The technology of the new era is designed to reduce costs, increase productivity and provide clearer management of the processes and practices carried out by the company. It is proven that a robot works faster offering better results.
Because everything needs to be auditable and measurable, human intervention has lagged behind, being overtaken by RPA (Robotic Process Automation), a game-changer capable of saving time and money by performing tasks. repetitive manuals much more efficiently.
What is RPA and what is it for?
Robotic process automation is the mechanism that enables us to program software, making it possible for a machine to imitate and complete many human tasks in digital systems in order to operate any business procedure.
In the same way that a human would, these “robots” manage the user interface of a computer system to compile data and manipulate applications, they also perform interpretations, execute responses, and are capable of interacting with other systems in order to perform a great variety of repetitive tasks.
The use of software robots such as these represent savings and increased efficiency for any company since the machines do not require rest, they do not make mistakes, they are not distracting and they are less expensive than a human employee.
Integrating RPA represents an important difference if we take into account traditional IT integration mechanisms, which have always been based on Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), a form of interaction between machines supported by data layers that operate in an underlying architectural layer of the UI. Instead of being “trained” through instructional development based on multiple codes, APIs are configured or programmed through demonstration steps.
RPA instead can be “trained” more effectively, demonstrating that software robots are virtual workers who can quickly learn from a business user. However, there are some other substantial differences that we will examine below:
RPA Vs traditional automation
- Implementation: RPA is focused on a simple, learn-and-repeat form of automation that has a faster response time than traditional automation. The best part is that RPA does not require complicated programming or test execution.
- Target customer: RPA is perfect for technology-oriented SMEs, where they can train robots on how to handle traditional automation projects when they need developers as well as a significant input in information technology.
- Personalization: Unlike traditional automation, RPA can be customized according to the needs of each user and can be applied to both personal and business applications. A good example of personalization would be a bot that extracts information, responds to emails, and even responds to chats on social networks associated with the company.
Main benefits of RPA
- Economical workforce: In the past, automating did not reduce jobs, however, this scenario may change with the latest report from RPA providers where they estimate savings of 30% to 60% for companies. This translates to savings in hiring, retention and settlement costs.
- Optimized resources: with RPA, slow dynamics are left behind and subject to possible errors, such as employees who manually enter forms in different systems or manually copy data between systems, delaying the efficiency of the service provided by a company. Software robots can be trained in a short time to provide the highest performance.
- Total focus: allows employees to focus on enriching activities for their position and for the company, resulting in a significant improvement in the service it offers, as well as stimulating their ability to innovate and solve problems in other areas.
- Optimizes regulatory compliance and data analysis: Any process carried out by the RPA promises to be highly thorough so it can be audited without a hitch. Virtually all manual errors are eliminated resulting in higher quality data allowing for more reliable analysis. Perhaps the most plausible feature is that software robots interact with legacy or older systems, finding data that was previously difficult to extract.
Some cons of using RPA
Since most companies do not have defined and organized processes, it can be cumbersome to switch to RPA. Many companies choose to automate this to compensate, but they automate the wrong areas or get confused by reverse-engineering the intent.
RPAs are great at carrying out predictable, repetitive, and rule-based processes, they are not good when faced with variability. Some weaknesses in RPA arise when compared to decision-making typical of human thought.
When the human works in a repetitive but variable work, they usually apply a level of lucidity at work that can generate calls for attention, questioning, questions to others and necessary doubts when something in the dynamics they carry out seems abnormal or out of place. However, although this characteristic can be modeled in RPA, it is truly difficult to achieve, so the variability is not as positive for this type of robot.
Also, RPA does not react well to changes, not even small changes. If a dependent system changes, the processes manipulated by RPA may not be assimilated with the ease that the human being assimilates the changes and improvises without realizing it.
Summary
RPA has a great ability to eliminate repetitive manual processes that consume too much time, increasing productivity in other areas, such as in the daily work of an accountant. Robotic process automation improves the efficiency with which accurate data is delivered, as well as providing real-time access to financial data and various types of reporting and analysis.
Automating using RPA helps to better manage the work carried out by the work team, guaranteeing greater freedom to cover other areas that require the workforce or the human spirit.