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Robotic
Process Automation - Capabilities Overview |
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Understanding
the Basics |
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Introduction
Every few years,
IT / ITeS industry is seeing a new product or technology which bring exciting
new UI features, capabilities for users to configure the application easily and
a lot of new buzz words and concepts for technology enthusiasts to get
accustomed of.
Robotic Process
Automation and Artificial Intelligence are 2 such buzz words which have excited
fast growing organizations and IT industry equally and are really catching up
fast.
While for the
organizations, it opens up new avenues to achieve higher operational
efficiencies and cost reduction, eventually impacting the bottom line; for IT
industry it opens up new horizons to increase the client base with new
offerings and increase the technological footprint.
In this blog, we'll focus on the overview of
Robotic Process Automation - the basic understanding of RPA, the types of RPA
and what encourages the fast growing organizations to go for it.
What is RPA?
In this
competitive consumer market, organizations face a perpetual challenge of moving
swiftly while keeping the costs of operations low while increasing the consumer
satisfaction level and service offering quality.
Though organizations are aware that to reduce
the costs, they have to achieve higher operational efficiencies; however, there
is a direct impact on bottom line if they hire more staff to achieve that.
Increasing the working hours, paying overtimes to existing staff again dents
the profits. To alleviate these challenges, organizations are finding their
savior in 'Robots'.
In simple words,
RPA tools (Robots) emulate the manual steps as done by users across and through
applications from UI entries. RPA tools operate by mapping a rule-based workflow
process which the "robot" can follow to the 'T'.
An important
point to note here is that these Robots can be implemented agnostic of system
or application. These Robots can be as simple as batch file upload automation
to as advanced as a cognitive automation which has self-learning, variable
format processing capabilities. Processes can be triggered manually or
automatically to:
·
Populate data across different systems and
modules within them
·
Run queries on a scheduled basis and perform
data reconciliation
·
Generate and distribute reports
·
Auditing of large volumes of data
·
Trigger downstream activities and processes
Per proven
studies conducted by various institutions and agencies, it has been identified
that in large organizations, there is typically a scope of saving 20-40% of
workload for employees with help of automation and imagine what levels
organizations can achieve with employees having 20-40% more of their time to
focus on value added tasks.
Types of Automation
As mentioned
above, there is plethora of tasks which Robots can do starting from simple,
mundane activities like data entry to super complex activities like generating
a dynamic response to user query based on machine learning and cognitive
abilities.
There are
different stages or levels of Intelligent Automation:-
·
Digital Worker - As evident by the
name, this is the primary or entry level of automation an organization can move
ahead with and still achieve efficiency gains.
This is the typical Robotics Process Automation tool which can perform
tasks like:
o
Data entry
o
Running functions in excel towards data
validation
o
Triggering customized emails with preset content
or standard templates
o
Data comparison
o
Setting up reminders
o
Batch processing and populating mapped fields
o
Queuing and Assignment
·
Digital Reader - This is a secondary
level of automation alternatively referred as 'Cognitive Automation'. Robots at
this stage can perform tasks involving:
o
Machine Learning
o
Pattern or Keyword based recognition which is
evolving over time as Robot sees and identifies more patterns / keywords
o
Data processing across variable formats
o
Dynamic queue assignment based on patterns
o
Complex analysis based on continual
learning
·
Digital Talker - This is an
automation offering which focuses on providing a more interactive experience.
Alexa from Amazon, Google Home are very popular examples of this. These robots
are also called 'ChatBots' as they perform somewhat similar tasks as the
previous classification of Digital Reader'; however have additional text and voice
capabilities and are more communication focused. Robots at this stage can
perform additional tasks involving:
o
Predictive Analysis
o
Customer Servicing
o
Query Resolution based on pattern or keyword
based recognition which is evolving over time as Robot sees and identifies more
patterns / keywords
·
Digital Thinker - This is the
advanced level of automation which is the classic Artificial Intelligence.
Artificial Intelligence tools are somewhat comparable to humans in terms of
intelligence and have their own IQ. Currently, the IQ of these AI tools is
significantly lesser than that of humans. Per studies performed in 2016, IQ of Google's A.I. (47.28)
is nearly two times that of Siri (23.94), however a six-year-old child beats
both of them when it comes to smartness and thinking capability. An average
person's IQ is in range of 85-114.
As
the IQ of these applications or tools increase, to a certain point it'll be
beneficial for people and once the IQ surpasses that of average human, then we
all know what will happen - we all have seen sci-fi moviesJ.
Nonetheless,
the Digital thinker can perform below activities in addition to the activities
listed for previous categories:
o
Predictive Analysis based on cognitive learning
and complex algorithm
o
Complex Mathematical Analysis
RPA Benefits
Conclusion
Organizations
need to be smart enough to understand their IT Landscape, business process
steps and identify the correct tasks which can be automated with help of
Robots. Although other competitors might be at a higher level of automation, an
organization needs to be realistic in its approach and move with Automation
stages through a proper strategy and careful planning to reap the benefits of
automation.
Reference
1.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/02/google-ai-has-almost-twice-the-iq-of-siri-says-study.html