RPA Archives - Simply Flows

New Jobs Process Automation has Created

One technology segment has been rapidly growing in the last few years: the Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Automated processes improve productivity, eliminate human errors, and reduce costs. Automation also has the ability to complete tasks significantly quicker than a regular employee would. Some people fear that robots are taking away jobs from people. And robots are taking jobs that used to be people based; however, automation and robots have the ability to create jobs as well. Here are a few new jobs that process automation has created.

RPA Developer

An RPA developer is a crossover between a software developer, a business analyst, and a project manager. They work with the business operations to analyze current processes and suggest automations for parts or the whole process. The end goal is to transform existing, primarily manual and time-consuming processes into RPA systems. Contrary to their software developers counterparts, RPA developers do not write much code. Instead, they use third-party solutions to build ‘bots’ or ‘robots’, which carry out the manual operations. In addition, RPA developers are responsible for deployment of those ‘bots’, for testing the system, for troubleshooting and fixing issues, and for documenting the new systems. In a nutshell, RPA developers introduce technology that drives up operational efficiencies.

Chatbot Developer

Nowadays companies need to communicate with their customers 24/7, they want their customers to know they care. To help with communication, many businesses add chatbots to their websites. Behind these chatbots are software developers, specializing in implementing chatbot technology. Chatbot developers design and implement voice or text chatbots to be used on websites as a form of a contact center for the customer. Such developers need to have experience in software development, functional design, dialog flow design, and machine learning algorithms. They create chatbot systems that simulate human conversations. Furthermore, they test, debug, and maintain chatbots throughout their lifecycle.

RPA Consultant

RPA consultants bring a combined knowledge of business and technology. They are usually hired by the company to evaluate the current state of operations and to suggest improvements. After initial evaluation, they prepare a strategy for employing automation platforms and tools to achieve higher productivity and efficiency. Implementing RPA may not be straightforward or cheap, therefore RPA consultants rank the business processes by their ROI. Then the organization decides which processes to automate first depending on various factors like budget, time, resources, urgency, and the beforementioned ROI.

RPA consultants need to work across departments and teams to come up with the most suitable solutions. Most all of these specialists engage with clients to identify processes for automation, specify the goals, and then suggest a strategy for achieving those goals. While others take on the implementation and the quality assurance of the solution as well. All consultants must have excellent communication skills, along with advanced analytical and problem-solving skills. Additionally, RPA developers need to have industry-specific knowledge and experience with various platforms.

Process Improvement Analyst

Analysts act as the liaison between the business and the technical team. Their main responsibilities are to understand the business problem and translate that into technical requirements. After this, the tech team is ready to start solving the problem. Analysts need to have a deeper understanding of the business but also knowledge of the underlying technology. Process improvement analysts focus on company’s operations. They analyze business processes and find the ones that need to be improved. The end goal is to streamline processes, eliminate redundancies, and reduce costs.

Ultimately, change can be scary. The idea of automation and systems taking over jobs that were previously done by humans is daunting. But with change also comes opportunity. Process automation creates new jobs to help advance technology even further. RPA tools and systems have the ability to bring us into a new age and we’d better embrace that.

Learn more about how Simply Flows can help you bring automation to your business.

The Best Productivity Tools for Business Interns

Most of us have been interns at some point in our lives. As an intern, you have to learn the ins and outs of a company in a very short period. Intern’s tasks can be very random and not always the most organized. It can be tough to stay on top of the non-streamlined work given to interns. Since many tasks are not set in stone, there could be confusion and miscommunication between the intern and their manager. To avoid such issues and to be efficient and productive, you can use many different tools. These are five of the best productivity tools for business interns.

1. Hootsuite

Companies give interns lots of busy work, such as making and managing posts. Hootsuite helps simplify the process of posting. Rather than switching between multiple apps and posting on each of them, Hootsuite keeps all social media in one place. This is a great productivity tool for business interns because you can schedule posts for weeks at a time so that you never forget to post. Also, the app aggregates your posts’ performance statistics from all social media accounts. It tells you what posts are doing well and which ones are not. Hootsuite is beneficial because it automates your posting schedule and gives you analytics to let you know if you should stick to your strategy or make changes.

2. Canva

One of my favorite tools to use as an intern is Canva. Canva is an app that allows you to create original art or edit photos using different templates. You can easily move, resize, or edit images to your liking and needs. If you had to create an image for emails, a new company logo, an icon, or a banner for social media, Canva is your go-to tool. This is one of the best productivity tools for business interns because of all the features. For example, one of the best features of Canva is its design tab. You are several templates to choose from and can make things from videos to business cards with the click of a button. You are given the creative freedom, as a business intern, to make items quickly and with ease, even if you are not a graphic designer. There is both a free and paid version for the application. People who want access to more features can get the paid version, but as an intern, Canva has a lot to offer with just the free version.

