CommScope Inc

Venkat Arakoni, IT Director – SAP & RPA Solutions Delivery

Jumpstarting RPA Programs

Venkat Arakoni, IT Director – SAP & RPA Solutions Delivery

RPAs have come of age and have also grown in popularity over the last several years and have become the tool of choice for Organizations to rapidly increase productivity and reduce transactional costs within a short period of time. However, companies continue to struggle to jumpstart the program and/ or establish measures that maximize the benefits of the RPA program. Below are some key thoughts for Enterprises to maximize the returns on their RPA programs.

RPA Vendor Selection: While RPA vendors are ratcheting up on features and sophistication, these features have to be carefully evaluated forease of use, ability to scale up to sophisticated functions such as AI& ML, cultural fit, quick financial paybacks, RPA support model and other factors including vendor sustainability. Partnering with the right RPA vendor is pivotal in this journey. Conducting proof of concepts with each shortlisted vendor would be a great way to assess vendor RPA applications for organizational fit. For example, if an Organization wants to pursue a citizen development/support model,the selected RPA application should be able to cater to the desired model.

Governance: Executive sponsorship is critical for ramping up and sustaining RPA programs. Unlike large ERP programs where benefits accrue over a longer period, RPA programs are focused on rapid deployments and immediate realization of benefits. Executive sponsorship and strong governance can help keep continued focus on the program charter and more importantly,on the payback from the program. RPA programs require very strong IT and Business partnership and the RPA governance should be reflective of this partnership. Joint COEs can help jumpstart the program through roadshows, communications, change management and demand generation. Increasingly RPA requests are intermingled with other business reporting and citizen development requests. As various COEs mature, Organizations should look to cross pollinate governance constituents to maximize the benefits across related applications. It is critical to empower the Governance constituents to ensure that the execution practices are kept lean and agile.

Intake Process: RPA intake forms can initially be simple (excel sheet or SharePoint form), with functionality added later to automate assessments and workflows. Assessment forms should collect functional, technical and ROI information to be able to make speedy determination of requests. COEs should rigorously whet the RPA requests against the defined criteria before funneling the request for delivery. Due to short life span of RPAs, the expectations are to accrue benefits immediately with full payback within 6 months. Finally, best of breed Enterprises include post implementation assessments to confirm benefits realized.

Once “RPAfirst” mindset becomes mainstream, benefits of RPA start to accelerate exponentially

Demand Generation: There are many ways to spur demand for RPAs. Initially conduct plenty of Proof-Of-Concepts (POCs) and use the POCs to market RPAs to Enterprise consumers. Once key consumers buy-in to the benefits of program, selling and adoption of RPA applications to broader Enterprise becomes easier. There are two broad approaches to generating demand for RPA,Bottom-up and Top-down. Most Organizations start with a Bottom-up approach that involves performing lots of POCs and show & tell to generate consumer interests for automation. Bottom-up approach or Crowd sourcing is a natural first step in the RPA progression. As RPAs gain popularity, potential consumers come up with ideas to automate manual tasks within their respective areas. Bottom-up is a great approach for quickly capturing the low hanging automation opportunities and, more importantly, bolstering the program perception. The next stage of RPA demand generation, however,requires application of the Top-down approach. In this approach, the end to end processes are reviewed across functional areas (including disparate systems),with the intent of capturing all possible automation opportunities within an area. The use cases thus derived are then whetted against the intake criteria and selected for implementation. The Top-down approach is more comprehensive in netting automation opportunities and when done right, will cover the full breadth of opportunities within an Enterprise.

IT Vs Business Supported Model: There are no right or wrong models to support RPA applications. The support decision will hinge on the selected RPA software (some RPA applications are more conducive to citizen development), functionality of RPA being deployed (AI and Machine Learnings require in-depth technology/programming experience), culture & size of the Enterprise and the ability to leverage IT investments (especially in offshore centers & Helpdesk).Organizations can start with a simple support model and evolve the model over a period. Support models should be evaluated periodically to ensure agile delivery.

Organizations will require a5-year roadmap to mature the RPA journey of which Year#1 should be used for demos, roadshows and communications to promote RPA awareness. In the initial years, lowering the bar for ROI and productivity for RPA requests,will help accelerate the deployments and adoption of RPA in the latter years. Once “RPAfirst” mindset becomes mainstream, benefits of RPA start to accelerate exponentially.

The articles from these contributors are based on their personal expertise and viewpoints, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of their employers or affiliated organizations.