2017

ARUN RISHI KAPOOR

TECH MAHINDRA LIMITED

August 2017

Strategizing Robotics Process Automation

Time is the greatest money making asset any individual

can possess - Ed Slott.

With ever increasing competition, reduced profit margins and

advanced disruptive innovation, one of the biggest challenges faced

by any business is increase productivity & improve customer services

so as to attract new customer and retain existing ones. One of the

core reasons of emergence of automation industry wide is to ensure

that business can continue its operations seamlessly without any

impacts caused by human inefficiency. However, even with

increased automation, the productivity and operational efficiency

are hit because of human-centric problems around:

Communication gap

Understanding the bigger picture

Poor management and supervision

Inconsistency in work

Inadequate technical knowledge

As a result of these, there is often more time consumed by

employees doing manual jobs viz. reworking on similar horizontal

and vertical processes, collating & processing information,

investigating, validation, comparing reports, summarizing reports

and so on. In such circumstances, very little time is devoted to those

crucial tasks which have a positive impact on customer experience –

tasks which make it extremely easy for the customer to learn about

you, buy from you, and get support from you as and when they need

it.

Due to economic competition, many companies across various

industry verticals are looking forward to mechanism to make their

employees apply latest skills and intelligence in their work. Swaying

away the burden of manual tasks and engaging employees in best

possible ways to create maximum value out of their actual business

is crucial for an organization’s survival. When all business tasks are

well organized, it helps an organization produce more useful product

and services for the end users.

Bots for automation

The sole idea of automation was not to replace full time employee

with bots but to give employees enough time to add value to the

product or service, so that customers choose their organization over

the competitors.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is an automation software or a

piece of code which can perform human actions based on defined

rules.

RPA is not meant to make judgmental decisions, or to predict

intelligence in the task or take any kind of supervised/unsupervised

learning decisions. Such tasks belongs to the Cognitive Task Analysis

which emphasizes on tasks requiring cognitive activities such as

reasoning, remembering, decision making, problem solving, making

judgment, etc.

Typically, a bot is meant to replace human’s repetitive, mundane and

tiresome tasks where there is big impact on the operational

effectiveness and business revenue. With the right mix of bot viz.

rule based bots, logger bots and analytical bots in a process flow plus

using RPA framework, brings various advantages as represented in

the diagram below:

Recognizing the potential of Automation

An organization must formerly understand the right mix of various

types of bots and then evaluate to map their ability to provide the

right result at the right time:

Rule Based Bots: Understand the inputs that a user/system

provides and are limited to giving results based on user-

defined rules. These software bots do not understand the

intent and context of the user. For example optimizers,

logger bots, etc.

Analytical Bots: The super bots or an intelligent personal

software assistant understand the intent and context of the

user/system and serve the end user based on the previous

actions/supervised learning mechanism. They belong to the

cognitive task analysis mentioned above.

Organization of all sizes, are working towards recognizing the

potential in automation to become more customer-centric, imbibe

innovation as core strategy and improve quality of their end product

and services.

Leveraging the human capital

One of the challenge when initiating robotic process automation

implementation is to handle employees’ fear of job-loss and gain

their cooperation during strategy and implementation phases. It is

crucial for an organization to determine these impacts and mitigate

any risks associated with productivity and behavioural issues by

letting their automation team involved in change management

assessing factors like:

To map employees’ existing skillset

Skills set requirements post RPA implementation

Setting up career path for their employees

Identification of new roles / jobs for next generation

processes

Besides automation, digitally enabled human capital is very critical

to enhance productivity and quality of the product and services. The

industry needs more strategic and innovative thinkers to compete in

the global markets. The employees are expected to go beyond their

usual roles and undertake thought leadership roles in respective

departments.

On the basis of human centric problems, the employees should be

granted reasonable time off for enhancing demanding skills which

enables them do corporate functions more effectively and

efficiently. Such an arrangement is only possible when companies

start looking shifting their focus from mundane everyday tasks;

which can otherwise be efficiently executed using robotic process

automation. With the right fusion of digital workforce and efficient

execution by bots, the companies can harness the opportunities in

the global markets. An ever increasing adoption of new technologies

such as analytics, big data platforms, cloud computing, internet of

things, etc., the companies are realizing the value of skilled

workforce and new job roles viz. data scientists, data engineers, big

data analysts, marketing technologists, IoT architects, visualization

analysts, strategic thinkers, etc. The employees with right skills can

help an organization milk the several revenue generation

opportunities that they might miss otherwise.

Sustaining Global Transformation

The advancement in Internet of things (IoT), machine to machine

communication (M2M) and communication technologies is expected

to generate zettabytes in next 5 years. The volume of data generated

in last two years is 90% is the total data of the world. The massive

data generated from billions of connected devices can no longer be

managed by traditional data management systems or by human

intervention. Amid digital transformation, organizations must adopt

new technologies, build vibrant value fabric with right partnerships

and digital workforce to deliver value to customers. The new big data

management platforms, query processing tools, storage

management and automation tools are the key to manage ongoing

business operations.