3. Trello

Trello is an excellent app for both project tracking and team collaboration. Through Trello, people can see their weekly tasks and update them according to their completion status, assignment, priority, etc. Interns can organize their workload into a manageable schedule to meet their deadlines. Trello allows other coworkers to see your schedule so that they know when you are busy. Managers can assign tasks to team members and manage workloads, deadlines, and project goals in Trello. This is a beneficial application that increases productivity. It helps you manage and schedule your tasks and communicate what you are currently working on with your team.

4. Grammarly

Grammarly is an essential productivity tool for business interns. Sometimes, you may not have time to go over all your grammatical and spelling errors when writing something. That’s what Grammarly is for. This application catches the majority of mistakes that you have made in a piece of writing. Whether it is a simple comma error or a passage with passive voice, Grammarly tells you where the issues are and gives you suggestions on how to fix them. This is vital for business interns, so emails, letters, presentation slides, and other documents look and sound professional.

5. PomoDone

PomoDone is very helpful with time management. You use a clock to determine how much time you spend on specific assignments. For example, you can schedule yourself to work for 45 minutes straight, then take a 15-minute break to recharge. This will motivate you to focus on your current task and get as much done as possible before the break. It will also prevent you from getting distracted from your tasks since you know you will be stepping away from your work in a short time. PomoDone is a valuable productivity tool for business interns.

Knowing these tools will not only give you a leg up at your internship but at a future job as well. Increasing your productivity as an intern will leave a significant mark on the company. They will be impressed with your work, which will contribute to you performing well in future jobs. Having systems for organizing, correcting, and editing work is vital in the business world, and understanding how to use them can help you be more competitive as a company.

Simply Flows is an application created to help with workplace productivity and efficiency. Click here to read another one of our blogs about productivity in the workplace.

5 Ways Automation Tools Help Improve Customer Relations

Businesses adopt task and process automation at a fast pace. As the technology evolves, it spreads across more and more verticals, roles, and use cases. Automation makes processes faster, smoother, and reliable. In addition, it increases productivity, improves quality of products and services and reduces lead times. The business is automation’s prime beneficiary. However, given the cost savings and productivity gains it brings, customers are positively impacted, too. Did you know that process automation tools can help improve customer relations?

1. Customer Personalization

Communication with customers manually is hard to manage and scale. In fact, it becomes nearly impossible with customers across the globe, trying to get in touch with the company from different time zones. This is where customer experience automation comes in. This can range from personalizing the website when users log in, addressing customers by name or offering personalized recommendations. Personalization makes customers feel appreciated and recognized, increasing their brand loyalty.

2. Quality and Consistency

Automation can remove human errors and make processes run smoothly. When customers interact with a business they want quality and consistency of service. If a customer has made a purchase, they want to track their order from shipment to delivery. Customers can receive real time updates via text messages or emails. Ultimately, the automation tools improve the product or service. And that means a better customer experience.

3. Ease of Use and Customer Support

Improving customer support has become one of process automation’s major trends lately. Some tools have become commonplace – chatbots, for example. Chatbots automatically respond to customer’s questions. They ‘know’ the user well and offer customizations and help based on location, preferences, and other context. Guided tutorials of software products is another real-world application.

4. Improves Relationship

When customers feel appreciated by a business, they are more loyal and tend to return to purchase again. Automation can provide customers with attention and support 24/7. It personalizes the way each customer is addressed and improves the customer’s interaction with a business. Personalization and availability subsequently makes customers feel recognized and appreciated by the business.

5. Scalability

No matter how hard a business tries, there will be a point when customer care specialists cannot manually handle the load of customer questions or issues. There are different reasons for this. For example, customer support may be temporarily understaffed. In other cases the timezone differences reduce coverage. Other times holidays and vacations get in the way. Whatever the case, the business will have troubles responding to customers’ needs. This is where automation offers unparalleled help. Once you have automated a process, it can scale up indefinitely. The best candidate for automation is the first tier of support. That is where customers ask basic questions or need resources like user guides. Automating this first line of support takes a huge chunk off the plate of already overwhelmed support team. Also, it shortens the overall wait time, allowing more people to get help.

Automation has the ability to tailor experiences based on their customer needs. Also, it allows for personalization, consistency and ease of use. And last but not least, many more customers can be taken care of via automation. Therefore, automation tools can improve customer relations between the business and their clients.

