What are RPA Challenges and How to Overcome them?

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is an emerging technology that automates repetitive or routine tasks. Since it is an emerging technology, there might be several RPA Challenges that an organisation may have to face when implementing it.

According to a study by Statista, the market of RPA is expected to grow by more than 11 billion GBP by 2030 worldwide. This global economic growth in RPA is an increase of more than 10 billion GBP compared to 2020.

Seeing these unprecedented growth factors, we should understand the importance of the risks and challenges faced in RPA adoption among the actuarial teams and enterprises and implement the correct measures and solutions to overcome them.

In this blog, you will learn what are Robotic Process Automation (RPA) challenges are and how to solve them and improve business growth. Read More!

Table of Contents

1) Overview of Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

2) RPA challenges to look out for before embarking on your automation project

   a) Organisation-related RPA risks and challenges

   b) RPA Process-related challenges

   c) RPA Administration challenges

   d) RPA technical issues

   e) RPA post-deployment challenges

3) How to overcome the challenges of RPA?

4) Conclusion

Overview of Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a software program or technology designed to mimic redundant human actions to complete a particular task. According to the flow of certain repetitive activities, RPA technology can help you configure the software to reproduce them in a sequence.

RPA can be divided into two main types of bots to automate different business operations or processes.

a) Traditional RPA: It is software that can perform simple business tasks that do not require the ability to decide or perform a cognitive activity. This robotic system needs to follow pre-set rules like where to log in, what kind of data is to be collected, how to perform a task, and where to transfer the data. Hence, these types of bots are called rule-based bots.

b) Cognitive RPA: It is an advanced type of RPA that can understand human speech, recognise images and text to automate communications, digitise documents, and analyse unstructured data. These cognitive robots must be custom developed despite their powerful capabilities to implement a particular process.

Following is a list of a few Use Cases of RPA to understand the different industries' options to automate business using Robotic Process Automation (RPA) software.

a) Retail banking: It helps with banking activities like loan processing and validation, account opening and closure, and salary disbursing  

b) Insurance: RPA can help validate client information, issue new policies, and integrate with the legacy of applications to reduce the burden of data transfer. 

c) E-commerce: RPA can gather and check the customer's data automatically. It can also aid in speeding up the upload process by categorising the products. Also, to process various back-office jobs easing the work of customer support agents. 

d) Healthcare: RPA deals with the abundant use of paperwork in the healthcare industry. It can also help schedule appointments, monitor patient health status remotely, and send prescriptions or discharge notifications. 

e) Human resource: RPA can also assist an HR professional in the initial screening, managing offer letters, and automating the onboarding of new hires according to company policies.

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RPA challenges to look out for before embarking on your automation project

RPA is a software-based automation process used on bots to perform a few menial businesses to accelerate the firm's operations and minimise costs. RPA automates repetitive tasks and workflows, allowing organisations to increase efficiency, minimise costs, and improve accuracy. Even though there are several Benefits of RPA, there are many challenges to using automation technology. Some of them are discussed as follows:

Organisation-related RPA risks and challenges

Following is a list of RPA risks and challenges related to the organisation.

Irregular business and IT partnership/affiliation

This is one of the prominent RPA Challenges faced during the RPA implementation. Usually, businesses tend to ignore or separate IT responsibilities when implementing automation. This involvement delay of the IT department until the concept phase gets validated causes disbelief and unrest among the clients.

Solution:

Your business development department can signify the RPA’s focus to align with the IT department. You can highlight that RPA is not a complete substitute for an IT system and is open to discussing or addressing any security concerns.

Also, establishing an RPA competence centre can ensure active two-way communication between businesses and IT staff.

Poorly defined Rights, Authority, and Responsibility

Poorly defined roles and responsibilities of an RPA project is another challenge an organisation faces. These undefined roles can confuse the involved members and hinder the decision-making process. Once the RPA solution is implemented, each member or employee of an organisation must understand their responsibilities. 

Solution:

It is crucial to clearly state the respective roles, rights, and responsibilities for the various project aspects to increase the success rate and follow a smooth process.

Looking up the wrong business case

Selecting a wrong or unrelated business case study to design an automation system can drastically affect the organisation's profitability.

