RPA may be translated into Polish as South Africa, but here we refer only to the meaning connected to the IT branch: Robotic Process Automation. The sole acronym expansion does not explain everything however. What can RPA really do and how may it become helpful for the domestic enterprises?

RPA consists mainly of transferring most of the employees’ work to the robots. If the company deals with multiple time-consuming and repetitive processes which stunt the whole work significantly, the responsibility to handle them falls to the Artificial Intelligence. RPA is most often used in places where company ERPs are hard to be integrated while data transfer between different bases is required.

Advantages of RPA

The main advantage is saving both money and time. Some activities are settled automatically, literally in no time at all. It significantly relieves the employees whose caution and strength may be used for more complicated duties. Better focus of the staff and well-used potential mean also higher efficiency which in turn results in higher income. RPA tools make mistakes less often than workers tired with monotony. Currently the companies look for savings everywhere and paradoxically, such an investment may help find them. It is estimated that one has to wait for ROI for less than a year. Process automation also helps reducing the number of people working in one space at the same time, which proves extremely useful during the pandemic time. The employer is able to send some of the employees to home office, because the lowered productivity of smaller personnel group is compensated by the AI.

RPA weaknesses

Robotic Process Automation has also its opponents. They tend to point out mainly the danger of necessary downsizing in the companies, since most of the responsibilities are handled by the robots. In most cases however, such a situation does not take place, humans are subject of greater specialisation instead, because their attention is drawn to more complicated processes. Next feature of RPA that may be perceived as a disadvantage is that it does not take into consideration any exceptions in the algorithm – hence its activities remain very simple and repetitive. Complicated procedures, the results and course of which are not always built on the simplest decision-making process, may prove too hard for RPA.

Is RPA intended for process optimisation?

No, the task of RPA does not include any organisational transformations nor any changes in processes already present in the companies. Implementing Robotic Automation is not connected with the modification of source code or interfering in procedures. Such tasks are connected with another type of IT tools – those intended for business process management, the so-called BPMS (Business Process Management Suite). This is a more specialised RPA element, however it has some major differences. Within RPA, the robots perform the most monotonous works, such as logging into systems and transferring data to respective bases. These activities involve little changes, assume little exceptions and unnecessarily waste much of employees’ time. What is more, their repetitive character may impact the quality of staff performance, because of more mistakes and inadvertency stemming from too much routine. BPMS, in opposition to RPA tools, interfere with the systems implemented in the company: through IT solution one may reach process optimisation. A part of corporate methods is modified so that their efficiency rises and they start to cooperate better with the developed IT environment.

Does KORSOL deal with RPA and BPMS?

Services offered for our clients are so versatile and custom that it is extremely hard to categorize them. That is why we usually do not declare the type of products we are able to create. Both RPA and BPMS elements are very familiar to us: we produce integrated IT systems and build modules working in databases. On one hand we restrain ourselves from interfering with client’s tools and strategies, because the client remains the expert and has probably already developed a very specialised methodology. On the other hand, if the client is eager to change and understands the need of reorganization, we are always ready to help. A long-term experience in IT solutions implementation in big and medium companies enables us to suit our products creatively and pragmatically to the greatest efficiency of corporate processes.

Can RPA become a “vaccine” against coronavirus?

For companies, to a great extent yes. We have been struggling to alleviate the effects of pandemic turmoil and frequently changing instructions. Restricted number of people working together in the same workplace, the obligation to wear protective masks, to disinfect working posts, organising smaller shift groups – all these generate costs, take much valuable time and cause organisational chaos. It is possible however to partly relieve employees from their duties or facilitate remote work for them (which currently proves to be the easiest solution). Robotic Process Automation facilitates company’s operations when the efficiency of the staff declines due to sick leaves and due to changes of time, place and manner of working.

2020 comes to an end with no regress of the pandemic influence on market. Subsequent covid waves only deepen the crisis and aggravate uncertainty. What can entrepreneurs do to escape bankruptcy in 2021?

1. It is, above all, advised to diversify the income sources, that is, expand the offer and manage additional fields of expertise. In a word – development and securing sources of money – while one proves cost-ineffective, the other will be able to support the budget sufficiently. Food service companies may serve as an example (however in a small scale). They turned to takeout or delivery purchase options and currently their whole income is based on these. Some owners are not even going to come back to traditional, stationary activity which in turn is tightly connected to the “vaccines” for companies presented below.
2. The second step is e-commerce. We already observe a huge boom of companies operating and selling online. It is still far away from market saturation, because owning an e-shop is now an absolute must. In comparison to the last year the amount of people purchasing good this way has risen 15% (with total 72% of e-commerce customers[1]) and it is probably not the end. People are getting more and more tired of the current situation, hence they seek new technological solutions to make life easier. Such a tendency involves even the group of elderly.
3. The third way in which a company may “heal” from coronavirus, is prompting automation both in customer service and all production processes with documentation flow. These measures help preventing immediate contact between workers, customers and other supply chain members. Automation enables us to control more issues at our own homes, so it is also crucial in home office implementation.

2020 summary, budget planning and 2021 resolutions

As it has been presented above, RPA climbs to the top of the most efficient tools of alleviating negative effects of covid-19 on the markets. The profitability of automation has been spotted and its popularity rises almost as quickly as the e-commerce trend. Such new IT solutions are then worth considering in the budget plan for the next year. These start from very simple tools which automatically notify customers about licenses expiring and end with very complicated procedures of application/permission flow which require actions from multiple departments and integrating company ERPs.

It is worth inviting RPA to the company instead of resisting their imminent expansion. Feel free to visit our website www.korsol.pl/en to find out more about security and control tools.

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[1] Source: CBOS, https://www.cbos.pl/SPISKOM.POL/2020/K_085_20.PD