In manufacturing, the usage of IoT technology is helping companies

optimize the expenses related to energy, supply chain management

and inventory control. The granular visibility into energy

consumption, equipment tracking and monitoring tools enhance

efficiency, helps in predictive maintenance and provides actionable

insights of resource utilization. Similarly in healthcare sector, the

alert mechanisms, patient entry- exit workflows, remote monitoring,

etc. significantly improve the efficiency of the entire hospital.

The top performing IT, manufacturing and healthcare and all other

industries have ensured to automate all possible processes which in

turn impacts the overall organizational efficiency. The quick

turnaround times in fault resolutions, minimization of

product/services defects and elimination of delayed outputs give

astounding results in increasing overall efficiency and thus increased

customer satisfaction. The robotics process automation helps in

gaining people support where they can actually add value in the

value fabric of transforming environment.

Identifying Potential RPA Opportunity

When thinking about the opportunities that RPA brings to an

organization, it is quite cumbersome to estimate which

areas/departments/processes to be targeted. There are always set

of processes in an organization that require manual intervention

between applications. Generally, the teams / departments with high

volume of processes are sought for such an initiative. However many

seem to ignore other critical factors identifying which this emerging

technology is likely to bring maximum returns. The synergy of the

following critical factors brings more rewards that usual selection.

Changing Operating Models

Organization Structural changes: Given that RPA is successfully

implemented in an organization, are we assuring that efficiency and

productivity will also improve? It is of utmost importance to

understand how RPA implementation affects the nature of tasks,

individual and group interactions and how will the organization of

the future look like?

Robotics process automation affects the organization structure as a

whole. The organizational changes defines the new org. structure,

reporting relationships, role and task redesigning to align themselves

to the robotics processes. There would be changes in the nature of

work groups and workflow management. The new organizational

structure would require identifying roles like:

o RPA Process owners

o Decision makers – responsible for business rules

definitions, change management and refinement

o Robotics Process monitors and analysts – responsible

for supporting, monitoring and benchmarking

(quality) of the RPA processes

o Developers and testers – responsible for development,

configuration and testing of robotics processes before

implementation.

As mentioned in the previous section, the organizations have to

redeploy their employees where they will be given a chance to reskill

and transform themselves into a digital workforce.

Functional Interface Changes

An organization’s structural changes plus process changes needs a

possible mechanism to control various functions in an organization.

Introducing a collection of RACI matrixes for the automated

processes fully segregates the duties/tasks associated with each

robotics process. It avoids any conflicts of interests between

individuals/roles so that the new robotic implementation works

seamlessly. An overview of a RACI matrix helps designing the

robotics process governance and allocation of new roles which have

otherwise unclear accountability and responsibility associated with

each business function.

Key Result Area / Performance Management

The key performance indicators of the robotics processes measure

the effectiveness of the newly implemented processes and help

robotics team measure performance of the business processes. KPI

measurement is essential for tracking, analysing, prioritizing and

improving the overall output of the processes. Robotic process when

improves, also helps enterprise KPIs improve. The following KPIs are

directly related to the robotics processes:

o Percentage : Availability of RPA Process vs FTE

o Number : Count of processes automated / Total

Process Count

o Percentage : Errors RPA Processes / Total RPA Process

o Percentage : Uptime / Total Time

o Percentage : Count of RPA processes / Count of FTE

o Return on Investment (ROI)

o Turnaround Time : Total Time between submission

and output

o Number of cases closed per hour/week/month

o Queue/Backlog Size

o Profit per bot

Organizational Change Management

Organizations must address people specific change management

aspects when dealing with changing environment because of factors

– org. structural, functional and KPIs as mentioned in sections above.

To address the uncertainties employees might have due to RPA

implementation, it is very crucial to manage the organization

transition in terms of:

o Leadership alignment – This is to align the RPA

strategy, tactics and organizational goals. The

alignment ensures that the strategic decisions are

effectively implemented throughout the

organization. The employees are more likely to adapt

to the organizational robotics process automation

adoption when they see their respective leaders

support the new strategic initiative. It is alignment of

the leaders at various levels of an organization that

assists in successful implementation of robotics

process automation.

o Communication – is another key aspect to ensure

that RPA implementation is accepted at all levels of

organizational hierarchy. As per a research, the

employees of an organization prefer hearing

organizational change from:

Sponsor of the change

Immediate manager

An effective communication about adoption of RPA implementation

must address the following questions:

Why RPA is getting implemented?

What is the risk of not adopting RPA?

What is there for the employees?

It is also equally important that there should be two way

communication. An organization must give their employees the

opportunity to share their concerns, ask queries and participate in

feedback surveys. To gain employees’ support, an organization must

repeat the key opportunities before actual implementation of the

robotics process automation projects.

Strategy Roadmap

In times of radical business changes, the companies needs to also

consider new long term strategy on investment and optimization of

new and existing resource pool to pursue innovation and capture

market intelligence for survival. The digital transformation ambition

dream needs sufficient capital for this purpose which is achievable

by reducing the existing OpEx and CapEx costs.