Learn how Simply Flows can help improve your customer relations.

Robotic Process Automation: RPA Benefits

What is RPA?

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a software technology. It combines task automation and artificial intelligence (AI) to mimic repetitive processes usually done by people. Modern RPA solutions are much more advanced and dynamic than their predecessors, which only automated simple tasks. Nowadays RPA can recognize patterns, learn from the data, navigate systems, respond to customers’ questions, etc. Robotic process Automation is moving towards Intelligent Automation, fueled by AI. Not only can it achieve the same results as people, but RPA can complete tasks much quicker, without making any mistakes. And that is a game changer for the business – competing for talent, striving for cost effectiveness, and avoiding the high toll of data errors. Let’s further explore the RPA benefits.

Pros of RPA Systems

RPA systems complete repetitive mundane work that is usually the responsibility of knowledge workers. As a result, this increases employee satisfaction and productivity because they are no longer spending hours on monotonous work. Indeed, a study of 10,500 office workers from 11 countries around the world showed that over 75% believe spending time on tasks that could be automated is a poor use of their skills.

RPA saves time and money for the business and improves the overall quality of product and services. Since these systems are more accurate in their executions, they save a lot of money from auditing and correcting errors caused by humans. Furthermore, RPA can handle high volumes of tasks, without the need of overtime or extra hires, once again saving a lot of money for the organization.

RPA Across Industries

RPA systems are versatile, with a myriad of use cases. The technology is applicable across many different industries. It can help the insurance industry with automating the process of reviewing claims or risk mitigation and risk ratings. The healthcare industry is one with an abundance of information and medical professionals spend endless hours manually entering patient information. Many business processes like updating patient information, processing claims, motioning records, etc. can all be completed through automation. Lastly, it can help the manufacturing industry with migrating data, simplifying and updating bill of material statuses.

RPA is moving to the front office at a rapid pace. Customer care becomes more and more involved, dispersed, outsourced, and… terrible. Let’s be honest, keeping a customer/patient/prospect on the phone for half an hour is just not acceptable. Transferring your call between several different tiers/departments/companies is frustrating and inefficient. RPA has a huge potential to improve the journey of the customer and their relationship with the business.

Robotic Process Automation technology is on the rise. It automates manual repetitive tasks and streamlines processes currently done by people. RPA systems have many advantages like saving time and money, eliminating data errors, increasing job satisfaction, and reducing turnover. As RPA systems evolve, more companies will adopt and benefit from such solutions. RPA is a game-changing technology that carries indefinite possibilities. Furthermore, not only does it automate high-volume, repeatable tasks but by doing so it frees up time for impactful work and innovation. RPA is the future of work. Therefore, companies embracing that technology are leaping into the future.

In this article we’ve covered what RPA is and its main benefits. Interested to learn more about why RPA is the future?

Robotic Process Automation is the Future

What is Robotic Process Automation?

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a software that automates repetitive business processes. It utilizes technologies like API, webhooks, screen scraping, and character optical recognition. RPA connects different applications with one another and makes it possible for data to flow through the different applications. RPA software imitates the human interactions with systems but does it in a much faster, reliable, and safe manner. Some of the RPA solutions have low-code capabilities allowing users to build integration scripts. Others are no-code, where even people with no technical experience can automate their work all by themselves. Not surprisingly, RPA has been gaining a lot of popularity and adoption lately. And it’s not going away. Just the opposite, Robotic Process Automation is the future.

Why is RPA Making a Rise?

The RPA market is rapidly growing. According to Gartner, its compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is expected to be 49% between 2020 and 2027. Even though most of the RPA technology had been around for a little while, it really started booming in the last decade. Furthermore, the pandemic and working from anywhere accelerated the adoption of automation by businesses. The RPA market is still nescient and therefore quite fragmented. We are already seeing consolidating happening, as it matures. Currently, the 10 largest RPA providers hold over 70% of the enterprise market. Due to an enormous demand to automate legacy paper-based and manual processes, the need of RPA solutions will continue to grow.

How does RPA Work?

Most RPA vendors offer subscription-based services. Customers can choose between several tiers, depending on their needs. Some may only need a couple of workflows, while others will require a high-volume automation. Many solutions have a free tier or a free trial, so users can try them out before they decide on a purchase. Also, most tools support cloud applications only but there are some that work with desktop software as well.

There are many different ways organizations can use RPA across different departments. RPA can help improve finance and accounting processes, recruitment, supply chain management, customer care, as well as other areas. For example, RPA can assist in processing a huge load of documents like contracts with e-signatures, uploading documents, or approval procedures. Additionally, people specialists can use RPA to update employee information and automate time sheet submission processes.

