FUTURE

RPA, otherwise known as Robotic Process Automation is the latest technology that can automate business processes that are repetitive, structured and rules-based. RPA is quickly evolving and is solution to the many man hours and overheads that industries are encountering. Financial firms were the first to implement RPA, but there are now companies in many businesses, including healthcare, retail, and manufacturing and more who use RPA technology.

The future stage of RPA technology will combine artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. You can imagine RPA being the arms and legs of a bot and artificial intelligence being the brains. Apart from completing a programmed act, RPA, with the help of AI, would be able to decide what action to take based on the data.

There are many challenges involved in the implementation of RPA. Let’s review some challenges that your industry will likely face if you and your company choose to implement RPA.

Executing successful RPA can be challenging to even get going because it requires approval from the top management. It should run through a channel of all of your company’s major departments, for feasibility and hence the approvals. Work processes that will be affected by the RPA should all be consulted as well, and all departments should be well-thought-out in the RPA implementation process.

This can be one of the most demanding issue when implementing RPA into your company. If you don’t have a suitable, well-versed, and supportive team that’s centrally situated, implementing your RPA correctly can be much tougher. Possessing a well-staffed and knowledgeable, local team on your side to support you with your RPA issues is one of the ways to accelerate your implementation process.

This is one the most common issues when dealing with RPA because it is commonly the last stage i.e the implementation phase when higher management come to realize that they’ve picked the wrong RPA for their business. Whether the RPA is too intricate, doesn’t fit the custom job that’s it is needed for, or is simply too costly, this is typically the point where companies realize the RPA they’ve chosen might not be the right fit for the task.

Infrastructure is one of the biggest issues when it comes to implementing RPA. Not only will it be difficult at first to get everyone on board, it will also be problematical if your company doesn’t have an interconnected system that keeps cloud or on-premise infrastructure updated in real time. It is imperative for RPA’s success that your organization has a centralized infrastructure team that is helping to accelerate the implementation process.

 

It’s relatively common to see some reaction from employees when implementing RPA. Most the times, employees will see how RPA can make them feel threatened as to what automation will do to some of their efforts and likely fear for their personal tasks or positions altogether being redundant. Leadership has to play an important role here by making employees to understand how RPA can benefit them, provide opportunities for entrepreneurship and make their lives easier overall.