How Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Can Benefit Your Business?

Today’s businesses face tremendous pressure to cut costs while improving products and customer services. Robotic process automation (RPA) creates a path to reaching those and other goals. Before you try to apply RPA software to your business processes, take some time to learn about the technology, how other organizations use automation platforms, and how CampTek helps businesses like yours embrace digital transformation that benefits their operations.

 

 

What Is Robotic Process Automation (RPA)?

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) lets businesses automate repetitive, rule-based tasks by using software robots, also known as “bots.” Well-designed bots mimic human actions, such as clicking, typing, copying and pasting data, and other routine tasks.

RPA software can be configured to interact with various software applications and systems, including enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and customer relationship management (CRM) software. By automating these tasks, businesses can improve efficiency, reduce costs, and free up human workers to focus on more complex, value-added tasks that rely on creative intelligence.

Businesses often use RPA to automate time-consuming tasks that tend to generate errors when done manually. Examples of tasks that can be automated with RPA include data entry, data validation, report generation, invoice processing, and customer service inquiries. While a human employee will likely make mistakes when inputting hundreds of lines of data, RPA can perform the task without any errors.

Overall, RPA has the potential to transform business operations by increasing efficiency, reducing errors, and improving customer experiences. It is a rapidly growing technology being adopted across industries. These benefits mean it will probably have a significant impact on the future of work.

 

Common Ways RPA Can Benefit Businesses

Robotic process automation (RPA) can benefit businesses in several ways. When you have the right bot working for you, you can expect to see benefits like:

• Increased productivity from automating manual processes that take much more time for human employees to complete
• Better customer service as bots address simple requests while human employees can concentrate on more complex issues that need creative solutions
• Fewer errors from moving redundant tasks from human employees to bots that don’t get tired, bored, or distracted
• More scalable operations that adjust to your evolving workflows and busy seasons
• More insightful analytics from accurate data captured and transferred by RPA bots
• Improved workflows that let you take a strategic approach to creating triggers and automated responses

If you want to learn more about the business benefits of RPA, visit our RPA Services page or watch our RPA demonstrations. 

 

Industries That Often Benefit From Robotic Process Automation

Any industry that depends on repetitive tasks could likely benefit from robotic process automation. Could RPA help your business succeed? The following sections discuss how a few prominent industries already rely on automated bots.

 

Financial and Banking Services

Financing and banking services need to input countless lines of data. That amount of information will only grow as more economies embrace open data for individuals and institutions, an approach that could increase GDP from 1% to 5% by 2030.

The massive amount of data weighs heavily on financial institutions. Unfortunately, many have developed different analytical models for approving loans, offering credit cards, and other services.

Camptek introduced RPA to one organization that didn’t have a strategic approach to updating its loan models. Model inconsistencies could contribute to increased risk in some branches. If some loan agents stray too far from the approved model, they could give loans to high-risk businesses and individuals.

Camptek used software robots to collect data from diverse sources, including emails and spreadsheets, transform the data into a uniform format, and aggregate information for easy access.

We then ran over 500 tests to make sure the automations could handle a broad range of aberrations, such as typos and inconsistent formats from applicants. The tests further honed the bots’ accuracy and contributed to the organization’s ability to process data quickly and make decisions without interference from inaccurate data.

 

Healthcare

Every organization associated with the healthcare industry must follow strict rules that protect patient privacy. In the US, companies must follow HIPAA regulations to protect patient data. That can become a burn when analyzing information to discover emerging health trends, such as virus outbreaks. The regulations can also make it difficult for employees to access and share files while complying with HIPAA standards.

Recently, electronic health records (EHRs) have made it easier for healthcare organizations to share information with authorized practitioners without violating regulations. EHRs also create an excellent opportunity for organizations to introduce RPAs that can collect data efficiently while complying with industry regulations.

Of course, challenges in the healthcare sector go far beyond protecting private data. You also need to make services more accessible by cutting costs and improving efficiency.

One healthcare company that partnered with CampTek wanted to shift from manually entering patient data to capturing information digitally. The manual process meant spending about two minutes on each file. With more than 3,500 documents to process, the organization needed to pay employees for at least 167 hours of work. To make matters even direr, the organization had a 30% error rate that interfered with record keeping.

CampTek solved the issue by giving the partner an RPA that reduced data entry time by 32 hours per week (about 252 hours for each two-month period). The trained bot also lowered errors significantly. Seeing this success, the healthcare system asked for several more robotic process automations.

 

Other case studies in the healthcare sector include:

• Insurance companies that need to process claims quickly without generating errors
• Healthcare providers that need to check patient eligibility despite operating in a complex industry that includes hundreds of health insurance plans

Regardless of the challenge, RPA bots can perform detailed tasks quickly to save money, improve access, and stay within industry guidelines.

