Ever noticed how the process of booking an Uber works? Seeing their business model, it looks like they have an army of professionals working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year.
In short, it feels like they have a dedicated team of professionals. Right? Of course, they have a dedicated team but it’s a small team. It doesn’t have a huge number of professionals as it looks. As a site mentions, Uber has 22000 employees and it will touch the 539 billion user mark by 2021.
Unbelievable! Isn’t it?
How a company with such employee strength can serve this massive user base? Well, Uber isn’t the only one. If you look at the most successful businesses worldwide, they all are able to scale their business with the least number of employees, easily. And you can do it too.
But, how is it possible? Well, it is feasible and essential. If you automate some operations in your business, you can also achieve that success with the help of Robotic Process Automation (RPA). If you’re eager to know more about it, then keep reading this article. In this article, we will tell you how RPA can help you scale, its usage, and its benefits.
So, let’s jump right in.
Robotic process automation refers to the use of software tools to automate repetitive human activities. The RPA can be used to automate an operation fully or partially. This process replicates human action to perform tasks like data entry, transactions, or responding to customer querie
However, robotic process automation doesn’t replace the fundamental business application, instead they simplify the operations which require humans and frees them to engage with more complex work. For instance, chatbots are the perfect example of a Robotic Automation Process. These automated bots can help visitors to navigate the most suitable page on the website. From generating and verifying OTP, changing a password, solving customer queries, and what not, RPA is the one-stop solution for many problems.
Customer Service:
Customers, now, are used to getting quick responses to their troubles. And this poses a serious threat for the business owner to deliver quick and effective results, hence most of them employ robotic process automation. The automated system segregates queries into different categories so it can be addressed by the specific department. The best part of sorting different queries is it ensures a quick solution to the problem. Inexperienced service providers, habitually, have to transfer customer’s queries from one department to another if they don’t separate queries in the initial stages.
Invoice Processing:
Processing invoices manually can be a tedious task for a bigger organization. And there are chances of delayed payments. However, if an enterprise takes advantage of the robotic process automation, it can avert delayed or incorrect payments. By using an optical character reader (OCR), the paper-based format can be automated. From sending the invoices to the single financial database system to making the payments, all can be done without human intervention.
Sales Orders:
For a bigger enterprise, keeping the data consistent at various levels is not an easy job. Despite dedicating so much time in data keeping, there are possibilities of generating duplicate data with human involvement. On the other hand, it impacts the customer experience, organizational goals, and more importantly sales. If the enterprise automates its sales activities, the RPA can help it manage sales orders, invoices, and inventories.
Payroll:
HRs dedicate so much of their time in processing payroll every month. Since it includes lots of data manipulation, the chance of getting accurate results each time is a bit challenging. Besides this, it can lead to late salary processing and dissatisfaction among employees. RPA, however, has the solution for this as it can verify timesheets and deductions. Besides this, it can automate paychecks creations and reimbursement. And above all, it can deflect the peril of delays and inaccuracies involved in payroll-related matters.
Storing Customer Information:
Storing customer’s personal information such as contact details, purchase history, preferences, birthdays or anniversaries requires lots of human labor, and after some time it can create stress. However, this can also be automated through RPA, and once the information gets stored, the customer care executive can provide better solutions based on the information.
Processing HR Information:
An organization generates lots of employee data, and organizing this data is a challenging task. The RPA system can mitigate the workload of the HR department by automating the process. All the information like employee history, payroll, and reimbursement all this can be done with the help of RPA. While taking advantage of RPA, the HR department can focus on other segments.
Refunds Processing:
Many times a customer may ask for refunds in case of a bad experience. If a business enterprise takes too long to refund, it can put the enterprise’s credibility at risk, and every business owner would hate it. However, this isn’t strange that sorting customers’ queries and processing refunds manually also takes time. So, to avoid maligning the image of the organization and the customer experience, every business should use RPA.
Recruitment:
Robotic Process Automation can also help you in picking up the right candidates for your organization. The automated system can collect resumes from various sources, and after sorting them it can reject spam or undesirable applications. Besides this, it can reduce the considerable stress of the recruiters.
