Robotic Process Automation (RPA), a software technology facilitating the development and management of software that mimics human actions is making big strides in revolutionizing businesses around the world. Many global corporations have already executed RPA to improve and optimize production, and customer service and support. Latest technologies such as Machine Learning (ML), Optical Character Recognition (OCR), Natural Language Processing (NLP), and analytics are being integrated with RPA to enable enhanced business processes and performance. Increasing demand for automation and rising adoption and development of RPA-enabled self-learning conversational chatbots are fueling the growth of the global RPA market. Besides, rise of AI-based voice assistants such as Siri and Alexa in both personal and professional settings as well as increasing investments by government organizations and private companies for automating their processes leveraging RPA are aiding its market growth. RPA is growing in popularity since it helps business units to implement it without having to change an organization’s underlying IT infrastructure and reduce costs while streamlining processing and driving better customer experiences.
How does Robotic Process Automation work?
Robotic process automation (RPA) automates a complete process, not just a single step, but a series of processes. For example, you may copy information from one section of a document and enter it into an enterprise resource management system after receiving the document from an email. Without RPA, a person would need to do each of those task hundreds of times per day. RPA's dependence on the user interface sets it apart from various other forms of automation. Without having to "see" the screen, RPA systems mimic how a person interacts with various screen components. This characteristic allows RPA a high degree of adaptability for dealing with a wide range of applications, from simple ERPs like SAP to Microsoft Excel-level programs. The most basic RPA bots may be made simply capturing a user's clicks and keystrokes while they use an app. When issues arise, a user only needs to observe how the bot is interacting with the app to pinpoint the steps that need to be adjusted. In reality, these simple recordings are frequently used as a model for creating more adaptable bots that can vary their layout, screen size, or process. The layout and icons on the screen are interpreted by more advanced RPA tools using machine vision, which then makes the necessary alterations.
In other RPA deployments, business process processes are automatically captured using task and process mining tools, which are then utilized as starting templates for RPA automations. In order to automatically create a map of typical business processes, process mining, for instance, can analyze the logs of CRM and ERP programs. Tools for task mining combine locally running applications with machine vision to record user interactions with several apps. These types of process mining connectors are now being developed by all of the main RPA providers.
How is RPA Enabling Automation Across Industries?
Healthcare Sector
The healthcare sector is struggling with exorbitant prices, stifling regulations, enormous data quantities, and rising patient expectations. Healthcare providers can overcome these obstacles, lessen the workload of back-office duties, and greatly increase operational effectiveness by implementing robotic process automation systems. RPA bots assist the staff expedite several mundane tasks by simulating human interactions with the different hospital digital systems. Here are some of the major applications of RPA in the healthcare industry.
When performed on a larger scale, appointment scheduling is a tiresome and error-prone task. Even though online booking has replaced call-based scheduling, human oversight is still required for the process. RPA can make booking appointments easier by automating most of the related chores. The bot may give the patient time slots with the appropriate doctor, estimate the appointment's duration, delete the slot in the event of a cancellation, and alert both the patient and the doctor based on the request, the availability of the physicians, and the location of the clinic.
- Streamlined Data Management
Clinicians rely on medical records for decision-making. Manual data transfer between different applications can lead to errors and hospitals still struggle to keep data updated across all systems. For instance, lab personnel often manually transfer patient profiles once medical test results are entered into the lab's system. Instead, the findings may be automatically entered into any pertinent system by an RPA bot. By doing this, information accuracy is guaranteed to be 100%, data breach risks are reduced, staff are relieved of menial tasks, and medical records are synchronized and updated.
RPA can be helpful in the healthcare industry for duties associated with compliance. For instance, a committed staff at AstraZeneca follows up with medical specialists to learn how the drugs they create affect patients. AstraZeneca provided an RPA-based system for adverse event (AE) management to replace the manual processing of paper documents for the compilation of AE reports. The organization witnessed a 20-fold improvement in productivity as a consequence, which also improved worker satisfaction and healthcare providers' response times.
Banking Sector
RPA in banking refers to the use of sophisticated business process automation technologies to automate a variety of tedious and repetitive processes, freeing up staff members to concentrate on more valuable and customer-focused work. In a word, RPA significantly boosts productivity by simulating human activities while dealing with the programme. Here are some of the major applications of RPA in the banking sector.
When bringing on new clients, banks have to cope with a deluge of regulatory regulations. Along with collecting personal and financial information, bank staff also need to set up an account, implement data archiving and monitoring procedures, and verify the information through authorized governmental organizations. Most of these activities may be automated by an RPA system, which greatly reduces operational costs, hazards, and the time needed to onboard a new customer.
The number of loans processed is often constrained by the number of workers assigned to the job. RPA technology in banking may add substantial value by automating a variety of loan administration procedures, such as underwriting and validation, in addition to customer service automation. The autonomous consolidation of pertinent data from paper-based documents, outside systems, and service providers is made possible by RPA software. Additionally, RPA technologies may input this data into the proper systems for additional study by underwriters.
