RPA has recently gained popularity among organizations from different sectors for its ability to automate operations, provide cost savings and positive ROI, and boost the digital transformation of companies, even in times of crisis.
Advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning have reinforced the significant increase in the growth and application of RPA in organizations. The main driver of RPA projects, according to vice president of research at Gartner, is their ability to improve the quality, speed, and productivity of operational processes.
The growing movement of this technology is confirmed by data from Statista, which found that executives believe that RPA can bring numerous benefits to organizations, saving time on repetitive tasks and increasing the quality of work.
But how is this technology generating value for companies with a growing market? This post will address why CIOs are targeting RPA, what projects that use this technology look like, and the main challenges encountered when applying robotic process automation in organizations.
Why Are CIOs Targeting RPA?
To boost their business in an increasingly competitive market, CIOs are turning to robotic process automation to streamline repetitive tasks, freeing professionals to focus on higher-value activities.
Organizations have used RPA mainly to streamline corporate operations and reduce costs. In addition to reflecting on the best customer experience.
After all, using this technology, the company automates processes through robots and employs the human workforce for tasks that demand more cognitive skills.
In addition, RPA, combined with pre-trained artificial intelligence, is being extensively explored by IT leaders to analyze future results based on a history of situations already experienced.
What Are RPA Projects Like?
An RPA project works by extracting information from your IT systems to perform a predefined task. Bots do not need supervision to run; typically, someone sets a workflow that will be followed until it is reconfigured. The most common use cases include applying business rules and generating reports.
In addition to being very useful for organizations for their main benefits, bots are also easy to configure. Business users must be able to point and click on the apps they usually use. At the same time, a recorder notes the actions, and citizen-developers must be able to use a low-code environment to define bots and business rules.
However, for effective robotic process automation, CIOs must think about automating the entire development lifecycle, and this requires intelligent automation that must be part of a company’s long-term planning.
Before submitting the company to an RPA implementation, it is advisable to do a Proof of Concept (POC) so that expectations are aligned, and the risks of changing your mind after adopting the solution are mitigated.
Low Code And RPA
Using low-code platforms for RPA projects can be an excellent option to save time and cost, especially if you want to write less code. This process can be much faster and more efficient than traditional development methods.
Also, when the organization has a significant legacy and outdated system that is part of the process that needs to be updated, RPA will not solve the problem right away.
For these cases, an alternative is to rebuild the old system using low-code and then use modern APIs to integrate it into the process.
Challenges In RPA Projects
As with any automation technology, RPA has the potential to eliminate jobs, increase security risks, and create uncertainty about scalability, which poses challenges for CIOs in managing the business.
However, the list of tasks that can be automated is getting bigger and bigger, and these challenges need to be overcome for the company to advance in its operations and remain competitive in the market.
To help CIOs with this mission, we’ve listed the top challenges IT leaders face in adopting RPA and how to overcome the difficulties of deploying this technology across the organization.
Safety Must Be A Priority
With the implementation of an RPA solution, the company must prepare its infrastructure for the increase in potential threats. Also, your cybersecurity system must be beefed up.
In addition, it is essential to establish the governance of a robotic environment to produce all the benefits of adopting RPA, which becomes much more sensitive to certain situations.
RPA Will Remain Difficult To Scale
As RPA solutions implemented in the enterprise have to deal with new automation, you will have scalability problems. To mitigate this scaling difficulty, a cloud implementation can help, especially if the orchestration component can provision additional bots as needed.
People Must Be Prepared
RPA is designed to reduce the amount of time and effort required by people to perform time-consuming and repetitive operations. However, people need to be developed and trained to work with robotic process automation. After all, there will be human intelligence to coordinate workflows.
RPA: A Revolution In Process Automation
As we have seen, RPA uses automation in favor of the organization, reducing errors and increasing the efficiency of its projects. However, for effective robotic process automation, the CIO must analyze some points and review the processes, clearly understanding if this technology meets the demands of your business.
Also Read: How Does Robotic Process Automation Work In Practice?