Is Robotic Process Automation a gold mine of operational insight?
In this interview, Johnny Ramondino, President of IN-RGY Consulting, and Brian Terrell, Managing Partner of BTerrell Group, discusses the advantage of utilizing Robotic Process Automation to gather data-driven operational insight.
This is the fifth in a series of articles and videos where we get Johnny’s take on deploying RPA alongside mid-market Cloud ERP.
Brian Terrell, Managing Partner of BTerrell Group and an Intacct Partner, creates business process automation using Cloud ERP and leading automation tools, including RPA software. RPA automates many business processes faster than other options by accessing applications through the user interface in a code-free and non-invasive manner.
Transcription:
Brian Terrell:
The obvious advantages of RPA to mid-market client companies are cost savings, speed, and accuracy. A hidden advantage is operational insight or intelligence. Can you speak to this unanticipated benefit?
Johnny Ramondino:
The intelligence obtained by using a robot is one of the most important benefits of RPA. As the robot is at work, or doing any activity, it’s gathering and processing information throughout the execution of the process, providing sound bites of intelligence you wouldn’t receive from a human doing the same task. As an operational manager fine-tuning business processes, this is critical information.
Examples include:
How long did it take for person A or B to perform the task?
What drove the time?
Did they have to wait to execute the task they needed to do, OR was the system not responding quickly enough, OR were they not well-versed in the application so it took them longer to do that same task?
Operational intelligence is really difficult to gather from people and is seldom objective, unless you conduct time studies or shadow people. Even the software you can deploy for that task is often very expensive.
As a robot performs tasks, it automatically logs all these components of information. How long did it take for the robot to do every activity? When did it do it? When did it start? When did it stop? What were some of the decision points—meaning task A, B, and C happened and then the decision it had to make. How often was answer A given versus B or C? All this information is being logged,reported on, and available for review.
The operational intelligence you gather as a result of utilizing robots is a gold mine of information. It’s important to not just understand operational efficiency, but also understand business needs. Based on this information, you can choose to reschedule tasks to run after hours when computing power is available or even schedule it to run on the weekend, eliminating redundant tasks. Operational analysis can now be done at a much deeper level than before. Every day there's an opportunity for continuous improvement and it’s a lot more consistent and data-driven.
BTerrell Group solves business automation challenges for mid-market companies with Intacct and an automation toolkit, which includes Robotic Process Automation software, Intacct Platform Services, and other leading automation technologies. With Intacct and RPA, client companies achieve more automation using fewer resources, resulting in a rapid return on investment. Contact Brian at brian.terrell@bterrell.com to start the conversation.
Read more on the subject of Robotic Process Automation
The Basics about Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
Robotic Process Automation, More value, less investment
An RPA Q&A, Five things to know about Robotics Process Automation
7 Ways Robotic Process Automation helps the Mid-market
A day in the life of a RPA midmarket enterprise bot
Scaling RPA to the mid-market enterprise
How does RPA affect IT and DevOps?
RPA's role in automation in finance for midmarket financial services companies
RPA removes the barriers for a move to Cloud ERP