Automation is happening in every industry, particularly for tasks that are repetitive and simple for the machines to imitate. In the present times of pandemic, industrial automation, especially, Robotics Process Automation (RPA) has observed high acceleration like never before. Although according to Gartner, the RPA software already grew over 60% in 2018, the present boost in its market share is unprecedented. The demand for systems that can intelligently mimic several tasks is increased considerably in a short span of time.

Earlier a major section of the RPA market was controlled by top-five vendors. Gartner reports that over 45% market was ruled by these RPA giants. However, the present crisis has opened opportunities for several budding and potential RPA providers. The impact can be clearly understood by the fact that tech giants such as Microsoft and IBM have recently put their money to acquire RPA providers Softomotive and WDG respectively to get hold of this market niche.

Glorious insight, partners with tech leaders like Microsoft and IBM, provide comprehensive solutions for industrial automation. Our experts have a rich knowledge of several domains and are dedicated to providing customized solutions to meet your operational and organizational objectives.

We combine the capabilities of Big Data and Data Analytics to feed the machine learning algorithms and provide you unparalleled AI solutions to optimize your processes. You get speed and accuracy that leads to lower operational costs, enhanced customer experience, and improved overall throughput of the organization.

Lockdowns and social distancing enforced by the COVID-19 outbreak compelled companies to adapt to remote working environments. In such a scenario, when companies are operating with limited human resources working from home, automation becomes a necessity to deliver prompt and quality services and products to the customers and stay afloat. Also, experts predict it to be a central pillar for the post-COVID era of business.

Bringing together the power of technologies such as AI and Machine Learning and Data Analytics to facilitate data-driven automation for critical operations is bringing the next big transformation. This Industrial Revolution is likely to change the way companies interact and deliver to their customers and optimize internal processes.

Although there is plenty of promise in the field, many enterprises may struggle for a precise implementation, especially when it is happening at a scintillating pace. Here we discuss the responsible way to implement RPA in the COVID-era.

COVID-guided automation movement   

COVID-19 crisis changed the preferences and primary concerns for all the businesses. With the entire workforce pushed at distances and compelled to work remotely, the top priority of most of the companies is business continuity. While at the onset of COVID-19 majority of the companies had put their automation on hold, it gained back the spotlight soon after.

As people moved apart, many gaps in the existing processes surfaced and made the enterprise automation mandatory for enhanced performance and business resilience. Emphasizing the pace at which companies adopted AI and Machine Learning solutions, the CEO of Microsoft rightly pointed out in April’ 20, that the world has seen 2 years’ worth automation in just two months.

The pandemic has caused a dramatic change in the pace of industrial automation. Several domain experts predict that the spending on RPA by various companies is likely to go up by several hundred percent by 2025. The RPA implementation in medical and health care has helped a large number of companies in data collection, generating health alerts, and obtaining government approval for contact tracing, stimulus assistance, etc, and ensuring business continuity.

Glorious insight is leading the way to this rapid enterprise automation for many companies of different scales. We are working with a wide range of executives in different industries and at different levels. From promising startups to established industry leaders, our team has been working at the ground level to gain a deeper insight into the accelerated digital transformation. We are able to identify the key factors that are likely to be the game-changers and derive top takeaways for responsible RPA implementation in different domains.

Steps through RPA implementation for reliable automation

Team of technological professionals and domain experts at Glorious Insight has collaborated with a vast range of industry specialists and operational wizards. With all the knowledge gained through this interaction, we are able to deduce an efficient RPA implementation process. The following stages can be adapted and optimized for specific requirements and expectations of your organization.

• Stage 1: Preparation

This step involves thorough scrutiny of the existing business processes to identify the problem areas and use cases where automation is needed. Also, you need to ponder on the kind of automation that would solve the particular use case with the greatest efficiency. At this stage, you need to focus on the following points.

• Look at the big picture to determine the long-term business objective of each process to be automated and focus on the entire process rather than smaller independent tasks.
• Pick the simpler yet impactful tasks at the beginning so that you can gain confidence with early success in the process automation.
• Establish a clear and open conversation with the employees. In the present COVID-19 crisis, most employees are afraid of losing their jobs and automation can be the catalyst to that fear. Talk with employees for improved overall productivity and early and precise identification of bottlenecks.
• Collaborate with the IT team to ensure secured RPA deployment to avoid future risks.

• Stage 2: Initial implementation

A common mistake most companies make is, to begin with, back-office functions in supply chain and finances. These tasks are often the most complicated areas that include workflow in both structured and unstructured forms from various departments. High-level of complexity at the beginning of the process automation can be overwhelming and even discouraging.

It is better to start with simpler and repetitive processes such as invoice processing. Such processes mostly rely on structured data inputs and have simpler workflows. This increases the chances of a successful deployment and gives you time and hand-on experience to understand the process closely.

• Stage 3: Expansion

Once you have enough confidence in the automation and its capabilities and have a clear understanding of how technologies like AI and Machine Learning, big data analytics, etc work together, you can move on to more complex processes.

Glorious Insight works in close association with the consultants and technical experts to help you with the amalgamation of several technologies needed for complex process automation. You get a clear idea of the capabilities and limitations of automation to establish a successful and futuristic RPA.

• Stage 4: Evaluation and optimization

Companies constantly monitor and reinvent their automation strategies and cement the best practices for the future. Many companies also prefer to look back into their existing processes to evaluate the potential of already deployed automation and identify the need for re-engineering if any. The following investments are popularly made by companies that are likely to yield rich dividends in the future.

• Platforms for end-to-end business process verification and orchestration
• Leveraging the capabilities of process mining tools
• Enhancing the flexibility of the underlying architecture

Quick tips to implement RPA

With the help of extensive experience, Glorious insight has deduced some quick tips that can help you in the successful deployment of enterprise RPA. These tips will help you cope with the drastic process adaptation and rapid implementation for smooth industrial automation.

• Workforce alignment

Studies have revealed that 20 to 25% of employees consider automation a threat to their jobs. This misconception can lead to several internal problems with your workforces. Ensure that you communicate with your people and help them to understand that automation will free them for more productive innovations.

• Establish security culture and governance

Just like the working force, automation also needs HR to administer the automation process and best security practices with the IT team. It is often referred to as the center of excellence (COE).

• Prioritize visibility and documentation

COVID-19 is likely to keep your human resource away for a long time. Clear visibility in the processes will help them adapt the new processes and documentation is mandatory to ensure better understanding and future references. You need to focus on these before business automation.

• Tool selection for a long-term objective

The team at Glorious Insight work with your consultants and domain experts to pick the most suitable set of tools. The aim is to achieve seamless integration and consolidation that can deliver desired business outcomes.

Continuous evolution through an iterative approach

RPA deployment and enterprise automation cannot be achieved in one simple cycle. It needs to continuously grow through iterations. Join hands with Glorious Insight for a long-term association for an iterative and evolutionary deployment of business automation. We implement RPA in a repeatable manner with significant scaling at each cycle. As the process of automation moves from simpler to complex tasks the success of implementation becomes evident.