Alongside AI and automation in the IT services/BPO industry, RPA has emerged as the latest buzzword. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) allows us to transact in any IT application or website, typically the same way a human would, to automate complex rule-based work. In other words, RPA software and services, allows developers to tailor complex automation to a company’s processes. When an RPA robot is at work, it performs tasks just like a human would — logging in, operating applications, entering data, performing complex calculations and logging out.
RPA has a role play for any task that is repetitive, rule-based and does not require subjective judgements to be made.
The global market for RPA software and services is growing.
Early adopters of RPA have been banking and financial services, telecom and healthcare sectors. There will be substantial employment opportunities in the RPA sector.
Software Robots or Bots
Automation changed manufacturing decades ago. The same effect is observed on the business processes by software robots or bots. Bots help the HR in processing job applications by comparing them with job descriptions. They select a few and schedule interviews. In customer service, the customer’s intent is recognised and answers are provided rapidly. In business transactions, the purchase cycle is completed from the placement of order to the receiving of payment.
All this could be summarised as Robotic Process Automation (RPA). RPA refers to a variety of technologies, e.g. document recognition, screen scraping, handwriting recognition, optical character recognition (OCR). These are combined with natural language processing (NLP) and artificial intelligence (AI). The invoices could be combined in different formats — pdf, tiff, jpeg. AI can train bots to understand each invoice.
ANZ adopted RPA very early, across HR , technology and finance. They reduced manual processes by 85 per cent. It has speeded up the work.
In fact, bots are digital workers. They are faster, more accurate and ensure more compliance and security. They do credit checks for loan approvals. Things can be done concurrently, rather than sequentially .
RPA is highly cost effective. RPA replaces manual work. There are new supervisors who supervise both bots and people.
India is on the way to become the biggest base of RPA manpower. MNCs run their global RPA charters from their centres in India.