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Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has been a growing area of interest for a few years now—and for good reason. RPA holds the promise of automating repetitive business processes (such as the common steps performed in order processing), thus freeing up knowledge workers for higher-value work that requires a human touch (such as customer service). The benefits include not only increased efficiency and the commensurate cost savings, but also higher job satisfaction since employees are not tasked with soul-crushing repetitive “grunt work.”
But what are companies looking for with their RPA investments? To find out, Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., which has a strong focus on RPA, commissioned Keypoint Intelligence to conduct a survey of US CFOs and CIOs to investigate the prevalence of RPA solutions within their organizations and the challenges they have encountered with the technology. The sample size featured 100 executive respondents from companies with 500 or more employees (the mean revenue for the group was $2.1 billion) within three key vertical industries: finance/banking, healthcare, and manufacturing.
The findings confirmed that the three industries are in different phases of the RPA journey. Organizations in the manufacturing sector are further along the RPA adoption curve than those in the other verticals studied, having deployed the technology earlier and for more processes (averaging 11 automations), with finance/banking companies not far behind. While healthcare organizations are the latest adopters of the three verticals, they represent the greatest growth opportunity for RPA providers: 87% of healthcare CFOs/CIOs indicated that they are considering investment in RPA or intelligent process automation solutions in the coming year.
| What is the greatest challenge or pain point that you’ve encountered when implementing (or considering implementing) RPA or intelligent process automation? |
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But it isn’t all smooth sailing. The executive respondents reported several challenges along the way. Security is the greatest pain points for most companies, with nearly 50% of respondents indicating this as a major challenge. Others encountered were working with third-party providers, selecting the wrong process or business use to automate, a lack of project ownership, as well as no clear implementation strategy.
The good news is that these pitfalls, once recognized, are avoidable. Careful planning is key, which includes making sure that knowledge workers who are actually involved in the day-to-day processes are involved in project scoping and design, not just IT folks. Selecting the right partner is also key to a successful RPA roll-out: one that has experience not only with the type of project at hand, but also with change management within organizations to ensure C-level executives, IT, department heads, as well as front-line employees are aligned on the project goals and implementation.
Log in to the InfoCenter for more information about digital transformation (DX) and RPA trends in our Office CompleteView Advisory Service. If you’re not a subscriber, just send us an email at sales@keypointintelligence.com for more info.
