Intelligent Automation (RPA & AI) is transformational and disruptive as it can bring as it can reduce the cost of existing manual operations by 30% to 40% without even changing any systems!
Getting an RPA project right is not easy. So what are the common issues we find in RPA projects?
Post Contents
7 Common Issues in Failed RPA Projects
Here are the seven points you must consider before implementing RPA projects.
1. Undermine the importance of a POC
Undermining the importance of a POC is a common problem we see in RPA implementation. There are several RPA providers, and choosing the right RPA platform and right processes to automate is a costly and overwhelming exercise.
RPA software products often offer free POC, showing an overall RPA process as the use case. Another common trap is that vendors will make you believe that RPA is that with just a day or two of training, most business users can automate simple processes using their platforms.
But the skills needed to create scalable, resilient RPA processes are significantly greater.
Why Do You Need to Have an RPA Proof of Concept (POC) with an RPA implementation consultancy?
The POC will help you understand the features of the RPA product and also its capabilities and see it delivers on its promise.
You can even understand if there are any limitations of the RPA product for automating the business processes you would like to automate.
For a successful RPA implementation, you need to obtain support from IT, Cyber, Security, Risk, HR, and other enterprise functions.
A well-done POC can help you get permission from not only your investors but also other stakeholders within the organization.
This support is essential for RPA to deliver a virtual workforce that allows the business to task robots across the entire organization.
Understanding the challenges businesses face on this, Infobiz offers a free digital worker ( Free RPA POC) for corporate customers. Find more details here.
2. Lack of RPA business case
It is common for most organizations to perform an initial PoC or pilot project to see that RPA delivers on its promise. However, large-scale production automation is entirely different from a successful POC.
At times RPA projects fail to answer simple questions from the Board about “How does RPA fit into our digital transformation, how much will it cost, and what is the return?”
There are several use cases to prove that RPA can deliver immediate and tangible business benefits across all types of companies. RPA helps companies to integrate old IT systems waiting to be replaced.
Opportunity assessment alongside a PoC is quite essential to optimize RPA investment. We can automate sophisticated processes in weeks.
Further to successful POC, we can perform a reliable opportunity assessment and create a detailed business case.
A well-written business case means quick stakeholder sign-off, and enhances the momentum of the RPA program.
3. Post automation run & maintenance
Let’s see what happens once an RPA program is mobilized, targeted, and delivered at a pace. A common mistake is undermining the importance of how to get processes live and who runs the digital workforce.
At times this can delay the go-live dates. We advise our customers to have a business-led RPA Center of Excellence (CoE) to manage and enhance the digital workforce. As for most of the customers, RPA is something new in their digital transformation plan; this takes time.
Hence we offer our CoE consultants to work closely with the business in their team to set up CoE for our customers.
We help our customers to get CoE processes in place, IT governance agreed, and staff trained to operate robots and continue to enhance operations.
Infobiz provides a fully self-sufficient CoE team from the start of the project, ensuring the success of digital workers.
4. Focus on the Forest rather than the trees
RPA is a tool for digital automation. Without a larger plan in place, sometimes teams find it difficult to optimize business benefits using RPA.
When you come to the end of the project, you realize that it is actually the beginning of the next automation phase to apply machine learning to this new set of digitized data. And once that is done, maybe the next set of use cases appear with conversational AI agents to automatically answer incoming queries.
What started as a quick, agile project can transform into a long multistage project. With the right planning and comprehensive design from the beginning, each RPA implementation would deliver a much better outcome.
5. Choosing wrong processes to automate
Selecting a highly complex process to automate is a common mistake in RPA implementation. Think Big, Start Small, and Scale Fast is what we advise our customers when it comes to Intelligent Automation!
Starting small will help to reduce costs and quickly learn the benefits of automation. Starting with complex processes increases the costs, reducing the usefulness, and forcing the business to divert the investment from quick ROI projects.
We help customers to perform a proper opportunity assessment to find the optimum portfolio of processes. Low or medium complexity processes are the best initial target for RPA.
Aim to achieve a minimum of 1 FTE savings, but preferably more. Eventually, we are looking for the processes with the best return and the most straightforward delivery.
Once a company is RPA-mature, it can scale fast and look to automate complex business processes.
6. Applying the wrong project delivery methodology
Traditionally, software projects are implemented over months if not years. RPA projects delivered using an over-engineered software delivery method, with no-value documentation and gates, leading to extended delivery times is a common mistake.
Most of the RPA projects can be delivered in weeks, not in months. RPA rarely changes existing systems, and processes are documented in the tool.
Companies should look to challenge and simplify existing IT delivery methods and use an agile delivery approach to deliver at pace.
With the right project delivery methods, we have provided new processes into production in three to four weeks.
7. Trying to automate 100% of business processes
At times companies try to automate business processes eliminating any human intervention. This makes the RPA project complex, more expensive, and reduces the ROI.
RPA allows companies to change the existing business processes, and at times companies do not do this resulting in reduced savings.
We advise our customers to consider Digital workers as the ultimate “helper,” carrying out the necessary work in a process and enabling employees into more value-additive roles.
RPA will help to take the Robot out of the Human. Automation of 70-80% of the business process as an initial target is useful. It’s always possible to back and optimize the process later.
Final Thoughts
In order to best gain buy-in to RPA by senior stakeholders, we recommend you to get an RPA POC done. If you’d like to get your first PoC done with UiPath or Automation Anywhere, then we’re just a click away.
Get your free RPA POC and build your business case. Simply book a meeting with us here, and one of our RPA experts will reach out to you shortly!
Happy Automating!