RPA Adoption Challenges and Why Partnering with An Expert Helps
Robotic process automation (RPA) enables businesses to enhance their overall performance and efficiency by minimizing human error, improving business insights, mitigating labor-intensive jobs, enhancing multichannel productivity and reducing overall operational costs.
However, businesses often need help implementing RPA to reap all these benefits. According to a survey by Ernst and Young, almost 30% to 50% of RPA projects fall apart. Why are organizations failing to harness the power of this advanced technology? Are there ways to overcome these challenges? Let’s explore what’s going wrong and how to fix it.
Key Challenges Faced by Organizations with RPA
RPA implementation accrues major productivity gains. However, as mentioned above, implementing this automation is challenging in many ways.
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Change Management
RPA implementation means introducing a digital method to outperform human tasks and rework long-held methods and processes. Working from a familiar manual framework to a different arena would attract confusion, wariness, and resentment. A shift in responsibilities, learning new skills, and unfamiliar communication emerge, posing a change-management challenge for most companies.
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Process Clarity
RPA enables businesses to increase their productivity. RPA is the first step in a long-term automation roadmap to conversational computing, machine learning, cognitive computing, etc. Some tasks may be handled entirely by RPA, and some partially. Defining the process and splitting the workflow into small manageable chunks is necessary to ensure smooth technology integration. Additionally, more than implementing RPA is needed; maintenance and ongoing evolution are critical factors.
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Selecting a right RPA Tool / Technology
RPA offers tremendous benefits when handling rules-based, repetitive, and process-driven tasks. Different RPA tools provide capabilities beyond these to varying degrees. If the selected RPA tool doesn’t meet the organization’s specific requirements, it would be a total waste of capital and effort.
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Cost
In a survey conducted with a wide range of RPA solutions, 41% of companies said it was challenging to maintain automation. RPA implementation involves a good amount of software and hardware costs. It requires expertise to design, develop, implement, and keep the RPA solution. With a focused strategy and operating process, the total cost of ownership can become a manageable challenge, and the process could stay intact quickly.
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Security
Introducing RPA solutions means it would access several crucial legal, financial, and security systems. This includes CRM, ERP, accounting software, customer information, etc. Without proper execution, there is a huge chance of data misuse, cyber-attacks, or employee mistakes. As such, it is essential to secure the solution and the software supply chain. As it happens, this is a task to be undertaken with a significant amount of domain expertise.
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Infrastructure and Systemic Issues
A survey by Deloitte showed that the need for internal and IT resources is one of the top challenges companies face regarding RPA adoption. The same study showed that only 3% of companies have the proper infrastructure for intelligent process automation and operations scaling. With suitable interconnected systems and skills, crafting an effective RPA solution that delivers sustained impact will be easier.
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Setting Realistic Expectations
This is, by far, one of the most notable RPA adoption challenges organizations face. One must understand that RPA has certain limitations. It’s not the panacea to all the operational issues and productivity roadblocks. Without realistic expectations, even successful RPA programs risk delivering underwhelming results.
Ways To Overcome These Challenges
RPA adoption is possible through methodical planning and the right partnerships. With RPA adoption, companies can fully leverage the benefits of RPA.
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Working with Expert RPA Implementation Partner
As mentioned, deep knowledge of the technology and a rich understanding of the business domain are critical to crafting RPA solutions that work. A partner like Ellicium would be able to understand the specific issues each organization is looking to address and define the right technology-led solution to deliver an impactful solution.
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Opting for the Right RPA Solution
It is essential to choose the right RPA solutions that can deliver results in the organization’s specific context. Many factors will go into making this crucial technology choice, like the likely load, data volumes, systems that need to be integrated with, the required pace of the process, etc. An expert technology partner will help drive the apt choice of platform.
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Maintaining A Proper Testing, Security, and Review Process
To safeguard security, a team within the RPA management can monitor and report any bot issues. Organizations need robust authentication programs to modify risks with sensitive data and legal documents and encrypt all sensitive information. Additionally, a built-in mechanism is essential if the organization deals with massive data. This system would monitor tasks and create alerts when an error occurs.
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Dealing with Technical Ambiguity and Mismanagement
To ensure the successful implementation of RPA projects, it is essential to diminish technical ambiguity and mismanagement. Conducting awareness programs is necessary for the team implementing the RPA solution. The team also must understand the RPA model and its functionalities. This includes a complete understanding of how RPA adoption works in all aspects of a business — workforce, sales, inventory, customer acquisition, talent acquisition, finances, data management, etc.
Conclusion
RPA solutions are among the most sought-after technologies in the market today. According to Grand View Research, the global market size of RPA will reach $30.85 billion by 2030. Companies know that RPA can provide powerful business outcomes. Working with the right partner is the most essential aspect of overcoming the RPA challenges. Ellicium works with enterprises by using its established RPA Implementation and Managed Services programs, solution accelerators, and RPA R&D lab. Please reach out to us for a detailed discussion on RPA.