The organizations need to focus on implementing new strategy

models which focus primarily on the following aspects of robotic

process automation:

Identification of organization functions where robotics

process automation (RPA) can be implemented. This consists

of identification of business application, corporate functions

and legacy systems and assessment on ROI (return on

investment – tools, consulting, partnership, etc.) for

implementation of automation strategy.

Defining execution roadmap and implementation strategy

and mapping it to that of organization vision and mission.

This consists of defining end to end robotic automation plan,

tools support, resource management, risk mitigation

planning, scope (control on automation), and governance

model plus expansion possibility to next level of automation

– Cognitive Automation.

Strategy and operating model review. As said, your strategy

needs a strategy. Regular reviews are very important to

sustain in disruptive environment. In such ever changing

business environment, this aspect must be covered to define

the automation review strategy, setting up review periods

and thus fine tuning the described strategies based on

intermittent business situations

The cost saved from implementation of robotics process automation

caters to the investment opportunities in new verticals of the

business. Not merely in internal organizational changes, but

automation also helps in speeding the Mergers & Acquisition

activities and thus have significant impact on integration of business

processes and technology.

Mitigating Bots Trust Issues

Opinions usually varies on whether robotics process automation

bots can be trusted. There are often questions raised about the

readiness of RPA technology. To mitigate such risks, the

organizations must also engage in building fall back policy and strong

governance to manage the new next generation robotic processes.

Having real time refreshed view of bots activities, dashboards with

visualization of bots status supported by well engineering analytics

are quite helpful.

A good RPA implementation should provide preconfigured security

settings for the underlying applications. In order to create secure

RPA environment, the solution should manage flawless

authentication to the backend applications. There are various

credentials vaults available which can securely store passwords

against URLs/Applications and retrieves the password during RPA

process handshaking. All credentials and keys in credential vault are

encrypted to protect against disclosure to a hacker.

RPA Critical Success Factors

Choosing the right Product: based on business needs and

supporting (compatible) with your existing technologies and

upcoming technologies.

Accurate configuration: An efficient configuration can save

business resources, cuts downtime and thus reduces any

debugging efforts. In right automated environment, the bots

have access to the relevant applications, proper logging

mechanism and correct workflow configuration.

Process mining techniques: Process Mining plays an

important role to understand the “As-Is” processes and the

RPA opportunities. An effective technique provides the key

insights of the business processes by creating an interactive

process map using the process logs. It helps detect

inefficiencies due to hidden vulnerabilities, time-taking steps,

process bottlenecks and unnecessary detours.

Choosing the right consulting partner: Helps an organization

assess their needs and match their requirements that suits its

purposes. The right consulting partner helps an organization

in

o Define the new operating model

o Setting up RPA Centre of Excellence (Governance)

o Define and Build Automation Roadmap and execution

methodology

o Identify and Build business cases

o Evaluate RPA products

o Determine business prioritization, ROI and effort

estimation

o Identify areas of improvement or enhanced

automation

o Recommend RPA best practices

Conclusion

As mentioned above, with constantly changing business

environment and increasing global competition, the organizations

look forward to their employees to constantly innovate and be part

of marketing strategy. The need of the time is to connect to end

users in real time and also recognize and addressing instantly the

customer pain points. Any gap in process flow directly impacts the

overall cycle time, time to market and right first time measurement

indicators. The gap is fulfilled by adoption of robotics process

automation which helps organization focus on proactive marketing,

focus more on marketing strategy and achieving high customer

satisfaction results. Industry does not want to invest in projects of 3-

5 years and wait for the results to come after years. They want to see

the immediate ROI of their investments.

The resource optimization and cost reduction using robotics process

automation helps organization extend their services and improve

the value they deliver to their end customers.

Acknowledgement

The development of this research paper benefited significantly from

the inputs and support by our outstanding group of thought leaders.

Shreekala Jaydeep – Group Practice Head

Leonard Leo D'Silva – Business Consultant

ABOUT TECH MAHINDRA

DIGITALIZATION |AUTOMATION | VERTICALIZATION |INNOVATION| DISRUPTION Tech Mahindra represents the connected world, offering innovative and customer-centric information technology experiences, enabling Enterprises, Associates and the Society to Rise™. We are a USD 4.2 billion company with 117,000+ professionals across 90 countries, helping over 825 global customers including Fortune 500 companies. Our convergent, digital, design experiences, innovation platforms and reusable assets connect across a number of technologies to deliver tangible business value and experiences to our stakeholders. Tech Mahindra is amongst the Fab 50 companies in Asia (Forbes 2016list). We are part of the USD 17.8 billion Mahindra Group that employs more than 200,000 people in over 100 countries. The Group operates in the key industries that drive economic growth, enjoying a leadership position in tractors, utility vehicles, after-market, and information technology and vacation ownership. www.techmahindra.com