Three Big RPA Implementation Challenges Your Organisation Must Overcome

An increasing number of businesses all over the world are trying to implement RPA. Most of them face issues almost immediately. What’s interesting is that, more often than not, the obstacles are the same for everyone.
In my previous role as Blue Prism Developer at O2, the three giant hurdles we faced were: demonstrating the value of RPA to the wider business; standardising data so that everything is processed consistently, and scaling up effectively.
After joining Robiquity, I quickly realised just how common these issues actually were.
In my current role, I’m responsible for helping organisations resolve the recurring RPA implementation challenges that hamper many businesses. And the good news is that there’s a solution for every one of them…

Proving the capabilities of RPA

When we started implementing RPA at O2, automation technology was still very much in its infancy. The robotic operating model wasn’t really a concept as such; it was a new term coined by Blue Prism.
This made IT engagement extremely tough. Both the IT and architecture teams were hesitant to embrace RPA. They had the impression that this tech would be accessing applications in the backend and potentially cause sluggishness and discrepancies.
To put their minds at ease, we set up several workshops to demonstrate how RPA worked. We also gave an example of a Blue Prism interaction with an application – in the same way that a human does (using the front screen to navigate and interact).
By demonstrating what RPA could offer to the teams at O2, we were able to quickly involve all stakeholders and create the RPA Centre of Excellence. This prevented RPA operations from being a black box-style service and operating below the radar.
Stakeholder engagement must come at the beginning of the journey. Without it, growth is stunted. Gaining this approval and trust involves hard work, but it’s essential to get the ball rolling and see good results.

Achieving standardisation in RPA

Standardisation is essential for smooth RPA implementation. You need to get the right foundations in place so that the inputs are correct; subsequently allowing robots to use the data correctly to automate processes.
When you look at automating a particular process, there could potentially be various formats to deal with (email, message etc), which can cause all kinds of confusion. Robots needto know where to pull info from and what to expect from when this data comes in.
To achieve standardisation, it’s worth taking advantage of technology that allows you to consolidate inputs. A great example is Trustportal, which provides a front end so you can log data in a standardised format – getting around processes that are ordinarily quite difficult to automate.
With successful standardisation in place, you can begin to build out an environment capable of accepting wider automations, or approvals to integrate with other systems.

Scaling RPA successfully

Many companies find scaling RPA a challenge because they attempt to do too much themselves – especially if they are fearful of the costs of outsourcing work to other companies.
Focus purely on RPA first and get your operations off the ground. After that, you can start introducing ancillary technologies to widen the automation scope and give your RPA solution eyes and ears (drawing on AI-based tech from the likes of ABBYY).
Having an RPA partner in your corner can help in this regard, ensuring you put the ‘robotic operating model’, standards and governance in place, and supporting internal staff so that RPA doesn’t come to a standstill.

RPA delivery with Robiquity

Successful RPA delivery is all about simplicity. It’s important not to get too caught up in the buzzwords and instead begin with the basics.
To this end, you need a smart (and proven) model. That’s where ScaleSafe comes in. An exclusive RPA delivery method provided by Robiquity, ScaleSafe offers a ready-made accredited RPA team on site in six weeks or less, with members committed to projects and protected against poaching for up to two years. All the hard work is done for you.
Through ScaleSafe and various other means, Robiquity will support you in your attempts to overcome the challenges of RPA implementation. Whether you’re at the beginning of your journey or you’ve reached a stumbling block, find out more by getting in touch with us on 0161 974 3244 or info@robiquity.com.