Solution:

It is vital to choose the right case study as an example for designing the automation of your business. You must pick a case study that matches the exact objective and requirements of your purpose or aim to achieve. RPA can be implemented in two ways, which are the Traditional way and the Cognitive way.

a) Traditional way: This RPA automation method does not require intellectual ability, as it concentrates on performing repetitive tasks to replace human actions. This way will help cut high costs and save more time.

b) Cognitive way: You can optimise your RPA automation tasks by instilling necessary commands into your bots to recognise, analyse, and automatically deliver an apt result or response.

Nonetheless, you must also consider other variables like investment & maintenance cost, time and other relevant factors.

Lack of a clear RPA design or strategy

Planning an essential RPA automation strategy is vital to avoid problems. Implementing an RPA automation technology will take ample time and planning that needs to be calculated well before the execution.

Solution:

You must consider the following points when defining an RPA strategy and self-assess or analyse these questions to help you guide through the project.

a) What is the objective of this RPA automation?

b) What are the criteria for measuring the results?

c) What kind of necessary change management strategies must be implemented?

d) Will this RPA be a permanent solution to achieve your ambition?

e) How frequently does your RPA needs to be updated?

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RPA process-related challenges

Here is a list of process-related challenges or issues faced during RPA automation.

Selecting an inaccurate process

Not every process suits RPA. Also, there might be significant variances in cost savings while automating a small and large RPA process. Hence consider choosing an appropriate RPA process capable of delivering value to the organisation.

Solution:

Following is a list of a few characteristics you must contemplate when evaluating the influence on the RPA automation process.

a) The process structure must follow the standard rules and specify the required routine human actions.

b) Automation will become challenging if the process is frequently changed.

c) Processes that are used frequently must be analysed and categorised systematically to avoid rarely used functions. 

d) The complex processes which involve high-level cognitive ability must be avoided as they might not be ideal for RPA automation. Also, the result might not match the customers' expectations due to improper or inefficient communication.

e) As the number of variations increases, the RPA automation costs will be higher for automation.

f) By choosing the process that has the best business impact, you can gain better and quick automation results.

Once the process is selected, ensure that the RPA automation team understands each task concerning that business.                                                                             

Automating an unoptimised process

Streamlining the unoptimised process before automation can only fail to deliver the results. It is necessary that people stick to their regular trend when performing specific repetitive actions, even if that is not the optimal solution.

Solution:

To find a solution to this problem, you must simplify the process by locating and eliminating unnecessary steps. Utilise authentic or trustworthy resources like RPA Developers, subject-matter experts, and Business Analysts to minimise this problem.

RPA administration challenges

Following are the administration-related issues of RPA.

Automating the complete process

Practically it is not always possible to achieve automation of the whole process. Almost 80% of automation can be achieved with minimum effort. While the rest 20% of the automation process will require that extra effort and expenses to move beyond that line.

Solution:

To rectify this RPA problem, it is better to analyse if it is necessary to automate the process. If not, you can list the frequent tasks that require repetitive action and combine them with the RPA tools or technology.

Investing in remaking a particular tool or solution instead of picking it up from the market

If a similar reliable tool is available in the market, you don't have to invest in reinventing the same RPA tool. You may have to pay a meagre amount and get your licensing done to obtain that RPA tool. 

Solution:

You need to check through the plethora of automation solutions available in the market and confirm if any of those tools meet your needs. These ready-made RPA tools can help you save massive amounts of time and money. You can get this ready-made RPA tool cross-checked by the automation team to verify if it suits your required custom-made RPA solutions.

RPA technical issues

Here is a list of Technical-related challenges or issues faced during the RPA automation.

Inadequate infrastructure

The organisation may not get the desired output in the absence of a suitable infrastructure that can support RPA deployment.

Solution:

To find a suitable solution to this RPA Challenge, you can analyse the current aspects of the existing infrastructure and develop the new capabilities your organisation would require after RPA automation.

The infrastructure of your organisation must comprise these two aspects.

a) It must be potent enough to run all your requirements.

b) Must possess 24/7 operating facilities.

Additionally, you need to ensure that your automation system is centralised. This centralised system will assist you in countering any damage caused by external factors when making any updates.

