Recently, the business world is getting faster and faster, and clients expect to receive services immediately. One way for a business to remain competitive and meet the rapidly changing needs of customers and employees is to automate and robotize their processes.
Robotic process automation
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is the automation and acceleration of business operations through robots that mimic certain rule-based and result-oriented human work.
By taking over monotonous processes from humans, robots help save employees hours and company costs, reduce expenses. Often, the production and maintenance of an RPA is less expensive than the time it takes for a person or team to perform the same automated process.
Besides, , RPA reduces the number of errors and operational risk level, as frequent, common human errors are eliminated in the process. Using RPA can improve the timing and accuracy of responding to customer inquiries, resulting in fewer complaints and more positive customer or clients experience.
It is also important that RPA acts in a flexible way, RPA, like humans, can use existing systems, is easily modified and adapted to work with the organization's internal document system, can search for documents and download them from the Internet, and perform other daily employee activities.
RPA adaptation
Automation of robotic processes is widely used in banking, insurance, retail, manufacturing, healthcare, and telecommunications, but can be easily applied elsewhere.
For example, in banking it can be used to confirm meetings with clients, to provide their information from CRM systems selected according to specific criteria, to form individual proposals (using machine learning algorithms).
In insurance RPA helps to investigate insurance events, to enter customer data, for end-of-month report preparation. In health care institutions it can be used to enter patient data or to record the results of research into specific cases.
Process robotization
Process robotization solutions enable the automation of business processes and time-consuming tasks, thus optimizing operations and ensuring a new level of efficiency. Besides, process automation allows employees to use time and skills for critical tasks instead of performing mechanical, value-free tasks.
With the help of enterprise process automation solutions, it is possible not only to reduce time costs, duplication of work but also to improve cooperation between departments and better supervise business processes.
Business process automation can be used to simplify, digitize, and automate a variety of business processes, including:
- Document management;
- Workflow automation;
- Task management and notification via e-mail;
- E-mail marketing campaigns;
- Familiarization with company documents;
- Payment reminders;
- Preparation, review, and approval of documents;
- Employee request management.
Once you have decided which processes to automate, you can digitize the documents and data used in the process, streamline operations, and, while under supervision, send automatic alerts and acknowledgments for monitoring, which are usually sent manually.
Business process automation also provides other benefits:
- Lower costs: saves time and at the same time reduces costs;
- More efficient use of working time: instead of time for reviews, approvals, and inquiries, managers can spend more time on employees and monitor important tasks;
- Better collaboration: process automation solutions create a space where team members can share files and receive alerts when documents are updated or changed and assign a task to another team member.
- Improved customer service: it can be difficult for a company’s customer service team or help desk to keep track of any queries or questions. Automated customer service processes help these teams respond faster and more efficiently, resulting in increased customer satisfaction;
- Better overall productivity: business process automation reduces errors and saves employees time;
- More satisfied employees: when repetitive jobs and jobs with no added value are completed by automated solutions, employees have time for the jobs for which their qualifications are best suited.
When choosing the best business process automation solution, it is important that it is compatible with the solutions used so far, and that their cost and the provider's experience and expertise should be taken into account.
