RPA — Ushering In Unprecedented Change For Outsourcing!
At the turn of the last decade, it was BPO, or Business Process Outsourcing that was redefining business. Making marginally or even negligibly profitable enterprises, enormously profitable ventures. Today, it is RPA, Robotic Process Automation, that is acting as a catalyst for unprecedented change!
Organizations, both large and small, are poised to leverage RPA in lieu of outsourcing. And outsourcing, whether it is onshore, offshore, nearshore or any other model of deployment, is set to be transformed significantly.
Why did we outsource in the first place?
Let’s begin by unpacking our reasons for outsourcing. Was our move driven by profits and profit margins alone? Or was there something else too?
I’d like to think it was about savings and convenience!
Identifying routine, labour-intensive and tedious tasks, unbundling them and taking them to be performed elsewhere — was perhaps the first goal. This introduced efficiencies of every kind, making organizations lean and adaptive. Companies cut out the clutter. And, they were left with enough time and energy to focus on their core competencies. This was another plus.
Savings also came in the form of the competitive pricing that firms that took up these “outsourced” jobs offered. Processes were further streamlined, kinks were ironed out and communication pathways were cleared. There was standardization through certification. People specialized in a specific set of skills. And a parallel industry flourished that supported mainstream organizations.
RPA vs. outsourcing
In many ways, RPA is accelerating growth for organizations through continued process improvement and delivery. Handling it all better than outsourcing. It is providing organizations with greater control. Firms can now dispense with lulling over issues that cropped with a traditional BPO setup — such as authenticating the quality of produced work; or enforcing guidelines for improving the working conditions of employees in an outsourced operation; or even the controversial issue of removing resources, jobs and money from the economy.
Furthermore, wage growth in countries like India, Philippines, Vietnam, Bangladesh and China are effectively diluting the profitability argument for outsourcing. The savings are potentially disappearing and as wages continue to rise, cost savings are bound to deplete completely.
RPA as your digital workforce!
The RPA bots act as virtual employees, adding to your workforce. They are platform and application agnostic. This means that they interact with your data and systems just as humans would, working with multiple applications simultaneously. This is especially useful when there is a need to work with data that lies across a number of disparate systems.
RPA bots can act at any level. Choosing to interact with applications at the user interface level, program level or even API level simply based on the need. And as the volume of work grows, RPA gets cheaper to operate. Costs are largely fixed for transactions, and the speed of execution drives your cost-per-transaction lower with every additional task.
Advanced task management and automation capabilities have RPA supporting business applications and processes in a way that traditional BPO never could. The pay-as-you-go hosted models make utilizing RPA a reality for many organizations. Here you consume what you need and only pay for what you have consumed.
What’s missing, then?
Bots can never fully replace the experience of a human interaction. And RPA bots are no different!
RPA is as yet unable to process unstructured data such as scanned images and free-form emails. This sort of work still requires human intervention. There is also a lot of effort required in order to make these formats consumable by machines. For example, unstructured data must be pre-processed using OCR or similar technology in order to be used by the bots.
Since RPA follows a rules-based pathway, by its very nature, it can replicate mistakes. Since the bots can work through numerous entries in a short span of time, mistakes can often span thousands of records before being found. Frequent changes in business processes or standards can also lower RPA’s productivity, and diminish its advantage over human counterparts.
Finding the right balance with WorkFusion RPA
WorkFusion has found a way to combine RPA with human intelligence, bringing you the best of both worlds. Smart analytics and no code automation. Automating roles as well as tasks. And leaving room for that crucial bit — what does the human say? WorkFusion RPA is RPA 2.0.
And, if you’re interested in knowing more this seminar is a great place to start!
