How RPA Can Help You Take the Next Step in Your Automation Journey

Robotic process automation has been around for some years now, and while it has proved invaluable for organisations in basically any industry, many are wondering where it goes from here.

In its basic form, RPA is designed to mimic human actions, not human behaviour. So how far can you go automating processes inside your company? I've been asked this often. Business is changing, new processes are coming, and the journey can continue to a degree, but I don't believe that is the future for RPA.

The need for digitalisation is growing faster, not only because companies strive to be more efficient but because, with crisis, it becomes crucial to survive. So what is the next step for RPA? There's an old saying: “if you want to predict the future, you must know your past.” Initially we had RDA, robotic desktop automation, where a human assisted a robot. It produced benefits, but not full end-to-end automation. Eventually the technology evolved into RPA, with robots able to automate a process without human interaction.

So what does the future look like? Hyperautomation

Hyperautomation builds on what underlies the phenomenal growth of RPA: ease of automation, speed to outcomes, and a now-proven path to applying AI to improve operations — combining RPA with emerging technologies such as machine learning, process mining, decision management and natural-language processing into an end-to-end automation solution.

All these shiny tools look great on paper, but how do they perform in practice? After years of selecting, testing and implementing such technologies, two factors matter most when you start the next step of your automation journey:

• Find the real business problems with a high return on investment. Stop chasing the the easy wins you know can't fail, it won't bring much value either. I always say CIOs/CDOs should act like doctors: a good doctor doesn't prescribe pills before asking what hurts, where, and for how long. Ask the business what the real problems are and what future state they envision, then prescribe the technology. Business comes first; technology comes only after.
• Walk with your teams on the journey. Don't just hold a global town hall announcing how great the programme will be. Run weekly sessions; explain what the technology can and can't do, and how it improves people's day-to-day work.

Hyperautomation can deliver on its potential: an complete system that creates business value through RPA, AI, ML and NLP, but it will face challenges. As you move from process-driven automation to more adaptable data-driven automation, there are added costs in training data, technical development, infrastructure and specialised expertise. But the potential benefits, in insight and financial impact, can be greatly magnified.