A well-defined RPA Capability is essential if the business intends to implement RPA across the organization. It drives the enterprise towards faster ROI and increased customer satisfaction. Since automation is a continuous process including design, implementation, measure, control, and maintenance, an RPA Capability embracing highly skilled staff and advanced technology holds its significance. It needs to be operated as a business service working closely with IT. A high-performance RPA Capability functions in successfully embedding RPA and distributing resources across the organization thereby achieving futuristic goals and objectives.

An efficient RPA Capability requires that competencies are established in each of the following fundamental elements in implementing RPA:

1. Vision:

Companies should align their RPA business benefits in-line to the corporate strategy. An RPA strategy when mapped directly to the IT strategies and business operations, results in better alignment of RPA goals and organizational objectives.

2. Organization:

Incorporation of an efficient RPA Capability committee into the organizational structure is a key that helps companies advance in the right direction. This committee may include heads of different departments like operations, IT, Finance, audit, and RPA. The function of this council is to adopt RPA across the business ensuring improved performance and scalability. Organizations should onboard digital workforce and continuously train them according to the process modifications.

3. Governance:

Once RPA deployment starts across the organization, its RPA Capability may experience certain difficulties in collaborating with various departments involved. A powerful governance framework which can regulate the involvement and interactions among different departments can bring a solution to those challenges. The framework should include protocols for managing demand and change. Organizations should create delivery pipelines based on performance tracking reports and working towards continuous improvement.

4. Delivery Methodology:

Choosing a robust and most productive methodology is an important decision that an RPA Capability makes. The team should acquire a clear and complete knowledge of the business case before selecting a delivery methodology. Implementation of RPA includes steps like designing, building, testing, and deployment. Every step in project management should be clearly defined in terms of objectives and outcomes.

5. Service Operations:

Many organizations commit a mistake believing deployment is the end of RPA implementation. Post-deployment practices like maintenance and support of existing automated processes help in effective business change management. An effective change management framework helps in successfully transferring tasks from humans to bots. A competent RPA Capability should be prepared to handle exceptions and referrals immediately at real-time.

6. People:

Key roles and responsibilities of an RPA Capability should be identified and defined. Some of such roles could be RPA sponsors, head of RPA, ROM Architect, change manager, solution architects, developers, and infrastructure and service support team. All the stakeholders of the Capability should adhere to the standardized procedures, business metrics, and objectives.

7. Technology:

With the expansion of RPA across the organization, the importance of IT support increases. The RPA Capability should engage IT teams in achieving scalability by designing low maintenance architecture. The collaboration of IT with RPA Capability ensures automation advancements adhering to security, compliance, and business requirements.

Two considerations for an RPA Capability

1. The Model

Centralized: In a centralized model, the process pipeline is automated by a centralized team which distributes automation across the organization. The RPA Capability provides the capabilities and manages the resources required to implement effective RPA. Prioritization of processes depends upon project strategy. A centralized shared platform hosts all Business Unit (BU) processes. Since this model has a single contact point on which the entire RPA initiative is dependent, its more scalable.

Federated (Divisional): In a federated model, the RPA Capability’s potentialities are provided by separate BUs. Prioritization depends upon individual BU operations. Every BU drives its own RPA progress. But this model results in low scalability and variable maturity within the organization.

Functional (Hybrid): This model retains the advantages of centralized and federated models. It provides a centralized capability pool which increases the scalability and makes separate BUs responsible for prioritizing and development of RPA processes based on their project strategy. This is a matured model which lets BUs drive towards their goals and providing a centralized RPA distribution.

2. Funding

Enterprise Funding: Here an enterprise completely funds its RPA Capability model. This encourages BUs to automate processes but limits their accountability. This is suitable while deploying RPA across the organization.

BU Funding: BUs fund own automation processes and those funds are partially allocated to operations and governance. This is suitable for a matured RPA initiative.

Enterprise funding with chargeback from the BU: An enterprise funds RPA Capability but with a chargeback from the BUs. This supports BUs in implementing RPA by eliminating continuous costs. But they will be responsible for the development costs. This is suitable for satisfying the automation needs of an organization.

Every company has unique goals and objectives. Hence, there is no standard RPA Capability model. Organizations should consider above mentioned fundamental factors and analyse the suitability of available models while setting up an efficient RPA Capability. Choosing a high-performance RPA Capability is critical as it expands RPA efforts across the organization to yield tangible benefits ultimately.