If you have been contemplating to getting started with RPA, welcome to the bandwagon! The kind of buzz that RPA has created among businesses has been remarkable and is now hard to ignore. 

RPA has been at the forefront and has redefined businesses in the post-pandemic era. As businesses adopt to the new normal, they have been forced to think differently around how they operate. In light of all the operational challenges, new forms of technological adoptions have been prevalent among organizations, regardless the industry.

RPA, that has taken industries by storm and has seen rapid adoption. It not just automates repetitive and redundant jobs, but also enables organizations to increase employee productivity, increase customer and employee satisfaction. To know more about how RPA can benefit business, read our blog on the Top RPA trends in 2021. 

Let’s get you started with how easy is it to get started with RPA. Let’s assume you are ready to introduce RPA into your business but are now at crossroads about where to get started. The first step will be to identify the areas that you would want to be automated. Know the advantages and disadvantages of automating a process and do a deep dive into the ROI. 

Here are a few things you must focus on: 

Build an automation roadmap 

Put together a team that can build an automation strategy and roadmap for your business. This roadmap will lay the groundwork for a successful implementation and adoption of RPA into the business. Putting together a strategy will help you identify the opportunities for RPA across the different business verticals. The automation roadmap will also identify the processes, resources, and the technologies required to run a high-performing and sustainable RPA program for you, which will adapt to your changing business needs with agility.

Educate and set goals 

It is important at this point to educate yourself and all the stakeholders about the changes RPA would bring to the process. While it is an instinctive assumption that the automation will make a lot of the manpower redundant, but you’ll be surprised how it instead opens up avenues for your employees to become more productive, once the repetitive and mundane tasks are taken care of. This encourages employees to become innovative thinkers and take up more complex tasks. 

It is also important that you set realistic goals and expectations from the automation program. Keep all the stakeholders informed and help them understand the targets once RPA is adopted. A successful implementation RPA is only possible with trust within the business leaders and consistent sponsorship.

Identify a vendor 

The RPA industry has been growing rapidly and is ever evolving to suit changing requirements of their customers. While some of the available options have been around for a while and have built a credible clout around their product, there are new ones entering the market, who have been providing cutting-edge RPA solutions to their client’s business problems. 

One of the most common challenges that businesses face is identifying the right vendor that suit their requirements. More often than not it is challenging to differentiate one from another, making it important to pick your vendor wisely. 

It would be a good idea to talk to several vendors and list out the pros and cons of using their services. 

Check out our blog on the List of RPA Tools in 2021 

Try the technology 

Given the stiff competition, a lot of the vendors often offer to give a demo of their technologies and help you better understand how it can benefit you. Explore your options and try out different options whenever possible. It is a great way to get hands-on experience of the product. In addition to this, look at the training materials a lot of the vendors provide to help new users get accustomed to the technology. Check out if a free trial version of a potential vendor is available to try it out before shortlisting the right provider for your business requirements. 

Set up a Center of Excellence 

Now that you would have already identified your vendor, just ahead of the implementation, set up an internal Center of Excellence (CoE). RPA implementation will be an organization-wide initiative and not really have a stand-alone objective to achieve. It must align to the business goals and a CoE will be responsible for championing the cause. They would have a deep understanding of the entire process and be equipped to intervene whenever necessary. The CoE can also keep partners and team members apprised of the step-by-step progress. Simply put, the CoE will act as a governance body to keep oversight of the entire program. 

Implement 

Once the above steps are taken care of, you might feel ready to implement RPA into your business. Implementation might seem intimidating at first, so it’s okay to take it slow and staggered approach. 

Make sure that by this stage your implementation teams are set up and ready to use the technology. Provide all necessary resources for the concerned team to be comfortable with using the technology. A team that is well-versed with what they are working with will always achieve better results as opposed to another, which will potentially slow down the implementation process. 

Assess 

Once the implementation of the RPA technology is done, make sure to assess it at regular intervals about how it is impacting your business and whether or not it is on the right path to meet your goals. 

Assessment could be a two-pronged approach. One, could be a deep-dive into the nitty-gritties of its workings and the other could be quick check done frequently. It is always a good idea to identify any potential lags or problems early on and fix them at its nascent stage than waiting it out and making bigger and more tedious changes. 

Conclusion

If we have to summarize everything mentioned above, we’d say if you have the stages of introducing RPA into your business covered, it would be a fairly easy process. Every business’ requirements are different and the solutions vary too. In case you’d like to get a better understanding of what RPA has in store for different businesses, you can read a related blog here. 

However, it is important you don’t lose sight of your business objectives and ensure that the technology you are implementing is dynamic and adapts quickly to changing customer requirements. 

Qentelli’s take

At Qentelli, we have experts who can help you through all the stages of RPA adoption. With our deep expertise, we provide end-to-end support to all our clients through their RPA journey. Our services span from RPA consulting to support and everything in between. 

Talk to our expert today!