Where is RPA Headed?

• RPA is still developing and evolving. It started by automating simple tasks and has been evolving to a much more complex solution. Nowadays it utilizes AI technologies like process mining, machine learning, and natural language processing. Next, it will enter the AR/VR world (metaverse).

• Additionally, it is moving from strictly back-office operations like accounting and invoicing to front-office processes like customer care.

• At the beginning RPA was only accessible to the big enterprise due to its high cost. Recently, we see more and more RPA technology offered to the small and mid-size businesses.

• As with the rest of the technology, RPA has also been moving to the cloud. And this trend is going stronger.

• Originally RPA was best suited for the BFSI – banking, financial services, and insurance. Nowadays everyone needs their work automated, so they are more productive.

As RPA is on the rise and as it continues to cement its role in the future, more organizations are starting to adapt. Companies employ RPA to optimize operational efficiency, accelerate an existing process, or to optimize cost. RPA will eventually be an end-to-end intelligent system automating complex business processes. Organizations are already realizing the benefits and will continue adopting the technology. Indeed, Robotic Process Automation is the future.

Learn how Simply Flows can help transform your business .

Time wasted on repetitive tasks is over 40 percent!

A study found that the time wasted on repetitive tasks that could be automated is over 40 percent. Most of those are mundane tasks like data entry, copy-pasting from one application to another, and reporting. Half of them believe that is a poor use of their skills and getting in the way of doing their main job.

Automation Anywhere performed a global study in the fall of 2019. The research included data from 10,500 interviews with office workers from 11 countries around the world.

What were the top takeaways from the research?

Knowledge workers waste over 40% of their time on manual digital administrative processes.
Data entry is the most detested manual task.
Over 75% believe spending time on tasks that could be automated is a poor use of their skills.

The most detested manual tasks?

Data entry
Email
Filing documents
Compiling reports
Managing invoices

Time wasted on repetitive tasks is over 40 percent

Organizations need to take action. Indeed, 87% of the surveyed office workers believe their company should take action to automate mundane processes. 85% find a company investing in automation more attractive. And more than half, 55%, would leave their current employer if the burden of manual work becomes too high.

Not surprisingly, women spend more time on manual administrative tasks – 3.4 hours, compared to 2.8 hours for men.

To conclude, the time wasted on repetitive tasks is over 40%. That hurts employees’ job satisfaction and morale. For employers, that means wasting money, losing high-skilled people, and missing on opportunities to grow and innovate.

Hyperautomation among top 10 strategic technology trends

Gartner identified Hyperautomation as one of the top 10 strategic technology trends for two consecutive years – 2020 and 2021. According to them, hyperautomation is an extension of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) or an evolution, rather, adding Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities on top of the existing task and process automation.

What is Hyperautomation?

In short, it is when RPA met AI. Fun fact, some think ‘AI’ should stand for Automated, not Artificial Intelligence.

Hyperautomation

It is a relatively new concept, comprising the application of technologies like RPA, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Process Mining, and AI to augment knowledge workers and automate processes in ways that are significantly more impactful than traditional automation. Therefore, Hyperautomation will be how next-generation companies streamline business processes and save valuable resources like time and energy.

The role of AI

More and more organizations employ automation. It already provides consistent and significant savings. Also, automation is responsible for eliminating human errors, thus improving data quality and integrity. And last but not least, it positively effects employees’ job satisfaction and motivation.

Organizations’ next step in their digital transformation journey will be to holistically assess, optimize, and streamline their processes. Then they can augment the simple process automation with Machine Learning, NLP, and Process Mining. AI brings in more sophisticated capabilities to enhance the existing task automation, like discovery and analysis of business processes based on event logs, visualizing and measuring of impact, monitoring of performance, and providing real-time intelligence along the way.

Augmenting humans with automation is here to stay. It is clear that organizations need to focus on efficiency and agility to obtain or retain their competitive edge.

To summarize, I’ll quote Gartner’s research: “Hyperautomation is the idea that anything that can be automated in an organization should be automated.”

Visit Gartner’s website to see all trends for 2020 & 2021.

First Public Demo of Simply Flows

The very first demo of Simply Flows took place on 11/11/2020. Devin Walsh and Reverb organized and hosted our presentation. It was a great opportunity to talk about the process automation space and to show our platform for the very first time.

What is RPA? When should I consider it?

Process automation has been around for some time now. However, it’s getting more and more accessible with the low- and no-code automation platforms, that make it possible for anyone to automate their workflows.

