasks can include queries, calculations and maintenance of record and transactions. RPA technology sometimes called a software robot or bot, mimics a human worker, logging into applications, entering data, calculating, and completing task and logging out. RPA software is not part of an organisation’s IT infrastructure. Instead, its site on top of it, enabling a company to implement the technology quickly and efficiently all without changing the existing infrastructure and systems.
Benefits of RPA:
- No need of a Software Developer: RPA does not necessarily require a developer to configure; drag-and-drop features in user interfaces make it easier to onboard non-technical staff.
- Increased productivity: Since RPA reduces the workload of teams, staff can be reallocated towards other priority work that does require human input, leading to increases in productivity and ROI.
- Higher customer satisfaction: Since bots and chatbots can work ‘Round the Clock’, they can reduce wait times for customers, leading to higher rates of customer satisfaction.
- Gives time to employees to focus more on Strategic and Decision Making activities: By lifting repetitive, high-volume workload off your team, RPA allows people to focus on more thoughtful and strategic decision-making. This shift in work has a positive effect on employee happiness.
- Increases Accuracy: Since you can program RPA robots to follow specific workflows and rules, you can reduce human error, particularly around work which requires accuracy and compliance, like regulatory standards. RPA can also provide an audit trail, making it easy to monitor progress and resolve issues more quickly.
- No need to replace the Existing systems: Robotic process automation software does not cause any disruption to underlying systems because bots work on the presentation layer of existing applications. So, you can implement bots in situations where you don’t have an application programming interface (API) or the resources to develop deep integrations.
Business Benefits of RPA:
Robotic process automation streamlines workflows, which makes organizations more profitable, flexible, and responsive. It also increases employee satisfaction, engagement, and productivity by removing mundane tasks from their workdays. RPA is non-invasive and can be rapidly implemented to accelerate digital transformation. And it is ideal for automating workflows that involve legacy systems that lack APIs, virtual desktop infrastructures (VDIs), or database access.
Where RPA can be used:
Industries ranging from financial services to healthcare to manufacturing to the public sector to retail and far beyond have implemented RPA in areas as diverse as finance, compliance, legal, customer service, operations, and IT. And that is just for starters.
RPA has become so widespread because it is broadly applicable. Virtually any high-volume, business-rules-driven, repeatable process is a great candidate for automation—and increasingly so are cognitive processes that require higher-order AI skills.
Use of RPA in Audit:
By deploying RPA, businesses can automate time-consuming, manual tasks of copying and pasting data between applications, cross-referencing data, and reconciling. With an automation implementation, auditors would have more time to prioritize value-added efforts and high-priority audits, and the organization will have increased compliance and reduced risk across the board. The impact of RPA for audit and control boosts productivity, saving an outstanding amount of time by streamlining report corrections and improving data accuracy.
Conclusion: If an organisation wants to be successful now and in future it should definitely consider RPA as an option. If we look RPA from a different point of view, RPA has the ability to imitate and do lots of work that humans can do. By using RPA, companies can minimize errors and save time on mundane and repetitive tasks, allowing them to focus their energy on more strategic activities. RPA frees your day from monotony by automating repetitive processes. The documentation needed to automate the process is very specific. Most automated processes are manual, repetitive and monotonic, such as removing data from reports and entering it into electronic tables. RPA can automate all these types of tasks and free you from tedious activities from your working day.