Newsletters

Customer Support:   (972) 395-3225

Home

Articles, News, Announcements - click Main News Page
Previous Story       Next Story
    
Robotic Process Automation: It's So Much More Than Straight-Through Processing! (Part 1)

by Paul Sewell, openspan - September 30, 2015

Robotic Process Automation: It’s So Much More than Straight-Through Processing! (Part 1)

By Paul Sewell

More than likely, if you’re in an organization that has workers performing tasks on computers, chances are high that you’ve heard the term “robotic process automation (RPA).” Over the next few weeks, we will explore robotic automation technology, the value it brings to your company, its limitations and its critical role in the enterprise transformation journey. Better yet, you’ll learn why using robotic automation as part of a broader, more strategic transformation program can yield millions in terms of cost savings, operational efficiencies and revenue generation – instead of saving a couple of thousand dollars by automating a single-threaded activity.

Since mid-2013, “Robotic Process Automation” trending stats have more than doubled [source: Google Trending] and the term “robotics” continues to make its way into conversations within some of the world’s leading global enterprises. Perhaps it’s the tangible images from the Star Wars or Transformers movies, but an increasing number of organizations are turning to this technology to solve business challenges in process-driven areas of the business.

As RPA is socialized within the four walls of the enterprise, industry pundits and the media have created somewhat of a panic mentality. Headlines read: “Your Jobs Are Being Taken Over by Robots” or “The Robotic Revolution”… And, one of the most alarmist --- JOBOCALYPSE. While robotic automation’s capabilities include eliminating the need for humans to perform certain repetitive, manual job tasks, this does not mean that robots are going to replace humans. It does, however, open many doors of opportunity to solve business challenges more creatively and with more effective results.

Robotic automation offers a wide range of capabilities to solve business challenges, but leveraging it as an unattended solution significantly limits the potential business impact. Many companies will look at robot candidates and discard any processes that require human intervention at any step of the process. While there are a number of scenarios where robotic automation can be applied to work activities that are restricted to straight through processing, the larger opportunity is to leverage robots and automations to initiate facilitate and execute activities in tandem with the worker.

In this blog series, we’ll discuss how transactions in the enterprise are the cellular components of your business – and it is important to understand how these activities impact operational and financial outcomes. I’ll go into more detail about the four prongs of the OpenSpan enterprise transformation approach, but to give you a look into our future discussions, here are a few points to consider – especially if you’re in the beginning stages of evaluating robotic automation as a plausible technology to apply to your business:

• Understand what your goals are for implementing automation. Time savings? Cost savings? Improved accuracy?

• Take a step back from the current business challenge and evaluate what areas are impacted by the transactions being performed in that particular area.

• What are the overall enterprise goals and does this project support them?

• If you’re able to fully automate transactions that were once performed by your staff, how can you further optimize their work so that they are handling more value-centric activities?

In addition to this blog series, OpenSpan is also hosting an educational webcast series that will help attendees understand the many practical business applications of robotic automation. If you want to learn more about robotic automation and to see if this technology is a fit to help save your organization both time and costs, be sure to register for the webcast series. The first one is Thursday, March 26 and it will be hosted by some of our leading experts in robotic automation – from solutions architects to business consulting services practitioners. Click here to register for the upcoming webinar on robotic automation – grab your seat and we’ll see you there!

###

 
Return to main news page