Cost of RPA Integration: How complex is your business process to adapt RPA?

Integrating a long term RPA strategy requires organization wide assessment for process complexity involved and potential FTE (Full Time Employee) savings.

A good RPA business analysis is the key to speculate the benefits of the RPA in an organization.

There are various complexity levels of integration that depend on the complexity of the business processes that an organization has been dealing with. Mainly the business processes are categorized into three levels of complexity:

  1. Low Complexity — <30%
  2. Medium Complexity — 30 – 60%
  3. High Complexity — >60%

These complexity levels are derived from various factors like input methods being used in a process, application types, how much free text (unstructured content) is processed, the environments the business processes run in, and the total number of applications involved.

Once you are clear of the complexity level involved in the business process you will have a high level idea of the cost involved in implementing an RPA strategy.

Potential FTE savings is another benefit that can have a say in the overall cost benefit of the RPA investment. FTE savings can be derived from key parameters like percentage of rule based steps, input methods being used, free unstructured text and type.

Automation Quadrant is a process to identify low complexity processes which can yield high cost benefits by automating through RPA. This process is derived as a matrix based on complexity and benefits. There are four classifications of the process complexity and benefit quadrants:

  • Quick Win
  • Low Hanging Fruit
  • Must Do Improvements
  • Long Term Improvements

For high complexity processes the cost of integrating RPA can seem to high if the benefit realization is low.

Complexity of a process depends on various factors like:

  • Number of screens involved in a process
  • Type of applications being used like Java, Mainframes, SAP, web based apps, .NET, MS Office etc.
  • Variation scenarios within the processes
  • Structured and Unstructured Inputs
  • Standard Inputs
  • Image based automation VDI/Remote, Desktop/Citrix
  • Free Text — unstructured information flow scross business processes

For a high complexity project it generally takes 10-12 weeks of implementation. A medium and low complexity project can take 6-8 weeks and 3-4 weeks respectively to implement RPA robots.

It needs to be understood that RPA is a long term strategy and should not be considered as a one time project as mentioned here.

For a complete assessment of your business processess you can click here.

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