One of the most important metrics for any organization, including banks, is customer happiness. RPA in the banking industry may significantly reduce the time it takes to handle low-priority client inquiries and in many cases nearly completely eliminate the requirement for human interaction because the majority of customer requests call for some type of straightforward data extraction. RPA-powered chatbots may be used to carry out tasks like monitoring account balances, starting an urgent account blockage, reviewing the progress of mortgage applications, or making simple loan inquiries.
Manufacturing Sector
Businesses in the manufacturing sector have to keep up with the growing demand for quicker and better production, as well as deliver excellent customer service and innovative products, all while cutting costs and improving operational efficiency. However, the amount of time and effort needed to manage high-volume and repetitive operations and procedures restricts the capacity of businesses to achieve goals. Manufacturing is a sector that relies significantly on reliable operations, making it ripe for RPA (Robotic Process Automation) in areas like inventory management, compliance, procurement, and order and payment processing. Here are some of the major applications of RPA in the manufacturing sector.
Inventory management requires a lot of documentation in the manufacturing sector. Robotic Process Automation can automate emails, submit invoices, dispatch procedures, and digitise papers to efficiently automate inventory management. Inventory managers can monitor inventory levels and improve their decisions based on past data thanks to RPA-based automation, which gives them real-time data regarding inventory levels. hence increasing communication, lowering expenses, and improving operational efficiency.
The bill of materials is a key document in the manufacturing sector. It is a comprehensive list of the supplies and parts required to make a new thing or product. The document is kept current to give staff members all the information they will want in the future for product upgrades or new product development. It lists all the raw materials, subassemblies, intermediate assemblies, important components, parts, and the amounts needed to make each component to make the finished product. RPA bots are designed to imitate the human actions required to create a bill of materials by retrieving data about particular goods or components. As a consequence, it guarantees that a new product is constructed quickly and accurately.
Processing invoices is a highly rule-based operation, making it a great candidate for RPA. Additionally, this vital procedure aids firms in preserving healthy and solid ties with their suppliers. With RPA, it is possible to automate the extraction of invoice data, comparison of invoices with purchase orders, delivery receipts, etc., detection of duplicate invoices, and updating of records.
Insurance Sector
The insurance industry experiences an oversupply of tiresome clerical labor every day, which lowers customer satisfaction and results in substantial time waste. In the course of carrying out day-to-day insurance operations including underwriting claims processing, policy servicing, and so on, insurers are overwhelmed with regular, repetitive, and operational activities. This has resulted in the slow growth of the insurance industry and rising expenses. Hence, insurers are resorting to RPA for increasing the industry's productivity and customer focus. Here are some of the major applications of RPA in the insurance sector.
Processing claims is a laborious procedure that requires a number of human steps to complete each application. Employees must gather data from numerous departments and input it into various systems as part of the process. The lengthy processing time has a negative impact on consumer satisfaction. However, RPA technology enables bots to compile data from several systems and store it all in one location, greatly simplifying the claim processing process.
Underwriting involves the acquisition and evaluation of data, which can usually take around 2-3 weeks before one can come to a conclusion. Health risks, creditworthiness, financial restrictions, and duplicate policies (if the applicant already has a policy in their name) are some of the frequent issues associated with the client's policy in question. RPA technology makes the automation of the data collection process, which involves gathering information from several internal and external sources convenient. This can reduce the amount of time needed for underwriting. In order to automate the underwriting and pricing of products, it also helps to supply the necessary data or information to various areas in internal systems, create reports, or offer advice or ideas when assessing run losses.
- Process and Business Analytics
It is challenging to monitor and evaluate operational efficiency or follow improvised areas in the insurance business since there are so many operational and paper-intensive processes involved. Software robot tasks may be readily tracked without any manual work when automation procedures are in place.
RPA may be used to track the overall number of transactions processed as well as any errors that were found. The audit trail that RPA offers encourages regulatory compliance and process improvement. Customers gain from streamlined applications, which in turn helps to improve claim and customer service response times.
Way Ahead
As AI becomes more powerful with the integration of digital technologies in the IT processes, robotic process automation will become an important component in any business. There has been a misconception that RPA technology and its advantages are solely accessible to IT firms. But that is just untrue. RPA can be utilized in the manual and repetitive processes found in the human resources, eCommerce, and financial markets sectors to automate operations like onboarding, supply chain, and inventory. Based on these applications, RPA adoption will rise over the next few years in the non-tech sector.
According to TechSci Research report on “Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Market – Global Industry Size, Share, Trends, Opportunity, and Forecast. 2018-2028, Segmented By Component (Software, Service ((Consulting, Implementing, Training)), By Deployment (On-Premises and Cloud), By Enterprise Size (Large Enterprise, Small & Medium Enterprise), By End User (BFSI, IT & Telecommunications, Retail, Healthcare, Retail, and Others), By Region, Competition Forecast”, the global robotic process automation is anticipated to register significant growth in the coming years. The market growth can be attributed to the growing adoption of RPA by various enterprises and proliferation of emerging technologies such as Industry 4.0, machine learning, artificial intelligence, etc.