The word "Process" within Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is very vital and utmost care should be taken and we should choose our process wisely. The right selection of the same determines the make or break of successful RPA implementation. The observation is RPA projects don't meet the Return Of Investment (ROI) expectations only due to the wrong choice in selection of the process.
With so much hype around RPA the customers or business leaders with limited awareness of RPA often end up selecting wrong one's as part of their debut RPA implementation. The wrong choice of process doesn't yield them the expected ROI leaving them dejected. Looking at their lower ROI even other Business Leaders tend to loose the confidence in RPA implementation.
Choosing process wisely what does that mean. Let's first understand your key purpose or objective while doing RPA implementation and what is that you as a Business Leader want to achieve.
(a) Are you trying to introduce RPA only to reduce the employee head count?
(b) Are you looking forward to simplify or automate the process to increase productivity?
(c) Are you looking forward to automate only the complex process?
Before we can address these questions let us be clear in understanding what contributes in wrong selection of RPA process.
(a) If your process logic or business rules they keep on changing often with increasing regularity then such process does not fit to be a good candidate in RPA process selection. New business rules means re-configuration each time the business rules or logic changes.
(b) If your process has dependency on government or regulatory changes which do keep changing often then such process too won't yield the optimum ROI as far as RPA implementation goes.
(c) If your process has low volume of data or if your process selected is one that runs just once in a given year (E.g. Annual Appraisal of Employees) such process don't give the best ROI results or equate in man hours saving.
Before you get into the heart of the process understanding it would be ideal if we first do an Initial Process Assessment and determine which process fits the best with the above few pointers in mind.
To sum it up - Choose your process for robotic process automation wisely - Those process that are rule based, stable, having high volume data and where business rules don't change often.