The reduction of cost for low-value activities is one of the most talked about benefits of adopting RPA. In a webinar for ICAEW's 2018 Virtual Conference on digital disruption, David Wright, Consulting, Director at Deloitte, estimates that implementing RPA can reduce labour costs by up to 90%. However, achieving such reductions is reliant on identifying an onshore process that can be truly optimised through RPA.

“There has been a lot of hype around robotics,” he says. “You need to be realistic on level of cost reduction that can be achieved and on the time needed to implement RPA.

“Implementing RPA is not something that happens overnight; it takes effort. If you’re looking across the organisation at how RPA can deliver benefits, then it really is a transformation.”

One of the key benefits of using RPA is the speed at which tasks can be completed. On our RPA eLearning resource, you can watch in real time a robot validating VAT ID numbers. It completes the task in 45 seconds, around one-fifth of the time it takes its human counterpart, never deviating from the defined process and with 100% accuracy.

This can result in more efficient and effective finance functions; better customer experiences and more engaged employees.

Benefits for the finance function:

• Delivers quality and consistency: delivers consistent quality and drives operational efficiencies to increase productivity and ensure operational excellence.
• Provides flexibility and scalability: is adaptable, agile, scalable and can be implemented quickly, without changing existing IT infrastructure and systems.
• Increases compliance and control: provides detailed monitoring and tracking for operational and regulatory purposes.
• Gives competitive advantage: reduces costs and provides high potential ROI which can be leveraged to drive critical initiatives.

Benefits for customers:

• Speeds up execution: reduces cycle times, therefore increasing speed to delivery and demonstrating that we value customer time.
• Limits errors: delivers consistent quality helping build trust and providing customers with a seamless experience.

Benefits for employees:

• Frees capacity: frees up people to focus on more varied, complex, value-adding tasks as well as exceptions that require assessment.
• Improves morale: handles manual work that does not require judgment, increasing their moral and creating a more productive workforce.

Find out more

• Watch David's webinar: Implementing robotics: realising the potential for automation
• Complete our eLearning programme on RPA