Robotic process automation (RPA) is a very exciting, but simple software tool, yet 50% or more RPA programs are failing. RPA is not a panacea for digital transformation but it is a highly effective tool in your intelligent automation armoury.
This article highlights 14 rules you can follow to achieve automation success.
1. Begin with the end in mind
Always understand where you are going before you begin your digital transformation journey. Businesses need to clearly articulate the business problem they are trying to solve, and only then purchase the intelligent automation tools they need to deliver the outcomes they want to deliver.
Real transformation involves re-configuring how your organisation delivers value in this digital age (e.g., think Uber and Amazon, not Blockbuster sending DVDs in first class as opposed to second class post).
Set a game-changing aspiration of 35 percent plus impact. Then use RPA and Intelligent Automation (AI) to fundamentally restructure your cost base as you re-image how you deliver value to your customers to gain competitive market advantage.
2. Buy the RPA platform that best fits your organisations delivery needs
First understand the problem that RPA will solve and then pick the right RPA platform for your organisation.
For example, is RPA needed to solve integration challenges between external/internal legacy systems? Is RPA needed to automate back-office processes (e.g. finance, HR, supply chain) or is it needed in the front-office (e.g. call centre, sales teams) or both? Do your business users need to be able to configure their own robots (i.e., citizen developers)?
These are questions that your organisation needs to answer before you pick your RPA platform.
Take as much time as you need to fully understand the RPA platform your organisation needs, understand what RPA can do and what it can’t do. Otherwise, you run the real risk of your RPA implementation falling very short of your initial expectations. Remember to focus on business outcomes not on the number of robots purchased.
3. An intelligent automation toolbox is required to fix your digital transformation light bulb
RPA alone will never drive end to end business transformation. RPA is a powerful tool when business use it correctly but just as Rory McIllroy probably can’t win a major with a 7 iron (though he might) a business can’t digitally transform with one intelligent automation tool.
Limiting yourself to one tool will limit your scope for automation. Businesses must adopt a practical approach to intelligent automation using a sequence of intelligent automation tools to solve well defined, end-to-end business problems that deliver tangible business outcomes (e.g., RPA, AI, ML, NLP, Chatbots, OCR, Python, Excel, .NET, APIs, VBA, process mining, digital workforce and smart workflow software, etc.).
Businesses must use the right tool for the job because it is the best tool, not because it is the tool you just happen to have available.
4. Decide where RPA sits within your organisation
One of your first decisions will be to determine whether the RPA delivery team will sit under IT or Operations. Regardless of where your organization decides RPA should sit, experience suggest it best fits within Operations, IT buy-in is needed from the very start of your automation journey. If your program does not have IT support, it will not be successful.
5. Build in-house capabilities, then coordinate the right teams to deliver your intelligent automation program
Business and technical skills are required to succeed. Business process automation requires both technical skills (e.g., IT, design thinking, lean for digital, RPA, etc.) and contextual knowledge of a business and business processes to prosper. Engage IT from the beginning as you will need software developers (RPA, VBA, Python, C#, etc.), cloud specialists, RPA architects, IT architects, business analysts, security specialists, data scientists, and more besides to run RPA at scale.
IT resources often lack business context.
Therefore, an RPA transformation program also needs subject matter experts with end-to-end business process knowledge who can clearly articulate what is happening in the business and what business outcomes are required from the process too.
You will need a business architect to redesign your organisation for the digital world before you simply automate your current processes.
In addition, common sense; a willingness to try-try-try and try again when things don’t go right the first time; a great dollop of realism; an accountant to help build your business case; an executive sponsor who is genuinely dedicated to the program; an Agile scrum master and a sense of humour are also often required. This mix of skills will help you get the most out of your intelligent automation program.
6. Be willing to invest considerable time, money and energy over many years in your digital transformation program
Tool selection can take 4 months; a pilot should take 8-12 weeks and cost around £50k; the first 6 months of an RPA program will most likely cost you £250k (think licenses; system integrator and consulting help; recruitment cost of an RPA lead/team; cloud installation costs; RPA process analyst; purchase cost of process mining software; etc.) and an end to end and a fully-fledged RPA program with a business case built out over 3 to 5 business years will cost your multiples of that first 6-month cost.
You need to be confident you have counted all of the costs of a multi-year scale RPA / IA program and have built a business case that returns a multiple upside way in excess of your program cost.
Vendors often quote programs paying back after 6-9 months but this is often not the case in larger enterprises where it can take months to simply get a program up and running.
Therefore, any vendor promises that suggest everyone gets their money back in 3-6 months is as questionable as it is indefensible. RPA, done right, is neither cheap nor fast. It can be inexpensive and faster than other methods, but RPA isn’t free!