Inappropriate scaling measures

Scaling is one of the most challenging RPA processes. As witnessed in a few cases, the bots may underperform if the data flow increases.

Solution:

You can shift your complete focus from the bot to a better-integrated process. You can add up the number of bots and implement individual work processes ensuring that they are independent of each other. Also, keep the design simplified and ensure to get an audit for the deployed RPA solutions.

Involvement of third-party in your work

If the automation process involves interaction with a third party, you will understand the struggle to keep the process stable and unwavering. Bots fail to process the variable tasks when there is incomplete or irregular information.

Solution:

You can monitor and enhance the RPA software with digital technologies to handle the variations and improve responsiveness. Also, you can inform the third party about the requirements of your organisation and direct them to provide the data or documents in a precise format consistently.

RPA post-deployment challenges

Finally, let us analyse the post-deployment challenges of RPA.

Poor maintenance

Organisations may need to modify their RPA technologies and consider changing rules as per the business requirements. Monitoring automated processes will enable you to find underlying problems overlooked by the RPA team during the deployment. Also, the bots might become confused and make mistakes if there is even a minute modification to the process.

If an RPA system functions as intended and is left unaltered, it may deteriorate with time. The RPA tool can develop flaws, and the database might reach its capacity and experience a data overflow.

Solution:

To solve this problem, the companies must designate a team or an individual to take ownership and ensure all the necessary tasks are fulfilled. 

a) You must ensure that all the RPA tools and software are regularly updated. 

b) Monitor and interfere with the automation process as and when it is necessary. 

c) Ensure your RPA system is free from cache registers and your data is safely stored as a backup. 

d) Occasionally, check your system's forbearance to understand its level of performance.

RPA-related security failures/concerns

Another possible weakness that might be influenced is the use of RPA access. Bots can have access to crucial business systems like CRM and ERP. These bots are allowed to transfer data around among various operations.

Solution:

To overcome this security-related RPA Challenge, we can follow these measures.

a) Implement a two-factor identification for each bot by assigning unique identification credentials.

b) Design and strategise RPA software or tools so that they can be reviewed and monitored for suspicious activities by identifying the gaps in the process.

c) Limit the access for the RPA bots to their specific systems and tasks that they need to perform.

d) Lead the RPA deployment, development, and operation by creating a risk management framework.

How to overcome the challenges of RPA?

Following is a checklist to help you analyse and prepare to develop an RPA automation system.

a) Identifying the right processes: Organisations must identify the right processes suitable for automation. As not all processes can be automated, some may not be worth automating. Therefore, organisations need to thoroughly analyse their processes to determine which ones are suitable for automation.

b) Entrust the definite roles and responsibilities: Assign the project designations and controls to specific individuals to oversee the automation activities. Mobilise an RPA strategy in the organisation to focus on your automation objectives, growth opportunities, evaluation metrics, etc. 

c) Integration with legacy systems: Many organisations have legacy systems that may not be compatible with RPA tools. Therefore, integrating RPA with legacy systems can be a significant challenge that must be carefully considered.

d) Managing change: RPA implementation requires significant changes in business processes and operations. This can be a challenge for organisations resistant to change, and it may take time for employees to adapt to the new way of working.

e) Effective involvement: Ensure that the business, IT departments, and the third party is involved in this entire RPA process for better interaction. Also, assess your infrastructure and make necessary developments, if needed. 

f) Data security and privacy: RPA involves the use of sensitive data. Hence, businesses must ensure that data security and privacy are maintained throughout the automation process.

g) Scalability: RPA implementation can be complex and expensive, especially when upscaling the automation. Thus, businesses need to have a clear strategy for scaling up RPA while ensuring it remains cost-effective.

h) Maintenance and Support: Once RPA has been implemented, it requires regular maintenance and support. This can be a challenge for organisations which do not have access to the relevant resources or expertise to maintain and support RPA.

You can go through this above checklist to ensure that it may help you to overcome most of the RPA Challenges.

Conclusion

Overall, while RPA offers significant benefits to an organisation, addressing these RPA Challenges is essential. To maximise the benefits of RPA in an organisation, you must ensure the successful implementation of RPA, overcoming all the challenges.

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