7 Common Misconceptions About RPA Applications

With the continuous increase in the demands of customers from businesses as civilization increases, there’s a need for a corresponding increase in the capacity of businesses. What this means is that businesses need to leverage technology to better attend to these demands for the purpose of efficiency. The RPA software plays this major role, and while some individuals may feel their job is being threatened, but the truth is, that isn’t true as software robots are a powerful asset that can free them from menial tasks affording the time and resources to focus on more technical aspects of getting the job done. These “software robots” (metaphorical) should be viewed as digital colleagues of some sort.

Over the past few years, Robotic Process Automation has emerged as a trend that tends toward solving this problem by helping to automate manual processes that require little or no human judgment so as to afford human labor the time and resources to concentrate on more pressing issues which require judgment. RPA is helping companies save time, money, and resources through the automation of back-office processes, as well as repetitive tasks.

Robotic process automation (RPA) allows different organizations to automate certain business processes within their company so as to increase efficiency and improve ROI.

To eliminate some of the misconceptions surrounding RPA applications, their use, and the effect on the overall processes of the organization, this article has been perfectly crafted to address 7 of the most common ones among these numerous misconceptions.

Common Misconceptions About RPA Applications

According to Gizmodo, RPA is now being used or investigated by 6 out of 10 Australian and New Zealand organizations. There’s an upward trend in the rate of use as illustrated by the amount of google search for RPA.

Although robotic process automation has emerged as a new trend that companies can leverage to save time, money, and resources through the automation of back-office processes, as well as repetitive tasks, it seems too good to be true to quite a number of people, thus, giving rise to lots of misconceptions from different quarters.

Amidst, this widespread acceptance, there have been lots of misconceptions about RPA applications like BotPath. This post intends to educate you about the seven common misconceptions about RPA applications The following are seven of the most common misconceptions about RPA applications.

1. RPA is Here to Take the Place of Humans:

A survey by Forbes has it that 92% of organizations responded that employee satisfaction improved as a result of RPA implementations, with 52% saying that employee satisfaction increased by 15% or more. Although RPA is expected to allow take the hands of humans off repetitive roles and on more creative and self-fulfilling tasks, that is all that it is; humans are not being replaced instead they are allowed to take on better roles rather than repetitive ones. Thanks to intelligent automation.

2. RPA Involves the Use of Robots:

For the record, the “robots” in RPA are metaphorical. The “bots” involved in RPA are software bots and/or tools with some degree of artificial intelligence (AI) in them. There aren’t really any robots involved in robotic process automation. According to Chris Huff, Chief strategist at Kofax, “Robotic process automation is not a physical or mechanical robot,”. On the contrary, the “robot” in robotic process automation is a software robot running on a physical or virtual machine that can be created by users through features like bot builder. “RPA bots are capable of mimicking most human-computer interactions to carry out a ton of error-free tasks, at high volume and speed.” Rather than think of RPA as involving the use of physical bots, it is better and more accurate to see the whole process as a simple procedure of instructing a machine to carry out mundane and repetitive tasks that often require little or no amount of intelligence.

3. RPA is Expensive:

Making use of one of the best RPA software such as BotPath is really not so expensive. Most people believe getting that much value being offered by BotPath might cost a fortune with features like the chrome extension. The truth is that it doesn’t! Technology is expected to make our lives easier and faster; to make us get more work done with less in all ramifications including cost. A benefit of RPA is the ability to start out small and scale up, automating a few simple tasks first and then measuring their impact on the organization after deployment. As time goes on and the company familiarizes itself with the software solution, more complex processes can be tried to be automated as well. Furthermore, the shorter processes that could have been automated already can be stringed together for achieving better goals. If the results obtainable from the judicious use of RPA are compared to the benefits obtainable, it is a fact that the results far outweigh the punishments.

4. RPA Is Always Right:

For a fact, RPA when properly implemented does reduce quite a lot of human error with workflow automation. However, technology in itself is dumb, it relies on the wisdom of whosoever is controlling it. Likewise, the bots are only as accurate as developers or users have instructed them to be and the assumption that RPA never makes mistakes is wrong. The assumption that implementation of RPA Automation in your business just means that all issues that come up are going to be accurately handled by RPA is very wrong. RPA has a very low error rate however, it all comes down to how much data goes into setting up the software and consequently, the RPA bot only does what it is told to do, a bot that has not been implemented correctly or tested thoroughly may not perform exactly as intended.

