Is robotic process automation the future?

Process automation has been growing in popularity for a number of years. For a long time it may have felt like the preserve of big businesses and those in the IT sector. But today process automation is becoming mainstream. Companies of all sizes are finding out that it is now possible to manage process automation without having to put in serious investment or interrupt their day-to-day operations.

So, does this mean that robotic process automation (RPA) is going to the be the future for businesses? Well, there are certainly a number of extremely valuables uses for it everywhere from document management through to invoice processing.

Here we take a look at how RPA can impact your business to assess whether this is something that could become a key part of the future of your company.

Productivity

Undoubtedly one of the major advantages of investing in process automation is the potential benefits around business productivity. One of the biggest challenges for many businesses is overcoming the large number of tasks that involve manual entry. These tasks are often slow, repetitive and extremely time inefficient.

But these types are tasks are those that are considered ideal from the perspective of process automation as they can be easily designated to machines and software. This means that tasks that would have previously taken up a great deal of worker time can now be carried out in the background.

Freeing up time

Of course, process automation’s impact on productivity is naturally a very good thing for the way that your business operates. But it also has an interesting knock-on effect that actually creates perhaps an even more valuable benefit.

Given that so much of staff time was previously taken up carrying out manual work that can now be automated, there is now a situation where a significant amount of staff time has been freed up. That is excellent news from a business perspective as it means that those staff who were once busy with manual work can now focus on more business-critical tasks.

Reducing errors

Some of the types of tasks that are suited to RPA are those that require a repeated process carried out time and time again. A good example of this is invoice processing – something that would take up a great deal of a human’s time, but that can be carried out extremely quicky by software.

Another advantage here is that computers that have been programmed correctly simply do not make mistakes. Human error is a common problem in repetitive tasks, so process automation is able to eliminate this problem entirely.

Lowering costs

It is naturally the case that when processes are carried out manually, there will be a certain amount of wasted resources. Process automation minimises the cost of operations which actually goes a long way to increase your profit margins. The little things add up, and as such you could lower your costs and save a significant amount of money.

Better service

Companies that invest in process automation are able to provide customer experiences and services that simply isn’t possible to those who do not. Consider the difference in speed that services are able to be offered at and quality levels are kept extremely high by the level of standardisation created by the automation.

The team at Document Options specialises in process automation – we would love to help your business automate key process to improve your productivity, efficiency and profits. Get in contact with us today if you are interested in learning more.