7. Have your systems integrator put skin in the game
Ensure that your systems integrator is willing to put skin in the game. That way they share both the considerable risks and rewards of your transformation program. Don’t take all of the risk onto yourself, nor be greedy and unwilling to share any financial returns that you never had before.
Vendors will complete gain share agreements if you ask. That way they, and you, have skin in your RPA game.
Don’t short change your system integrator by not putting 100% into working with them side by side so that they and you succeed together. Set meaningful SLAs and measurable KPIs and hold yourself accountable for delivering real business returns. Count returns as a measure of your success not the number of robots in your business.
8. Executive sponsorship for your intelligent automation program is a must
Your intelligent automation digital transformation program needs to be one of your organisations top 5 focuses and an executive sponsor with real money, time and political weigh needs to be 100% behind your program.
As a minimum, an RPA program should have the blessing of the COO and CFO and ideally the CEO themselves.
Anything less than 100% executive (and senior management) support will almost certainly result in your program failing. If the c-suite are not pushing for transformative change then your program probably won’t succeed.
9. Start again if your program does not deliver the value, you said it would
There is no shame in starting again if your current RPA program is not working. RPA can fail the first time if you don’t have the right tool, advice or people running the program.
Alternatively, if there are systemic reasons why your program failed then walk away. Don’t throw good money after bad if there are genuine reasons why RPA / IA won’t currently work (e.g., a sudden merger with another company is taking everyone’s focus).
10. Be biased towards speed and impact but work toward the long term
Build a small centre of expertise (COE) team with the technical, resiliency, and organisational capabilities needed to make automation stick.
Then create an intelligent automation digital factory that rapidly delivers sequences of automation modules into production.
Combine quick wins within a larger, longer-term transformation roadmap.
Quickly test what does and does not work and make changes accordingly.
Optimise and improve your code overtime to deliver sustainable value and move towards your end-to-end target operations model systematically.
Implement design thinking, lean for digital and Agile ways of working to re-imagine the way your organisation captures and delivers values.
11. Plan for worst and hope for the best
Always begin any transformation program with a well-thought-through risk and mitigation plan in advance.
List the top 20 or 30 risks to your IA transformation program and fully work through the mitigation’s that need to be accounted for before you begin your journey (e.g., RPA skills gap, end-user resistance, lack of suitable process pipeline, changing business context, business merger mid-program, etc.).
Organisations always plan for success but when things go wrong (and they will) they then scramble to recover. It’s best to think of all the things that can go wrong before you begin and plan for how you might solve these in advance of them going wrong (i.e. plan for the worst and hope for the best).
Most organisations lack RPA and IA experience. Therefore, you will find that you will learn many lessons as you roll out your program, so regularly update your risks document as you progress.
12. Deploy in the cloud
If you want to digital transform at pace and scale then you will have to deploy your program in the cloud (e.g., on AWS, Azure, or even internally on VMWare).
Cloud offers the speed and flexibility you need to transform at pace.
Cloud services will take to get up and running (e.g., understand, hire cloud talent, secure holes in the firewall, get CISO /risk/compliance/onside; etc.) but will pay for themselves many times over as you benefit from greater returns faster than any other method.
Cloud companies (e.g., Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform) also offer cognitive cloud services (e.g., AI, translation services, NLP, ML, etc.) which can be used to make your digital worker smarter (aka Cognitive or Automation or Intelligent Automation).
13. Prioritise the processes you go after
Process selection is key.
If you select the wrong process, you are setting yourself up to fail before development begins. You need to ensure that you apply clearly defined RPA selection criteria to every process before agreeing to automate. Consider volumes, rules, complexity, change schedule and run time.
For your first process keep it simple yet ensure it delivers enough value so you can shout about it internally. This will help you to get buy in and understanding from the business. Redesign your subsequent processes for a digital world to ensure every process delivers real value against your objectives.
14. Focus on people
Culture eats strategy every day. Folks are worried about automation due to the never-ending negative press around job losses due to robots. Experience has shown that very few, if any, jobs have been lost due to RPA.
Bring digital workers closer to your people by giving your bots real names and introduce them as junior co-workers hire to do the boring work so that people can work on more cognitive, complex and creative tasks.
If you are going to shrink headcount then focus on cutting future hiring costs (i.e., an attrition model) rather than replacing or removing existing staff. Have a well-crafted media campaign constructed that will address all the concerns and opportunities identified from your stakeholder mapping exercise and continue to really listen and communicate with those impacted (positively and negatively) by your organisation’s digital transformation program on an ongoing basis. Build business user confidence in advance and as you progress your program.