5. It is Time-Consuming:

The advantage of RPA software is that it learns quickly with minimal oversight and coding from developers. Saving time is actually one of the major benefits of RPA applications and as such Implying that it consumes time is a wrong assertion. Sometimes, one can begin to wonder about the origin and concept behind these misconceptions, because, RPA software applications are expected to mimic the human effort and perform it in an error-prone manner repetitively. The implementation is not as time-consuming or tedious as it is often made to look. Employees are so overwhelmed by the number of repetitive actions they need to carry out, that there is not much time to truly interact with their customers or solve more complex issues quickly. Robotic process automation (RPA) can help you to spare work frustration by streamlining numerous tasks like data management and letting software robots do the boring administrative stuff; it saves time and frees up employees for more creative and productive tasks.

6. RPA Can Automate Complex Processes From Start to Finish:

Companies sometimes make the mistake of thinking RPA can help them achieve end-to-end automation building. The truth is that RPA is better suited for the automation of tasks rather than processes. RPA automation can be used to automate workflow, infrastructure, and back-office processes which are labor-intensive. However, thinking that it would grab all company activities by the scruff of the neck and handle all the activities from top to bottom.

7. RPA has No Influence on Customer Satisfaction:

Since RPA is predominantly used for simpler tasks, one might believe that it has no impact on customer satisfaction. This is wrong; whatever task employees are taking on is meant for serving the customers. As such, when employees can get more jobs done in a shorter time, customers can be attended to quickly and as such lead to customer satisfaction. By using RPA when gathering data with features like task capture, the chance for human error is significantly reduced, thereby improving customer satisfaction. When RPA is used to cleanse and collect data, the risk of error decreases. Informed by data beyond systems of record, insurers can connect with clients in a timelier and more personalized way. It is sometimes assumed that it is only meant for implementing employee satisfaction. But in retrospect, when RPA allows employees to work better, smarter, and faster, in the long run, customers can be served as needed.

Expert Thoughts on the Actual Role of RPA Applications

There is no doubt that RPA applications have a whole lot of benefits. Kirk Borne In this Tweet Illustrates what RPA meant and the role it plays specifically as “the automation of repeatable and redundant, rule-based human action through the use of software bots — provides opportunities for organizations to succeed in new ways”.

There is also no doubt that RPA is a liberating technology in the sense that it allows users to automate existing manual processes. In actual fact, RPA software is there to help companies do the heavy lifting in most situations. If you purchase any RPA software, you should expect that you or your employees need not partake in routine processes and activities, you should expect a situation whereby human labor in the organization find themselves taking on more technical roles, decision-making processes, and work activities that involve a high level of intelligence.

In a situation where you notice yourself or your team working on activities that require jumping from application to application or perhaps requiring the completion of tasks that require little thinking, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) software can help. RPA is a quick yet effective automation tool.

The Everest group And Sarah Burnett In this tweet also emphasize the fact that RPA helps organizations save costs as they explore how RPA and AI could help organizations avoid hefty fines for non-compliance here. By taking human hands-off routine and less critical roles, the RPA software is expected to help reduce the cost in the long run. It makes sense, doesn’t it? In situations where humans take on such repetitive roles, then the employer has to pay for the effort and energy being expended every time that routine activity is performed. And this cost continues to pile up considering the fact that, once the software is configured such that the “robots” have mimicked the human effort and can now replicate the process, the employer only incurs the cost of setting things up the first time.

RPA is being enabled by ever-evolving, super-connected digital workers that will be far more intelligent, skillful, efficient, and controllable than we ever imagined. According to Pat Geary, Chief Evangelist at Blue prism in this Tweet. In fact, the “bots” are being regarded somewhat as “digital colleagues”. They are efficient, more reliable, and are not error-prone. RPA has come with lots of advantages and it has come to stay.

Conclusion

In general, robotic process automation Applications are meant to help companies get more effective. However, there’s been quite a lot of misconceptions about them. Ranging from how they operate to the value offerings, cost, and requirements.

The truth is that Misconceptions around rpa software can often lead to organizations or employees avoiding a potentially beneficial technology. When instead, RPA can actually represent a big opportunity for IT departments from companies all over the world to raise their profiles,

However, it is worthy of note that RPA applications make help to eliminate the repetition of redundant and routine processes so as to afford employees the time to focus on activities requiring more creativity.

Having talked about 7 of the major misconceptions about RPA, it is expected that you can determine if this automation technology could be right for your company. More importantly, should you decide that it is very right for your company, it is expected that you know how to go about the implementation to a large extent. Robotic process automation is easy-to-implement software that improves process and operational efficiencies and increases a company’s ROI.