On a daily basis, I speak to many companies who are at different places in their RPA Journey. Lately, it seems I am encountering more and more potential and new RPA Partners who have had or are having a bad experience getting ROI and an effective cadence with their automation program. Having been in the RPA space for almost twenty years, I have found there are some considerations that are continually ignored but are definitely worth exploring to achieve rapid ROI with RPA.
Use a Certified RPA Partner to start.
Whether it be CampTek Software or another, find a company that can help you get going. Hiring 1-2 developers isn’t going to cut it. RPA is a strategic play and throwing a couple new developers to spearhead your automation initiative is not likely going to be the most productive start.
The Bottom line: Generally, junior-level developers often lack the necessary experience. They often do not have the necessary domain knowledge, nor do they possess overall skills to communicate with leadership to provide the most effective guidance on strategy so that the business can benefit from the use of the technology and all of its capabilities. It’s imperative that the company has someone with a top-level view of the technological direction of the organization.
Additionally, I have found that hiring a consulting firm with a bunch of contractors can also be an ineffective use of any automation budget. It’s extremely important to work with a partner that provides some continuity as you move from one bot to another and can apply the resources to chart the automation course.
Once the organization has decided on using RPA, immediately begin thinking and producing security and credentials needed for Robot service accounts.
The primary functions the software Robot will have is to mimic a user on a desktop in the organization. That seems like a good starting point when working with IT Security Admins to explain what the needs are from a security perspective. If not done early or effectively, by bringing all stakeholders to the table, this can often result in delays to the start of the project.
Some considerations to think about are:
- How is the bot going to run? In the cloud or on–premise?
- How many Virtual Machines need to be created?
- What does the operating system need to be?
- Where does the data the bot needs to process reside?
- Where should the bot place the output data?
These items, among others, should become early action items as soon as the decision to use RPA is made. These decisions can delay and potentially halt an RPA rollout.
Consider going with a BPO (Business Process Outsource) model.
Use an RPA SaaS Provider to analyze and develop your business processes and support all your bots. I am, obviously partial to this thought process. But after many years of doing this, it really is the best route for 75% of businesses out there.
The option is extremely attractive for medium size businesses that have aggressive growth goals. It takes a lot of the risk out of it – no need to deal with the vendor choice, licensing, infrastructure, development and ongoing support of these bots. Moreover,going this route can quickly speed up the time it takes to do the 1st bot and start achieving ROI. Recently we started working with two different companies and were able to get their bots into production in 2-4 weeks after they signed the Statement of Work.
Make sure the developers and team are certified.
This is pretty close to mandatory. Having a standard framework that developers use makes debugging and support 1000 times easier.
Think of a proper vetting process for the RPA Bots.
Admittedly, a software robot can do just about anything. However, in order for it to get the most successful ROI that will make a CFO/CIO/CEO happy, it needs to be a process that is Mature, High Value and Easily Scaleable. These are frequently overlooked but are the biggest drivers to failed, prolonged and/or costly automation initiatives.
In summary, these are some of the best ways to ensure you get Rapid RPA ROI.
Peter S. Camp is the CTO and Founder of CampTek Software. He has been developing RPA Applications for over 15 years. For further questions, discussion or inquiry about CampTek Software Services, contact info@campteksoftware.com.
