This question comes in two parts; first you need to answer when to use RPA in a business, secondly you must answer when and why should a business implement rpa and seek out guidance and assistance for leveraging RPA with an RPA consultant or RPA service provider.
The short answer is:
When a business wants to save money and time by leveraging RPA and ensure that the automation of processes is done efficiently, cost effectively, and utilizing the latest technology
When to use RPA?
Today’s information-based businesses increasingly are looking to RPA to save money and to save time processing the documents and data required to operate and accomplish their day-to-day functions. Businesses are also looking for ways to reduce errors in business processes and to better prioritize human resources.
When there are repetitive rules-based tasks, RPA is often a useful tool that can save money, time, and increase business efficiencies. When a business has processes that involve multiple applications, or legacy platforms that are a part of business functions, RPA is also a good option to explore for optimization.
Processes that will not be changing anytime soon and processes that take time but do not require creative thinking also make great candidates for when to use RPA. Any process or business functions that includes multiple decisions which are yes / no, or some form of multiple choice, lend themselves easily to RPA. When processes are prone to error and are monotonous when performed by a human, they also make great RPA candidates.
However, it is the tasks that if off loaded to an RPA bot that would free up considerable time for humans to be more involved with problem solving, customer engagement, and creative thinking that make the best RPA candidates. All these conditions and factors help answer the question of when to use RPA.
When to hire and use an RPA consultant
If a business thinks it can benefit from RPA, hiring and using an RPA consultant can make a lot of sense. An RPA consultant and RPA consulting company are experts at RPA and can work on any project in a flexible manner. An engagement with an RPA consultant is typically not long term and is more project based. Risk is low and mitigated. Any engagement will first involve discovery, then may move to trial before moving to testing and potential deployment. There is opportunity to change and adjust the engagement at every step.
An RPA consultant will have experience in a business’s industry and vertical, as well as having experience and knowledge of RPA. They will be able to bring RPA best practices from a company’s industry or adjacent industry to ensure a successful deployment. However, the simplest reason to hire an RPA consultant is that they are the experts in RPA. RPA skills are typically not core to business owners and employees at a company that has not used RPA to date.
An RPA consultant will be able to analyze the best tasks to automate. This can be done through executive and employee interviews plus process mining. Once this process is complete an RPA consultant will know the best tools to utilize for each process. RPA consultants are also trained and versed with a variety of RPA vendors solutions and can pick the best solution for each process. An RPA consultant will know how to get feedback from different users to create an automation roadmap. Once the wheels start turning, the RPA consultant will be able to help create an RPA flywheel within a client’s business.
Bringing in an outside consultant may not always be the first instinct of a business owner or mid-sized company CEO or executive, but it is a good one. Ultimately any RPA consultant engagement will be a flexible one and yield the most cost-effective way to explore and deploy RPA. In the case of Valenta, and our focus on SMB and SME, we are always bringing skills not found in client businesses.
When to hire and use an RPA service provider
The reasons to hire and when to use an RPA service provider include all the reasons mentioned above as to when to use an RPA consultant. An RPA service provider is also an expert in RPA. They also will have experience with similar companies and industries as their client companies and will be able to bring best practices and key learnings. They will be able to speak with clients about the best tasks to automate, conduct process mining, and develop a roadmap for automation tasks.
An RPA service provider also excels at providing a cost effective, flexible, and scalable solution for SMB / small and midsize business. There is no more cost-effective solution than to run a managed service. SMB & SME can avoid the large enterprise software costs borne by big corporations when they use the services of an RPA MSP. An engagement with an RPA MSP is also flexible in that all are month to month in nature. The typical commercial engagement is a fee to cover discovery and set up and then a month-to-month fee based on the number of processes and/or the complexity of the processes that are automated with RPA. The ability to be flexible with an RPA MSP also enables scalability for SMB and SME and lets them ramp up or down their automation processes.
And RPA managed service provider also supplies innovation and access to leading edge solutions to SME businesses. This access to innovation, the access to the latest RPA technology, combined with cost effective flexible commercial engagements allow SMB and SME to compete with large enterprise and have access to the same tools via MSP. At Valenta our focus is SMB and SME customers. We also function as both RPA service providers and RPA consultants.
How can Valenta help?
RPA MSPs and RPA Consultants, like Valenta, play a critical role in bringing RPA to the entire SMB / small and midsize business community. We enable our client customers to leverage the same RPA tools that large corporations have access to through direct, but typically expensive, engagements with enterprise class software vendors.
These large corporations also frequently work with big consulting firms who are focused on the Fortune 1,000. RPA managed service providers, like Valenta, can help SMB and SME to focus on their core business, scale at will, and innovate like large companies all while driving down costs in their business and avoiding the risk associated with deploying new and unknown technology
Valenta is here to help. If you would like to learn more about RPA, RPA consulting or RPA managed services, our website is a wonderful place to start. If you would like to have a short conversation to determine if some of this is a good fit for your business, please feel free to Contact us