Taking the High View for Value

RPA succeeds to the extent that customers get substantial value from it. Not just a bit, but a slab. An RPA provider, bearing this in mind, needs to be able to say ‘No’ sometimes in order to fulfill his value promise.

Just because a process can be automated doesn’t mean it should. Or at least not straight away. When an RPA provider does a Discovery run to see what processes you have running and what RPA can offer, the results are written in terms of potential hours saved, volume increase, the complexity of the build, need for reconfiguring the existing process (usually to make it more logical), and the useable data that can be captured. These criteria are guides to where RPA’s value lies.

I have found you can sometimes build value and momentum by going for the low-hanging fruit and holding back on the complex stuff and the process rewrites. But other times, these are necessary first-order tasks, made so by being core processes from which many other peripherals and applications hang.

The analytics derived from a Discovery run is the basis for an informed discussion between the customer and RPA provider. This can take in the wider strategic aims of the company and so make automation part of something bigger. It’s in this higher and wider view that real value is most often seen.