We are almost at the end of the second decade of the 21st century and this decade has by far seen the biggest leap in technological advancements. Robotic Process Automation or RPA is one of those technological advancements that has caught the attention of many industries and experts. As we speak, the scope of RPA is now extending beyond the IT industry to Baking, Finance, Retail to name a few.

Experts say that it is only a matter of time before the scope of RPA widens to include many more industries and sectors. The Scope of RPA within the organizations will increase to newer processes and functions even as organizations look to get more efficient and effective. This will help redefine the core functions and operations of companies across industries.

A few ways Robotic Process Automation will widen its scope –

Spread across Processes: Robotic Process Automation will slowly but steadily spread across different processes within the organization as it will extend to more processes than it did before. Another dramatic change will be the use of RPA in the processes that are external to the organization. Customer service has gained much more focus and attention and RPA will be used to enhance customer services. For example, handling and segregating incoming email from customers will be carried out by smart robots.

While a few organizations are testing RPA in the pilot, it will be time before the technology moves from the pilot phase and proof of concept to the execution stage.

Integration with Tools: The scope of RPA will also include its integration with other tools. In the time to come, it will become more common to see RPA being integrated with other technology tools. Businesses are realizing that automation tools may not function best as stand-alone solutions but rather, can have an amplified effect when integrated together.

RPA can definitely work on its own but when combined with human resources and other tech tools, it can be harvested to the maximum potential.

Higher Acceptance across the industry: As time progresses, RPA will become more accepted even as companies find increasing benefits out of its use. Slowly, RPA might become common among industry practices and part of the IT architecture. Over time, RPA will open doors to Smart Process Automation or SPA. Through SPA, organizations will bring about innovations in the entire business process with higher efficiencies and greater profitability.

The AI connect: Experts believe that RPA in combination with Artificial Intelligence (AI) will reimagine RPA as a technology. Backed by self-learning capabilities and analytics, Robotic Process Automation will usher its 2.0 version to go beyond rule-based tasks and undertake more complex ones. It will be sometime before this happens but many organizations are contemplating on combining both these technologies to harness their fullest potential.

Impacting Industries

As RPA gains popularity and the executive leadership looks to embrace the technology, let’s understand how it impacts two specific industries among many others –

Banking & Financial Services: Robotic Process Automation has moved beyond the IT and ITES sector to other business sectors. Banking, for example, has great use for RPA even as banks look to reduce their overall operational costs and improvise on efficiencies. Ever since RPA was introduced into the banking world it has helped banks eliminate operational errors, reduce human intervention, increase accuracy, streamline processes, and enhance customer service aspects.

Combined with AI, RPA will play a significant role in the operations of financial institutions to bring in some dramatic upgrades and changes to the overall work process. Through this combination, banks and other financial institutions will find increasing benefits in the areas of operations, compliance, and customer service.

BPO Industry: The global BPO services market is slated to reach $262.2 billion by 2022 and this will be driven by the expansion of IT services companies even as they embrace new technologies. RPA will play a key role in the BPO industry as it will replicate a lot of manual processes and repetitive tasks currently being undertaken by humans. BPO companies in a bid to increase operational efficiencies and cut down on costs will be employing RPA technology. They hope to gain the maximum through Robotic Process Automation and enhance their delivery processes. It will also contribute to their business growth and profitability.

The clerical jobs that involve collection and segregation of data will be taken over by RPA technology while the human resources will be shifted to focus on core functions. In certain cases, even data processing tasks will involve the use of RPA.

Robotic Process Automation is one of the few technologies that has found immediate acceptance and great use cases. In the days to come, RPA will be reimagined and redefined to undertake more than just rule-based or repetitive tasks. It will become a go-to-technology option for companies who are heavily dependant on processes and are in need of higher process efficiency.