It has been more than 6 months since the outbreak of COVID-19 which has created havoc across the world, like bull in a china shop (no pun intended), infecting more than 20 million people with a death toll of 0.7 million as of September, 2020. The economy of many countries is on the verge of collapse. Globally, we have moved from high level of social interaction to social distancing. Even though we are physically apart, the work continues to come in and needs to be completed. Thankfully RPA is here to the rescue.

However, compared to any of the previous outbreaks or crisis, the world is better prepared to address this global pandemic. There is technology readily available that can be leveraged to help organizations minimize losses and reduce the spread of COVID-19. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is one such technology which the organizations around the world are implementing to become faster and more agile. The major advantages of RPA during COVID-19 situation are the minimal implementation time (about 3 weeks), RPA requires no integration or anything as it is a layer on top of your existing framework or application and frees up the employees from mundane repetitive tasks.

Forrester predicts the RPA industry is growing at lightning pace and will reach $2.9 billion by 2021 globally. According to Gartner, RPA software spending will reach $2.4 billion by 2022 globally. Industries like BFSI, Healthcare, Travel & Tourism, Utilities and Telecommunication companies, etc have embraced and seem to be be the biggest adopters of RPA. On the technology vendor front some of the most popular RPA Tools are Blue Prism, UiPath, Automation Anywhere, Pega, Microsoft Power Automate, etc

Automation to the Rescue across Industries

Due to the this extended pandemic which is not showing any signs of slowing down the companies around the world are facing extreme challenges – from backlogs, increased demands and business continuity challenges, etc. RPA is offering relief to overwhelmed organizations by automating processes such as:

1. Banking industry have been using RPA for efficiency in work, accuracy in data handling, and for the data security
2. Deploying robots to handle the surge in mortgage hold and postponing loan repayments requests
3. Insurance companies implemented RPA for managing the work processes, entering customer’s data, and for other applications.
4. RPA helped Retail industries in updating orders, sending notifications, shipping products, tracking shipments, etc
5. Accelerate COVID-19 testing and reporting with the help of attended RPA.
6. Companies manufacturing Hand Sanitizers, Masks, PPE kits faced influx of orders during the pandemic. With some of the team not available to work due to quarantines unattended robots helped to handle the volume and meet a growing market need
7. Aid airlines companies contact centers in handling cancellation requests effectively.
8. Monitor the health status of an organization’s workforce that is widely distributed using a health screening bot

Real world impact by RPA during COVID-19 Crisis

1. A major insurance company in Europe is using multiple robots to support massive surge in Service Now transactions, Remote Access Services (RAS), and Enterprise Mobility Services. ​Business continuity is now a reality as their teams can serve their customers remotely. ​
2. One of the top Hospital in Dublin is using RPA tools to process COVID-19 testing kits in a fraction of the time and receives the results in near real time. This has significantly reduced the burden on its Infection Prevention and Control Department saving almost 3 hrs per day.
3. In one of the largest hospitals in the US, medical staff were spending hours on administrative work to properly add the new patient, record the patient data, and report it to the CDC. However, with the deployment of RPA, the hospital backlogs have been reduced, 8-9 minutes per patient are saved, and costly manual errors have been eliminated.

Conclusion

Automation is not a new concept. With almost all major business verticals leveraging its benefits, automation technologies such as RPA has become a preferred choice among the organizations. The reason why RPA is receiving a lot of attention lately is due to the fact that it is highly versatile and can be used in virtually everywhere to reduce dependencies, streamline the processes and reduce cost.

While enterprises adjusting to these “new normal“, at least the time bound, repeatable and rules-based tasks shouldn’t become a barrier for the company’s future. The answer lies in adopting the proven RPA technologies!

#COVID19 #WFH #SocialDistancing #BusinessContinuity #RoboticProcessAutomation #RPA #Automation #Robots #Futureofwork #Technology #Digitaltransformation #RemoteAccessServices #RAS #EnterpriseMobilityServices #BluePrism #UiPath #AutomationAnywhere #Pega #MicrosoftPowerAutomate

#Strategy #Management #Consulting #Transformation #Technology #Outsourcing #CreativeDisruptions #EternalQuest #FindingTruth