 

Insurance

Insurance companies need to respond to claims as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, recovering reimbursements from third-party insurers isn’t always easy. Even if the insurance company pays for claims immediately, it could end up waiting weeks or months for compensation. To make matters even worse, the complexity caused by delayed payments introduces opportunities for increased fraud.

CampTek helped solve these problems with RPA software that could reconcile documents from different systems, generate chase letters, process payments, and create weekly reports that drew attention to outstanding balances.

 

Call Centers

Robotic process automation is perfect for call centers because bots can perform routine jobs accurately while giving representatives more time to focus on customers. You get higher customer satisfaction, lower training time and costs, and faster customer handling time.

CampTek has worked with several call centers to develop bots for:

• Managing passwords
• Marketing
• Connecting customers and agents to multiple digital systems
• Streamlining agent workflows
• Finding and merging duplicate accounts

One company encountered a challenge when it found that its chatbots and SAP CRM were based on different systems. This made it difficult for agents to know what customers had already done with chatbots. Someone calling for assistance might have already used a website chatbot to create an account. That didn’t mean the CRM had a record of the account.

A manual approach would have forced call center agents to use two systems simultaneously, which would have wasted time and distracted agents from serving customers. CampTek Software provided a backend RPA bot that connected the chatbot and CRM. Integrating the systems in this way saved the company about 3,000 hours of work each month.

 

Logistics

The economy experienced a lot of logistical challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. As countries closed their borders and people kept their distance from each other, consumers found it difficult to buy everything from cars to bathroom essentials. The pandemic highlighted the importance of maintaining flexible supply chains that can adapt to emerging situations.

RPA bots can support logistics professionals streamline business processes related to inventory management, supply and demand, purchase order management, and even tracking international shipments.

CampTek has helped companies access RPA bots for these and other logistics challenges. For example, one company struggled to update its international arrivals and departures for air and ocean freight. Tracking arrivals and departures manually required a lot of effort, especially for freight moving between countries.

CampTek’s InvoiceBot quickly learned how to streamline and automate the process. RPA increased processing speeds and improved data entry accuracy. Just as importantly, RPA bots can work 24 hours a day without taking breaks. As shipments arrive and leave ports, automated bots can process invoices, capture data, and submit information to the appropriate places. The software does this efficiently and inexpensively. Instead of hiring a team of people to handle invoices, the company can rely on business process automation and one or two people overseeing its functionality.

 

Potential Challenges and Limitations of Robotic Process Automation

All technologies have potential challenges and limitations that users must consider. Robotic process automation isn’t an exception to that. Make sure you know about the challenges and limitations you might face after adopting RPA bots to streamline your business processes. In most cases, CampTek can help you find a solution that eliminates or seriously reduces these issues.

 

Integration With Legacy Systems

RPA requires integration with existing systems and applications, which can be a challenge if those systems are outdated or not well documented.

CampTek can work with you to create RPA bots that integrate easily with your existing IT ecosystem, including legacy systems that might otherwise require complicated APIs.

 

Complexity of Implementation

While RPA technology is designed to be user-friendly, implementing it can still be a complex process that requires specialized skills and expertise.

CampTek will help your team how to get the most out of UiPath StudioX, a popular no-code system that makes automation easier. Of course, there is a learning curve. CampTek lowers the barrier to entry by giving you an onboarding session and annual support. You don’t have to start using StudioX without training. Even a little onboarding goes a long way.

 

Limited Ability to Handle Complex Tasks

While RPA is effective at automating repetitive and rule-based tasks, it may not be well-suited for more complex tasks that require judgment or decision-making skills.

If you need a solution for more complex tasks, CampTek can give you between one to 10 bots capable of handling various levels of complexity. High-complexity bots will likely need more development and a strategic solution design. Talk to CampTek about accessing robotic process automation bots that can handle complex tasks.

 

Continuous Maintenance and Updates

RPA requires ongoing maintenance and updates to ensure that it continues to operate effectively and efficiently. After StudioX onboarding, you should have the basic skills needed to retain and maintain your bots. You can also ask CampTek’s experts for assistance during your annual support meeting.

 

Security Concerns

RPA can create new security risks if not properly implemented and managed. Businesses need to ensure that their RPA systems are secure and compliant with data privacy regulations.

Your security concerns will likely depend on the industry you work in. CampTek works with organizations in several industries with strict regulations – such as healthcare and banking – so our team can help you address any security issues that concern you.

 

Find the Right Partner for Your Automation Platform and RPA Software

Benefiting from robotic process automation often depends on choosing a partner that can help you reach your goals. If you don’t have much experience in this area, you might encounter a lot of challenges that prevent you from improving productivity, reducing errors, and giving more time for employees to concentrate on critical tasks.

CampTek is a UiPath Certified Professional Services organization with years of expertise working with RPA. Give your organization a head start by contacting our team to learn more about how we can help. In addition to building a few bots that improve your business processes, we can teach your staff to create bots that perform meaningful tasks within your business.

Want to see how we can help? Contact us today to get a demonstration and talk to one of our representatives.