Factor 1: The Level of Human Involvement

Tasks are most suitable to automation if they:

Fluctuate with transactional demand

Are time consuming

Require high attention to detail and high levels of involvement on the part of an employee.

These kinds of activities might include data input and output, order/claims processing and entering customer details into the company database.

In the survey by Redwood Software previously mentioned, it is stated that ‘99% of organizations still spend considerable personnel time doing repetitive manual tasks, with almost three quarters (74%) spending over a quarter of their time doing so.’

Automation of these processes allows them to be executed more quickly and accurately. Employees who previously used much of their time checking and quality controlling these activities are now freed up to use their time on more complex and vital tasks such as building stronger relationships with customers.

Factor 2: The Intricacy of the Task

RPA can be used to conduct quite simple tasks such as data copy and paste or typing, to those more intricate activities such as fraud identification or accounts payable. The intricacy of a process is decided by factors such as the number of systems used, the amount of human involvement, or the quantity of steps that need to be taken to complete the activity.

Unfortunately, more complex tasks are harder to automate, even though such automation would potentially offer greater dividends to an organisation’s business operations. This difficulty could be overcome with a larger investment of time and money. However, a better approach is to just start with automating simple activities.

This allows a company time to get a handle on how RPA software works in practical terms. Then these small Robotic Process Automation successes can be built upon, with the enterprise introducing automation of more complex tasks as they become familiar with the software and can better use it to optimise their business systems.

Factor 3: The Number of Tasks Needing Execution

Across a variety of industries, businesses nowadays operate less to a specific set of opening times, which means that numerous orders, enquiries and grievances can be received 24 hours a day, irrespective of holidays or weekends.

This presents a problem when human employees can only deal with these issues during normal business hours in the office, leading to a back-log of work. Here RPA systems really shine as the most efficient technology for these kind of high-volume tasks, as software robots can work around the clock, every day of the year.

Regardless of the day or time, with RPA, software robots can keep addressing these tasks with speed and accuracy, even outside office hours.