Robotics . Moving towards Human + Robot workplaces

It’s the era of the digital workforce and it is transforming the world of work. Last year, consulting firm Deloitte conducted a global survey on robotic process automation (RPA), which it defines as the automation of rules-based processes with software (and not to be mistaken for walking, talking bots) and found that the value of this work in organisations had grown a lot. Justin Watson, partner Global Robotics and Cognitive Automation Lead, Deloitte, feels that RPA, like any other emerging technology, can be a source of positive change for all key stakeholders, be it employees or customers.

Excerpts from an interview:

We think that the overall RPA impact on workforce will be positive. Currently, humans do a lot of work that is manual, rules-driven and highly transactional and repetitive. Potential automation of these routine tasks will free up time for humans to do the tasks that they have the best skills for, such as relationship management, visualising better outcomes for businesses, employees, customers and societies.

RPA implementation is not about ‘robots replacing humans’ but rather about ‘robots augmenting humans’. As companies implement RPA more widely, it will also lead to creation of new roles like Automation Solution Architects, Bot Monitors, Bot Controllers, Bot Developers and Bot Orchestrators in the organisation. Implemented in the right way, RPA can release precious human talent and resources and will enable them to visualise a better future, inspire teams, build a better work culture and so on. Creation of an optimal HumBot (Human + Robot) organisation can help achieve outcomes that were not possible by either humans alone or robots alone. Also, in combination with other emerging technologies such as Cognitive and Big Data Analytics, RPA can transform processes and create a more frictionless, flexible and fluid organisation that can quickly, effectively, adapt to the rapid changes in the global economic environment.

It is true that while there are many use cases for RPA, only 4 per cent of companies have been able to adopt this technology at scale. There are three key reasons for lower-than-expected adoption: process fragmentation, lack of the required level of rhythmic collaboration between Business and IT and support from top leadership in creating the right mindset for the enterprise automation.

Due to high level of process fragmentation (e.g., a process being delivered in parts by many people across the world in a multi-national organisation), many companies are able to automate ‘small tasks’ but are not so successful in automating a ‘group of tasks’ where they will reap more benefits.

One way to resolve these issues is to analyse processes at ‘use case’ or ‘end-to-end process’ level rather than at ‘task’ level.

This will generate more productivity and make the to-be process more simple and frictionless. We have also seen that those companies who use this technology for benefits beyond just FTE (full time equivalent) savings and look at it for delivering better quality, better customer experience, better business outcomes, etc, have been able to get better overall benefits and hence generate the required buy-in in their organisation at all levels.

We have often seen productivity benefits in the range of 20-30 per cent by effectively implementing RPA solutions, particularly in companies and industries that are characterised by high volumes of rule-based activities.

The key to realise the optimal levels of productivity benefits from an RPA implementation is to do ‘solution design’ of the to-be process in the optimal way where we not just replace ‘human tasks’ with ‘robot tasks’ but rather find a way to effectively marry the unique strengths of humans (e.g., intuition, inspiration, emotion handling) with the native strengths of robots (e.g., repeat and volume transactions processing, excellent at processing rules-based transactions). Optimal ‘solution design’ lies in creating the right ‘HumBot‘ process wherein the unique skills of humans and robots will be collectively leveraged in delivering a process.

While there are many RPA tools, a few are currently leading in the marketplace. We also see quite a few Indian start-ups that have developed their own innovative RPA, Cognitive and AI tools with some unique features. Most of these leading tools have comparative and similar capabilities at the moment.

However, there are some key differences among these tools that organisations need to be aware of and factor into their decision-making process to select the right tool for their organisations.

We have a comprehensive framework with elements like ‘Technical Capabilities Analysis’, ‘ROI and TCO Analysis’, ‘Product Roadmap Analysis’, ‘Systems Integration Analysis’, ‘Information Security Analysis’, ‘Accelerators Analysis’, and other key elements that help companies make the decision of selecting the right tools for the right type of processes. The other important aspect in selecting the right tool is the cloud strategy of the tool providers and their ability to develop a successful ecosystem of products that can be leveraged by customers preferably over cloud (this enhances scalability of solutions as well as reduces total cost of ownership for the clients).

We also recommend companies to do PoCs (Proof-of-Concepts) with a few selected tools (during the ‘tool selection’ process) to test their compatibility with the IT infrastructure and security policies of their organisations. These PoCs help organisations test out the key features of these tools which may be most relevant to unlocking productivity and other business benefits.

Our research shows increased adoption in the financial services, pharmaceutical and life sciences and FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) industries. We are seeing many telecom companies and some manufacturing companies also implement RPA.