Eliminate Repetitive Tasks with Robotic Process Automation
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) can be a confusing concept, most might think it’s human-like robots walking around attempting to take over our lives. However, that isn’t necessarily the case! Robots can take on many forms, but when we refer to RPA we are mainly talking about programming on a computer that allows the software to complete repetitive tasks on behalf of the user.
Spreadsheets can become mind boggling after thousands of rows and everything starts to blend and blur together, especially when the information must be entered every day, week, or month. That is when RPA comes into play – you can save your eyes and sanity! Robotic Process Automation from ScreamingBox can provide your team with the extended capacity needed to free up time for key business initiatives.
What is Robotic Process Automation?
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) refers to the act of generating a script, or multiple scripts, to perform specific keystrokes in an automated fashion. These scripts, sometimes referred to as “bots” or “robots,” can be used to perform specific functions on behalf of an end-user. This process enables the automation of manual tasks such as data entry, passing information between applications, downloading attachments, sending emails, or performing transactions.
Who Can Use RPA? Who Is It For?
RPA is a game-changer for a wide variety of organizations:
● Financial institutions
● Accounting firms
● Marketing agencies
● Healthcare organizations
● Telecommunications companies
● Transportation and logistics firms
and many more…
For many organizations, starting an RPA team is only half the battle. In the digital transformation era, the demand for automation often outpaces the supply of experienced RPA developers. Building new teams and scaling an RPA program takes time.
The good news is, whether you already have an established RPA practice, or are looking to build one from scratch, the ScreamingBox RPA-as-a-service approach is designed with maximum flexibility in mind.
ScreamingBox can provide the experience and strategy necessary to scale an RPA program to maturity, helping development teams increase adoption throughout the organization. From system design and process establishment to documentation and reporting, ScreamingBox has helped small and large businesses across a wide variety of verticals to establish successful, impactful RPA programs.
Automating Group Level Reporting
Recently, a leading telecommunications and digital services provider was looking to reduce the manual work involved in their controlling group reporting process. With more than 24 million customers across Europe, they dealt with a massive amount of data, and processing key performance indicators (KPIs) was a resource intensive process that distracted from crucial business functions.
Before working with ScreamingBox, their reporting process looked something like this:
● A controller manually retrieves a set of KPI’s from the internal data cube for each country of operation. Usually, at least some of the data is missing or incomplete.
● The controller sends an email to each stakeholder notifying them about the missing data and waits for an update.
● The controller painstakingly sanitizes the data.
● The controller manually copy-pastes the data into an ERP whenever updated data is received from the stakeholder.
● Several different controllers manually validate the data.
● The controller emails the final report to relevant stakeholders.
This manual reporting process was inefficient, to say the least. Controllers were spending valuable hours copy-pasting when they could have been planning, forecasting, and supporting revenue-generating decisions.
The ScreamingBox Solution
After an initial assessment, the ScreamingBox RPA team got to work creating a script to ease the burden on the customer’s overworked controlling department.
The controller reporting process is now totally automated:
● A script is generated to query the database for relevant information.
● The data is automatically sanitized and exported to an Excel spreadsheet.
● If any data validation rules are found to be broken, the bot automatically alerts the appropriate controller.
● The bot drafts emails and sends reports to relevant stakeholders every morning.
● Executives can access the data anytime in an intuitive dashboard that is refreshed every morning.
No copy-pasting involved…
Being on the forefront of the European telecommunications industry, the customer operates an internal RPA Center of Excellence (CoE). But even with a cutting edge CoE, they didn’t have the bandwidth to automate the controller reporting process. The ScreamingBox RPA-as-a-service program provided the customer with the resources and expertise needed to finally automate this expensive and outdated process.
The Results
With the ScreamingBox RPA solution in place, the controlling department is more productive and efficient than ever:
● Overtime hours in the department are down.
● Regulatory incidents have been virtually eliminated.
● Employee engagement scores have improved for several quarters in a row.
● The controlling department has a budget surplus for the first time in several years.
Getting Started with RPA
If your team is looking to launch or extend an RPA program, ScreamingBox makes the process simple:
● We’ll start by reviewing your current workflow while we brainstorm ideas for improvement together.
● The ScreamingBox team will generate a script/robot in the format of your choice, integrating with any current systems or technology as needed.
● Our team will work with you to implement the RPA script, troubleshooting as needed.
● We’ll iterate on the process together, refining existing automation and coming up with new ideas to further improve efficiency.