Companies across industries and over the world are implementing Robotic Process Automation software at an unprecedented rate. According to Gartner, this industry is about to hit a staggering €7-billion in 2020 alone and by the end of 2021, there will be an estimated 4 million robots in business environments.
Since more companies are changing their mindset and choosing software robots to help with daily tasks and processes, there is also more questions around RPA in general.
We wanted to shine a light on some of the most common questions that many of our customers ask before opting to implement and deploy RPA in their companies. These are questions that everyone asks (and should ask, in fact) at the beginning of their RPA journey:
1. Which processes are most suitable for RPA?
We covered this briefly in our previous blogs, but one thing remains true. A well-structured process, with a number of steps, that is repetitive on a certain basis and that is rule-based.
RPA is perfect for companies who want to automate a part of a larger process, which needs human confirmation in a certain step or just high volume of smaller processes, that run on Legacy systems, which are expensive and difficult to replace or new-age applications.
2. How does your solution stand out from others?
CRMT partnered with robotiq.ai, a relatively new player on the market. The founders of the company have long-time experiences in implementing competitor’s solutions, such as Softomotive and UIPath, but have noticed shortcomings in software operation and user experience. Robotiq.ai wanted to bring added value with functionalities that allow robot to record workflow process being done by employees and later imitate it on its own and are implementing AI in their software for other advantages.
3. What are the pricing models for RPA and costs?
Our license models consist of 3 types customers can choose from, depending on the size of the process and the frequency of robot usage.
To tailor the needs of every company, we offer either “Pay-as-you-go”, where the usage of robots is charged per minute, Annual subscription or Perpetual license model, where the customer buys the license and extends the maintenance each year.
Cost-wise, RPA has one of the fastest returns on investment (ROI) in the industry, normally around 6 months, and a record-low total cost of ownership (TCO). The implementation costs can start with a 5 or even 4-digit number.
4. Can you name some of the industry applications?
- Banking and Insurance: Automation of credit card applications, loan processing, claims processing, etc. (blog about banking, blog about insurance)
- Retail: Updating orders, managing fake accounts, processing shipping notifications, etc. (blog RPA in Retail)
- Telecommunications: Monitoring subscriber feeds, fraud management, customer data updates, etc. (blog RPA in Telecommunications)
- HR: Candidate sourcing, background verification, payroll automation, and more.
5. Which tasks are supported by software robots?
The list of tasks that a software robot can perform is very long and we are enumerating a few most common examples below. For more information, please visit our landing page:
- Opening e-mails and attachments
- Reading and writing from databases
- API calls
- Reading and writing to Excel
- Implementation of processes with IF-THEN-ELSE conditional
- Data transfer between applications and systems
6. What are the biggest advantages of RPA?
Operating cost reductions is perhaps the most tangible benefit of RPA. However, the range of RPA benefits is much wider than that. Consider things like improved accuracy and quality, the reduction of technology integration costs, customer satisfaction due to faster document processing, revenue leakage detection and subsequent reduction, headcount flexibility, the improvement of risk, compliance and audit management, rapid scalability to demand spikes, or workforce shifts to higher-value tasks.
7. How long does it take to implement the robots?
The implementation process should actually be among one of the benefits. Depending on the size of the project, the implementation takes from 2-3 weeks to a month in case of bigger projects.