Consider employing RPA (Robotic Process Automation) whenever:

Well-defined, uniform tasks are performed frequently
Timing is critical
Data integrity is crucial

RPA Benefits

Why should we even consider process automation? Indeed, let’s find out. Below are the key benefits:

Save time and energy. Do high-value work, instead of busy-work.
Save money. Resources allotted towards customer acquisition or customer care will help you grow and improve your business.
Manual data entry, copying and pasting information from one app to another introduces endless opportunities for human errors. Undeniably, data integrity is way too important to be left to manual processing.
Boost creativity by reducing the mental overload. Let machines do what they were built for and do best – exactly, repetitive data processing tasks. Of course, computers excel at it. Humans, on the other hand, excel at creativity, innovation, and empathy – traits machines will hardly ever have.
Increase motivation and job satisfaction of knowledge workers, once unburdened.

ROI of RPA

Additionally, the strong Return on Investment (ROI) is another key point. While each company will experience different numbers, the ROI has the potential to reach up to 200 percent in the first year of operation.

Watch the demo below to see how Simply Flows can help automate your processes:

Interested to learn more? Contact us, send us an email or join the conversation on social media. Even better, sign up to see for yourself. It’s easy, it’s free, and it’s fun.

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Many cloud apps used by businesses nowadays

Data from a study by Blissfully shows that small businesses use 40 SaaS apps on average. That number gets to 203 apps for companies with over 1,000 employees. Indeed, businesses use way too many cloud apps nowadays. This is partly due to the IT decentralization. Departments, teams, and even individuals choose separate tools for their needs. The result is a variety of apps. And most of them are not connected with each other.

More apps = more inefficiencies

The bigger the number of apps, the more opportunities for inefficiencies. Each application has its own databases and workflows. Data must ‘move’ through different places to assist with decision-making and other business needs. Therefore employees get more and more trapped into manually and repeatedly transferring data between different applications. The cost is high. A lot of energy is spent on busywork, instead of on high-value work. Not to mention all the mistakes people make while manually processing data.

Data silos

The more cloud applications a company uses, the more opportunities for silos of data. Since data is stored in each cloud app’s databases, it easily becomes segmented. Even though some integrations between applications do exist, the reality is that apps rarely ‘talk’ with each other. Therefore, often times employees need to manually piece together data from different sources for their analytics, reporting, or business needs. Silos of data hinder business analytics initiatives and may hide valuable insights from being uncovered.

Best of breed

Teams and individuals opt for the ‘best of breed’ approach, rather than the ‘best of suite’. Indeed, this helps with flexibility and independence but it has its drawbacks when it comes to connectivity, integrations, and reporting.
As organizations continue adopting more and more cloud applications, the need of connecting their apps and moving data between them will steadily rise.

Find out how Simply Flows can help. We can make the data flow seamlessly between your cloud apps. That’s right, no more data silos and no more manual transfers of data between your applications.

Fixing data errors takes 30 percent of the day

We all make errors. Most of the time when we manually enter data or copy-paste information between systems, we make mistakes. Actually, such errors are unavoidable because humans are not good at repetitive tasks. On one hand, we easily lose focus or get carried away in thoughts. On another, we hate such mundane work and rarely give it our all. We all have been there and know how easy it is to do a wrong entry, to paste data twice, or to mess up a number. Later on, we need to go back, find, and correct the mistakes we’ve made. We can imagine how big of a time-sucker that is for the business. Indeed, a study found that fixing data errors could take up to thirty percent of the day.

Gartner discovered that Robotic Process Automation (RPA) can save 25,000 hours in a year.

The average amount of avoidable rework in accounting departments can take up to thirty percent of the day. This equates to savings of 25,000 hours or $878,000 per year for an organization with 40 full-time accountants.

A Gartner study shared these findings back in 2019. Gartner’s analysts interviewed over 150 chief accountant officers. Also, they gathered data of the RPA adoption at those companies.

Automate to eliminate data errors

Apparently, fixing data errors is a big problem for organizations. The good news is that there is a solution for it – process automation. When the data processes are automated, errors are eliminated. Additionally, organizations save a lot of time and money by not paying employees for such tasks. Knowledge workers are able to focus on high-value work. Once unburdened, people have time to be creative and contribute to the company’s innovation. An added benefit is that job satisfaction goes up and turnover goes down when employees feel that their skills are better utilized. And last but not least, an organization can employ RPA without breaking the bank!

Do you need help with automating any of your processes? Connect with us or have a look at our product page.

Category Archives: RPA