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Robotic Process Automation (RPA), sometimes referred to as Intelligent Automation, is the automation of repetitive, mundane, time consuming tasks currently performed by your employees.
As with so many aspects of modern life, the evolution of technology has enabled robust robots to tirelessly take over ‘mindless’ business tasks—even working around the clock—with no lunch breaks, paid vacations, or even the need to sleep. RPA robots simply represent an organic progression of this trend. We’ve always relied on technology to execute arduous tasks, beginning, of course, with the calculator. Today’s robots are infinitely more sophisticated, able to perform explicitly defined, rules-based workflows (e.g., invoicing, onboarding, back-office processing, etc.) across applications and systems. And they do so with flawless precision and tireless repetition: 24/7/365.
Just because your employees are able to perform all these tasks, doesn’t mean they want to.
In fact, the more processes you’re able to automate, the happier your employees become. Because RPA robots turn employees into super-employees. They allow your employees to be more human by giving them back time to focus on more fulfilling, nuanced—in short, more human—endeavors. Let your employees find more joy in their work by leaving the calculations to the calculators.
COVID-19 has plagued the planet with so much uncertainty, both in terms of the economy as a whole and in terms of the literal conditions of your staff and workplace. Employees who become sick may have no choice but to leave their job—practically at a moment’s notice. Whole teams may even become infected, leaving an organization high and dry overnight. RPA robots restore some level of predictability, and provide the ability to scale services up and down without impacting internal resources.
Today’s RPA robots integrate with all manner of platforms, devices, APIs, websites, applications—literally anything. Automate the integrations of systems, the nightly processing of documents, let an RPA robot process the mundane prep work in the early AM hours to give employees a jumpstart on more compelling tasks.
According to a businesswire study, “despite recognizing the importance of innovation and business transformation, IT and finance leaders face major roadblocks,” the biggest innovation roadblock being: “‘spending too much keeping the lights on’ (77%).” Spend less time and effort trying to “Run the Business” and spend more time “Building the Business.” Minimize the time spent on routine, repeatable tasks that “keep the lights on” and maximize “deep work” that creates real business growth.
Unlike humans, who need breaks to eat, sleep, and take breaks, RPA robots happily work 24/7/365, and with flawless precision. RPA is your fast-track to ROI. The costs of RPA are mostly “front-heavy”, thus, they are entirely predictable. And once built and executing, all that remains is profit. So many additional costs are eliminated, including the inestimable cost of inaccuracies and human error.
RPA lets you reclaim outsourced tasks from near/off-shore 3rd parties (e.g., Business Process Outsourcing organizations (BPOs)) and safely run them in your own data center. Plus, with COVID-19 forcing so many workforces to operate remotely, unanticipated security vulnerabilities are inevitable. RPA robots eliminate these concerns by letting sensitive processes continue to take place on-premises.
the increased productivity and employee satisfaction, the enablement of a more strategic workforce, and the total elimination of risk; lightning-fast processing also means vastly improved customer satisfaction, to boot. Easily pull data from any system to quickly construct 360° customer views, build more engaging chatbots, empower sales teams to close quicker, and arm customer-service agents with the data to soar through interactions. Let RPA robots perform the routine tasks of data sorting and retrieval to let your employees be more responsive to the needs of customers, partners, and each other.
The savings are huge, and ongoing. Let’s do the math: RPA robots can execute about five times faster than a human, with costs as low as $5 per hour. Design and development incur a simple, ‘one-time’ cost; your ROI grows over time as the RPA robot continues to execute. And with 24x7x365 productivity, we generally measure hours-saved by the tens of thousands (per task). We typically design and build an RPA robot in just 2-4 weeks, and the average RPA robot begins adding value almost instantly. ROI is realized in weeks, not in months or years.
But not every process is suited for automation, and building an automation program can be fraught with missteps. So, as your RPA partner, Optezo provides end-to-end guidance and support. We deliver an automation-business plan, determine which processes will maximize your ROI, then we’ll handle the automation delivery, management, analytics, reporting, and much more.
While the ROI of Intelligent Automation is incredible, and only increases over time, the base upfront costs aren’t trivial and the business and cultural challenges of building a successful program can be quite high. If the best use cases aren’t identified and developed—or if the organization lacks business, technical and security expertise to deliver—the ROI on an automation program may not materialize, and the whole program can be jeopardized. That’s where Optezo comes in.
Several key factors help your organization maximize your ROI on an automation program. First and foremost (and not surprisingly), this includes selecting the right processes to automate. Picking the right processes from the get-go is the single most significant determinant of program success. In short, the formula is simple. The greater the bot utilization, the higher the ROI. An idle bot is an overpriced bot. Because you can’t overwork an RPA Bot—they’re agile workers, easy to scale. By setting our baseline focus on processes that consume at least 5,000 hours annually (1,000 hours for mid-market organizations) and that impact twenty or more individuals, we ensure your automation program achieves maximum ROI.
But because the automation of a single process may not be enough to cover the cost—and since nobody’s judgment can be perfect one hundred percent of the time—our methodology involves the selection of five to ten candidate-processes for automation. This way, you hedge your bets—and give yourself have a head-start on expanding your automation portfolio. In all likelihood, hundreds of processes at your organization are ripe for automation; the trick is to prioritize the Optezo process catalog based on factors that include sustainability, ease of implementation, and employee benefit. Don’t get us wrong. Automating any process will produce an ROI, if not financially then by giving your employees more time to be human, to innovate, and to think strategically about building the company, which may prove to be the most valuable benefit of all.
Optezo ensures maximum ROI for clients by leveraging the “Automation Scale Advantage”. See that graph? We steepen the dotted line (savings) by identifying your optimum processes for automation and generating your Enterprise Automation Roadmap to yield busy (i.e., high-utilization) RPA robots that scale quickly to accommodate demand. At the same time, we reduce costs (solid line) by bringing a team of implementation experts with deep experience delivering fast, scalable, automation results that minimize the key Dollars/Bot-Hour metric. In combination, these benefits send your RPA program through the roof, and accelerate your time to value (TTV) faster than any other program. What’s more, our Analytics Dashboards provide clear visibility into your gains, giving you a means to track your savings and a front row seat to see it all takeoff.
Additionally, by sticking with you through the entire RPA journey, Optezo saves you time and effort spent acquiring the necessary automation skills in-house (avoiding the need to add more human capital to keep the lights on). We eliminate the need to hire a team to manage and maintain your RPA robots, and reduce the burden on existing IT Teams of learning the new technology and supporting the Automation program. The Optezo support desk is “crazy-good” and super-responsive to your needs, ensuring minimized downtime and high automation productivity. For us, it’s a point of pride.
Let's build the right plan and begin saving money at your business. Talk to one of our Intelligent Automation experts and take your Automation journey to the next level!