An intra-organization view of the RPA use cases

At the beginning of this year, Gartner identified the top ten strategic technology trends and placed Hyperautomation on the top. Although all the predictions and projections of the year have been refuted by the unfortunate turn of events, automation has proven to be the primary means for enterprises to keep their operations running. 

As a result, in parallel to the accelerated digital transformation initiatives, a rise in the adoption of automation technologies such as Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has been observed as well. 

Vijay Khanna, Chief Corporate Development Officer at UiPath, highlighted the role of automation in digital transformation by saying –  

“Companies today need to ensure they have the right structure and right processes in place to withstand whatever comes their way. With that, they are increasingly turning to automation to accelerate their digital transformation efforts and ensure they can operate as productively and flexibly as possible moving forward.” 

Companies are embracing RPA to improve their process quality, speed of execution, and employee productivity by employing the technology into processes related to Alerting, Reporting, Calculation, Migration, and Validation. 

Since the pandemic began, RPA-driven M&A’s have increased too. In fact, RPA spend is expected to reach $25 billion in the next five years. 

The technology research and advisory firm – Information Services Group (ISG) – recently acquired the RPA enablement firm, Neuralify.  

IBM is acquiring WDG automation, a Brazil-based RPA software provider.  

There have been talks about Google and Amazon also entering the RPA play field. 

“The value that RPA/automation can unlock for enterprises on the other side of Covid-19 is gargantuan,” says Sidhant Rastogi, managing partner at Zinnov. “This pandemic has forced enterprises to leapfrog their automation journeys as they think beyond the present and future-proof their technology estates. This unprecedented growth in this segment has led service providers to invest in industry-specific RPA capabilities and platform partnerships to partake in enterprise automation-led transformative journeys.” 

Let us understand how RPA technology can be leveraged within an enterprise across different functions to yield the maximum benefits: 

1.Finance: 

Financial operations are rendered with rote and iterative processes, which may lead to manual fatigue and therefore, inaccuracy and inefficiency in the results.  

RPA in finance alleviates these issues by automating repetitive processes including Account Reconciliation, preparation of cash flow statement, Dunning letter creation and transmission, Journal entry posting, Tax provision data consolidation, among many others. 

For example, To perform Sales & User Tax determinations, RPA software can download data from the ERP systems, prepare review workbook including identification of erroneous tax codes, download invoices, populate exemption certificates, and prepare vendor emails. 

2. Human Resources: 

Since the global workforce has shifted to working from their homes, a major transition has occurred in the HR processes. The onboarding, new employee orientation, and other high-volume HR activities related to payroll now have to take place remotely. As a result, there is a higher chance for errors.  

RPA in Human Resources takes care of onboarding new employees by automatically providing login credentials and access to relevant resources, expense reports by validating & flagging any exceptions, assignment management tracking by speedily migrating the data for transferred employees, and payroll adjustment & validation by reviewing the changes from previous statements and flagging any issues.

      3. Customer Service: 

Customers are now being placed at the core of every enterprise’s growth strategy. Therefore, customer services become a major priority for them. Several reports have indicated that most of the customers prefer a live chat or bot as the primary means of communicating with an organization. 

By leveraging RPA in customer services, organizations can automate processes such as customer order entry, collector call prep, call center customer ID verification, new product introduction data feedback, invoice matching, servicing alerts, clearing adjustments processing, and more. 

4. Supply Chain: 

Efficient supply chain management forms the backbone of a well-functioning enterprise. For the supply chain and logistics business units within an organization, RPA can help improve operational efficiencies by shrinking any room for errors. 

The use cases for RPA in supply chain include regulatory monitoring, contract management data cleaning, customs classifications process, supplier performance reporting, country of origin reporting, and supporting suppliers’ requests for documentation. 

How can we help 

Undoubtedly, Robotic Process Automation brings numerous benefits to an enterprise. However, to ensure that they leverage capabilities of RPA to the complete extent, it is essential that an organization undertakes a strategic approach for each stage of adoption – RPA assessment, RPA implementation & maintenance, and RPA testing & validation. 

With a 360-degree assessment framework & methodologies, strong partnerships with leading RPA providers, and in-house technical & domain SMEs, Cigniti ensures enhanced accuracy, scalability, & optimization in RPA BOT operations, improved automation coverage, higher ROI, and efficient BOT design & execution technique implementation. 

We are experts in establishing enterprise RPA strategy and leverage our in-house technical utilities to improve BOTs operational accuracy with assured ROI. Our RPA Center of Excellence utilizes AI/ML techniques for efficient BOT design, while following proven methodologies to deliver a smooth RPA implementation experience to our clients. 

Schedule a discussion to speak to of our RPA testing experts & understand how we can assist you in automating the end-to-end business processes at your organization.