RPA matters and here’s why…
We recently added AI-powered Robotic Process Automation (RPA) technology to our Liberty Platform capabilities. In this blog we’ll introduce you to Liberty RPA, the benefits that it has for organisations, its limitations, why we think this is great news for you, our customers and why robotic process automation matters.
AI-powered RPA technology gives new and powerful ways to automate key processes across an organisation. According to Gartner, “90% of large organisations globally will have adopted Robotic Process Automation in some form by 2022”. As enterprises look to reduce costs and bring efficiencies, automation will take over routine, repetitive tasks and free-up employees to focus on other higher-level activities.
So, what exactly is RPA?
RPA uses software robots to perform a list of actions to automate a task. This list of actions is typically created by watching the user perform that task in an application’s graphical user interface (GUI) and then perform the automation by repeating those tasks directly in the GUI.
RPA is extensible too, having the ability to integrate with enterprise applications through APIs, connectors into back-office systems and the use of AI services such as optical character recognition (OCR). RPA allows data to be handled in and between multiple applications. For instance, preparing patient data in advance of an appointment with a doctor by collecting the patient history (from multiple systems), mining that data looking for patterns, collating a summary and emailing to the doctor ready for the appointment. We’re already seeing a hospital performing data mining with RPA to identify early warning signs of diabetes and presenting those to the doctor in advance of the patient appointment.
The benefits of RPA
Here are the six key benefits of using robotic process automation:
- Improved quality – by cutting manual intervention of detailed, repetitive processes and delivering error-free results.
- Efficiency savings and increased productivity – by giving hours back to the business to be re-purposed on higher value initiatives.
- Greater operational agility and flexibility – by accelerating processing times and throughput – while increasing capacity to manage spikes of high transaction volumes.
- Improved customer service – by removing pain points, streamlining interactions and increasing response times.
- Happy, motivated, staff – by liberating staff to work on more intellectually challenging, fulfilling work.
- Greater value insights – by improved data analytics visibility that can be used to create business insights into processes for further enhancements.
What’s the catch?
It’s important to note that RPA can only be used to operate systems and software that already exist. On its own, it doesn’t create new applications or new processes (other than by combining existing processes). While it can manipulate data (e.g. by moving it from one app to another), it doesn’t store data itself. It relies on those capabilities already being present in the systems it’s automating. And that’s where technology like low-code comes in to its own.
What is RPA suited to?
RPA is commonly put to use initially in the back-office because this is often where well-established processes which are ripe for automation can be found. Important as those are, there are many exciting use cases being opened up in the front office to deliver a better customer experience (CX). For example, equipping contact centre agents to answer common customer queries more quickly by having a robot get the answers in an instant.
In part two of this blog, we’ll be looking at the new process automation possibilities that open up when combining Liberty RPA with Liberty Create (our low-code development platform).
So, why is this important for our customers?
As Kate Leggett from Forrester states in her ‘Use RPA To Deliver Better Customer Service Experiences’ report (November 2019): “RPA will not reduce headcount; it will just make your agents more effective.” Our goal is to help our customers deliver the best possible CX and RPA will make that even easier to achieve.
RPA within the Liberty Platform makes it a one-stop shop for process automation and customer engagement, blending our low-code, RPA, chatbots, digital messaging and contact centre solutions. Our RPA solution will be faster, easier to use and less expensive than other RPA solutions on the market. Not only will customers get a new, easy way to automate processes, but by combining RPA with Liberty Create, new and more profound process automation possibilities open up. This includes the use of attended bots where robots work alongside people to automate a wider range of processes.
As part of the Liberty Platform, using RPA is made easy so that business users will be able to setup RPA bots to automate the processes they need with IT providing the security, control and governance required, as is done with Create. This means fewer points of failure with simpler audit and investigation and lower on-going maintenance costs.
What makes Liberty RPA stand out?
Liberty RPA’s AI-powered capabilities deliver more resilient robots at lower cost. The robots have AI capabilities including computer vision built in with no external or separate platform to configure or procure. Computer vision allows robots to read the screen and identify icons and other on-screen elements so that even if they move around, the robot process will still work correctly.
Contrast this with some other RPA platforms where an icon not being in the place on-screen where the robot would expect to find it, would cause the robot process to fail.
Optical character recognition (OCR) is another built-in capability that allows on-screen elements to be read enabling the robot process to act upon what it finds.
Finally, Netcall has extensive experience of solution deployment in the most demanding environments with all the security and data protection requirements that entails. We have a deep understanding of the needs of different industries such as the NHS, Police, financial services, utilities and others and can tailor solutions to best match their requirements.
Our Community and AppShare® allows best practice processes and workflows to be made available across our customer base with more than 1,000 members of the Netcall Community sharing applications and knowledge to speed delivery with others.
Look out for our next blog where we’ll take a closer look at how RPA and low-code can combine to open up exciting new possibilities for process automation. In the meantime, if you would like a virtual demo of Liberty RPA robotic process automation, get in touch today.
Liberty RPA demo
German-born, Simpsons-obsessed and with a not-so-secret penchant for Welsh techno, Richard is Netcall’s long-serving CIO – he’s been with us for an impressive 19 years, meaning he’s somewhere between ‘living legend’ and ‘part of the furniture’ around here.
Richard Farrell
Chief Innovation Officer
German-born, Simpsons-obsessed and with a not-so-secret penchant for Welsh techno, Richard is Netcall’s long-serving CIO – he’s been with us for an impressive 19 years, meaning he’s somewhere between ‘living legend’ and ‘part of the furniture’ around here.