Data Extraction:
An organization receives lots of data in the form of digital or in handwritten text. The handwritten text pose challenge for the data entry professionals to read it and enter it into the system. However, with the help of optical character recognition, a lot of time and effort of the professionals can be utilized in other activities.
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Boosts Productivity:
By implementing the RPA process, the bots are made to perform a specific task. This means that they are better in performance compared to humans. For instance, if a human completes work in four hours, the same work can be completed by a bot in just 20 minutes or even less. The bots calculate quickly and ensure faster results. So if a business chooses process automation, it can boost productivity.
Boosts Efficiency:
A bot never tires. This means it can work 24/7 without taking a break. Also, a bot never falls sick or requires a vacation. While as compared to bots, human needs break and require leave in case of illness. Bots are more efficient than humans because they can finish more work in less time.
Improves Accuracy:
In some cases, bots act better than humans and hence reduce the risk of errors. Before employing a bot to the task, it is tested several times, and once it promises error-free results only then it is deployed. So, a business can rely on bots for accurate results.
Boosts Scalability:
Imagine an employee can work only for the selected hours while a bot can work 24 hours. To give services to your customer you need at least 3 employees while a bot can work equivalent to the 3 employees that too without taking the break. By utilizing the full potential of the RPA powered bot, the organization can scale its business easily.
Increase Security:
Among the many benefits of RPA is its security. A human may lead to leakage of the data accidentally, but a bot ensures security even at the minute levels. The unmatchable security instills confidence in the business owners that they can rely on these bots.
Improve Analytics:
Robotic process automation process allows an organization to gather data efficiently. Based on this data, the company can strengthen its processes. Besides this, an ample amount of data helps organizations for better decision making at micro or macro levels.
Enhance Customer Experience:
Companies deal with a challenge to meet the varied demands of the customers. By implementing the RPA, they can hand over the repetitive task to the bots and provide seamless customer care experience. On the other hand, highly skilled employees can understand the serious needs of the customers in a much better way.
As we have discussed earlier, RPA is nothing but automating repetitive tasks through bots. These bots are not physical bots as you see in movies but they are some tools. These tools help the professionals to automate the tasks. However, based on the need, you may also need specialized vendors who deal with automation.
If you’re a beginner then you can follow the process mentioned below:
Analysis:
This is the beginning stage of the RPA life cycle. A team, generally, a business analyst and RPA professionals work together to make an automation strategy for a particular business. The whole agenda of this collaboration depends on the automation of the maximum manual work. Once the RPA professional understands the business operations, both business analysts and RPA professionals develop a strategy. Once both parties agree on the strategy, the RPA professional introduces a timeline to implement the plan to work. Before starting the work, both parties complete the paperwork and other formalities.
Bot Building:
Based on the requirement of business, the development team proceeds toward automating the task. While building the bot, the development team also identifies whether there is a need for coding or not. In most cases, there is no need for coding but in some cases, additional code may be required.
Testing:
This is the crucial stage of the RPA. Based on the business goals, the bot is tested by the development team or separate testing team. Before the deployment, the testing team ensures the full functionality of the bot and tests it with the same devotion as they follow with other software.
Deployment and Maintenance:
Once the development team releases the bot for deployment, the team encounters the real challenges. Every time they find a bug or error in the outcome, the bot has to undergo bug fixing and testing. The development team re-deploy it and handles the maintenance and upgrading of the bot as the need arises.
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It is clear from the above discussion that the businesses need to automate their operations, partially if not fully. There was a time when businesses used to outsource their tedious tasks but today that isn’t the wise thing anymore. Onboarding a significant amount of workforce or outsourcing a third-party agency only increases the cost of operations. And the main drawback is neither it guarantees security nor accuracy. Every time you hire a new team, you need to train it which is also not a practical and wise thing to do in the RPA era.
RPA ensures everything that a business may lack. Be it speed, accuracy, cost-effectiveness, and scalability, it never disappoints. However, it is also important to know that it can’t replace human intellectual at all, but it can assist them in many ways.
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