Important Steps to RPA Implementation
The rise of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) as a technological enabler has seen tremendous growth and has become a pre-requisite for improving business performance.
TRY STA SOLUTION >Gartner Inc. reports that RPA is one of the fastest growing segments in the global software market, and according to Grand View Research Inc. 2018 report, by 2027 it was expected to have a CAGR of 40.6% over the forecast period. However, due to the COVID-19 crisis, and the disruption in the SMB market, new data shows that the RPA market is now expected to grow at a CAGR of 55-60% over the next two years with the potential market size to reach over $6.5 trillion by 2024.
Businesses today are now assessing the benefits of implementing RPA and making it a standard practice to learn. However, to deploy RPA successfully, it is extremely important to have a time-tested and robust methodology. The objective of the approach should be to achieve a digital-enabled environment with a strategic vision of optimizing total cost to engineer the best outcome possible. Creation and strict commitment to the process becomes a requirement to deliver a successful implementation in a brief period.
Once a business is ready to explore and deploy RPA, it is especially important to move forward with a strategic well-planned approach. It is vital to align the approach to either IT or Agile methodology so that the learning curve and implementation phase is completed with little to no delays. It is critical that the methodology needs to serve all aspects of discovery, analysis, design, development, deployment, and support to get the full value of RPA.
There are 5 critical stages that must have all party's full commitment to have a solid, well-built process for end-to-end….
Discovery
The objectives at this stage are to capture and discover the customer journey (not just the process), create an inventory of all processes that are RPA candidates, and capture undocumented processes (end-to-end) and details for process improvement and scalability. Capturing the processes is the most critical activity prior to beginning the automation journey for any business. The more details we can capture, the better the end process can be shaped and of course, be more beneficial when it comes to ROI implications.
Design
Detailed due diligence is conducted for the identified processes in the design stage. We will complete the overall value stream mapping of the “As-Is” process flow to design the efficient “To-Be” workflow. By creating a detailed workflow, we will identify the exact steps that can be automated and perform gap analysis to identify any leakage in the process flows. These steps help us design an end-to-end automated process with a business case clearly articulating the ROI with detailed timelines.
Deployment
Before going live, our development team will make sure all testing is completed at 100%. Once the bot has passed the test, we will prepare to move the bot into your environment. Once the bot is live in your environment, we will then turn over all credentials, workflows, and steps to know help identify triggers for you and your staff. Based on total commitment, these processes take anywhere from 1 to 4 weeks to complete.
The Future is Here Today
RPA has been instrumental in revolutionizing existing processes to increase speed to market, eliminate waste, reduce errors and enhance customer experience. Even today, advancements in automation, like cognitive automation, help us in several ways. From investigating critical issues of dipping customer satisfaction ratings, reducing IT helpdesk tickets and issue resolutions, to HR initiatives of reducing attrition; traditional RPA automates rule-based, repetitive, high transactions-based processes, and thus, it is vital that the deployment approach an organization chooses is robust and efficient to ensure maximum benefits.
With the increased pressure to improve speed and efficiency, businesses are now trying to find the best solutions to achieve these goals. By working with RPA experts, businesses are now starting to see the value and immediate benefits, while others are delaying the inevitable.
RPA is growing at a rate faster than anyone expected. This is the time to get a clear understanding on how RPA can be implemented int your business. Schedule a time today and gain the knowledge you need for a successful RPA implementation.
Analyze
At this stage we analyze the processes for simplification and reengineering, select processes right for RPA deployment, and identify processes that will require more external RPA support and guidance. We then weed out the steps that do not add any value to the business processes and identify the steps that can be created or need to be re-engineered to build the perfect process. A high-level project plan is created and a path for RPA opportunities are identified at this stage.
Development
Our developers and architects will be working together to deliver an end-to-end solution based on the approved workflow. During the execution stage, businesses decide to utilize Agile, IT or a mix of both methodologies to stay engage as the process is being developed. We communicate in real-time to make sure all clients are up to date on where we are in the process and execute according to the agreed project plan. Our team will utilize a strong testing process with a parallel run methodology before bots go live to enable 100% quality check and then prepare for deployment.
Support
It is important to have a dedicated support team to follow deployment. Several businesses tend to miss this stage by providing a simplistic maintenance/support team to monitor the bots deployed in the previous stage. The right team at this stage include our support team for utilizing the actionable insights generated from the plethora of information/data collected from the first four stages. The information allows us to not only monitor and assess the actual utilization of bots in the automated processes but also enables us to identify the exception and fallout scenarios. A smarter organization would do well to invest in a strong support mechanism and structure to support the change management process and alignment with larger goals of automation strategy.