ML or Machine Learning, developed by Arthur Samuel in 1959, followed by Natural Language Processing (NLP) and AI or Artificial Intelligence are supposed to be the reasons for the birth of RPA. RPA evolved after the year 2000 and is today one of the most important technologies to be adopted by almost every industry to streamline processes and bring about positive outcomes for the enterprise and the customers. The name may sound a misnomer but in effect, RPA is capable of achieving digital transformation for enterprises where it is deployed and it is doing so, that more enterprises are waiting to implement RPA to take advantage of its multifarious benefits. RPA is also known by the name Software Robotics.

From extracting data, moving files, and filling forms to answering calls and more, RPA does the job of integrating and carrying out monotonous tasks done by humans across software platforms that are unrelated. These are done autonomously by RPA and hence pave the way for freeing human intervention which otherwise must be deployed for more value-added and analytical work descriptions. By deploying RPA, an enterprise thus accelerates its efforts in generating quality output and as a result, makes better ROI possible.

Today we are one step ahead in the RPA space through Intelligent Automation (IA) where rather than just performing the mundane task, the application or the bot takes learnings from AI and ML to carry out tasks faster and with efficiency and applies it to RPA.

The advantages of RPA definitely outweigh the disadvantages.

User-friendliness, being free of code, in-built analytical provision, security, various options for hosting and deployment, handling of exceptions that are rule-based, intelligence that can be converted to action and the ability to debug are some of the main advantages.

The perceived disadvantages include the potential for loss of jobs, high entry costs, need for deployment of skilled staff, resistance on the part of employees and the processes to be selected to implement RPA.

The areas in which RPA can be applied have only increased with the benefits of automation being evident. Added to it is the quality time that employees can spend otherwise on important aspects rather than being on low-key tasks. Any enterprise that is keen or has the expertise to provide a Robotic Process Automation Solution must also be open to exploring the multiple verticals and systems where it can be implemented effectively.

Automating sales processes, data extraction from multiple sources across different networks, on-boarding of customers and employees, data entry, migration and validation, generation of mass emails as part of a campaign, creation, and development of invoices, report preparation, and comparison of prices are among the many applications that come under Robotic Process Automation Services.

The RPA life cycle has many phases that start with the discovery phase and end with the execution of bots. Away from the traditional approaches, RPA is surely an alternative to implement services that are shared and also are at a corporate level. The implementation stage of RPA has phases ranging from accessing opportunities for RPA, vendor finalization, capturing of steps, piloting, and implementation to management.

As we can see, the use of RPA would only surge considering the fact that enterprises want to deliver the best for their internal and external stakeholders.

The new avenues of usage of RPA would definitely unfold sooner than later.