Step 1: Identification

A crucial step related to automation is to ascertain which business processes would generate the most returns when automated. In general, there are three process types which are good nominees for automation –

1. Processes that involve data entry
2. Processes that involve data extraction
3. Processes related to regular and repetitive work with elementary decision making

The criteria given here can be used as a guiding rule for the identification of processes which can be automated –

Step 2: Setting Goals

A major challenge in the application of automation is the period of time that is taken for ROI and for overcoming the hindrances involved in automating.

A few common hurdles can be –

Ventures that deal with processes having high complexity.

Automating processes that have high exception rates.

Enterprises that require conforming to regulatory requirements.

Enterprises that deal with legacy data that is non-digitized / non-structured.

The cost of RPA tools and the expenditure related to implementation diminish with the growth in volume. A minimal volume, therefore, is required for efficiency to be seen and gains to return.

All such factors can contribute to increasing the development time, and reducing the rate of automation in an organization.

Targets, expectations and rightness of automation need to be driven by considering these factors. Centralized tools may be utilized for monitoring the performance and return being generated over time, for driving more decisions.

Step 3: Setting of Goals

A structure for governance, like a ship’s rudder, helps to ‘drive’ automation in the right direction, to get quantifiable benefits in a definite period of time.

The most significant elements are -

1. Outlining roles and responsibilities in activities associated with automation
2. Deciding on deadlines in gaining automation, step by step
3. Specifying common instructions and norms for the design / development / deploying of robots
4. Tracking of work and output
5. Involving departments like IT / Legal / Risk as well as others associated with the process
6. Getting subject matter experts involved on processes with nuances
7. Maintaining the security of data, and calibrating the environment of development and production
8. Having human ‘safety valves’ for checking pivotal processes routinely to ensure fault free delivery
9. Readying a Response Team to clear backlogs and reduce damages in case of robot failure
10. Getting HR involved with employee training to upskill the employees so that they can work alongside automation for bringing more productivity
11. Ensuring transparency /comprehensibility and communication between dependent departments

Step 4: Selecting Suitable Tools

It is expected that organizations assess tools with pre-built automation libraries having re-usable parts to join back-end systems, data-extraction capacity, and cost and licensing alternatives.

The top three leading players in the market are–

• UIPath
• Automation Anywhere
• Blue Prism

Every one of these tools has its own set of pros and cons. The appropriateness of any of these platforms, or platforms combined, depends upon the use case.

It is important to understand the plus and minus points of the numerous tools available to ‘employ the relevant tool for the relevant purpose’.

Step 5: Reengineering & Optimization Tools

Finding out situations of bottlenecks and reengineering processes to render them optimal and more appropriate for automation are essential aspects of automation implementation.

Incompetent processes with severe dependency on other processes, or processes that are not standardized, having high exception rates, would not produce the desired result. It is necessary to try to re-engineer such processes to make them greater suited for automation, or mark them as unsuitable for automation.

Step 6: IT and Business Collaboration

The application of automation fails many times due to the lack of collaboration between IT and Business functions.

Automation depends greatly on IT support in the structuring of data, as well as business processes. It depends equally upon the viewpoint of the business, the domain knowledge, subject matter proficiency, and the nuances of business processes which need maintenance for keeping it usable. Automation has to be a combined effort between IT and the business with an operating model defining the responsibilities and roles of each player.

Even though the function has to possess the operational requirements, process design initiatives, and performance monitoring, factors like risk management, reliability, technological compatibility, identity and access control, and compliance are to be delivered by the IT organization.