Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry has thrived for two decades on movement of repetitive and mundane, albeit important, tasks to a centralized and more cost-efficient setup. Times have changed since. Client organizations are continuously reinventing themselves and demanding more from their outsourcing partners. Digital has brought about a major expectation-shift. Customer experience has become a fundamental expectation. Being fast and agile is critical. Organizations are forced to evolve into infinite business - the one where customers, employees, partners and vendors operate under a seamlessly connected ecosystem.

Amidst all this, outsourcing service providers are under constant threat towards stagnation. They need to act as value partners for their customers.Fortunately, the same digital leverage available to enterprises, threatening to replace BPOs, is also available to BPOs. RPA (Robotic Process Automation)is one such hot technology available today.

RPA,a threat for BPOs?

RPA typically deals with automation of routine and repetitive tasks that are otherwise performed by knowledge Workers. Robots, in RPA parlance, mimic human behavior while performing these tasks. These robotic software agents typically execute as part of a broader process. Ironically, what RPA promises to do for organizations through software agents, has originally been the promise of outsourcing service providers through coordinated human workforce. Consequentially, RPA can take away a major pie of an outsourcing provider’s business.

In past, BPOs and SSCs have made an effort to move up the shared services maturity model (Automation, Centralization, Standardization, and Continuous Process Improvement. See Newgen White Paper “Maturity Model for Shared Services”). Most such efforts involved a BPM (Business Process Management) enabled organization. In such setups too, knowledge workers end up performing numerous repetitive and mundane activities. There are many scenarios where current systems are inadequate for such automation, for instance, dual data-entry, swivel chair scenarios and mundane approvals. RPA attempts to resolve “just that” problem.

RPA frees up the bandwidth of knowledge workers and allows for more efficient way of performing those repetitive mundane tasks.

So,in essence, RPA is the last mile task automation of human tasks in Process Automation. This is where, unless BPOs and SSCs leverage it and pass the benefits to their clients, the client organizations would themselves want to do it, and that’t where the threat is actually real. It may sound like another cost-efficiency enabler, but it is much more than that. RPA helps organizations to focus on their end- customers, while getting faster and efficient at that.

RPA frees up the bandwidth of knowledge workers and allows for more efficient way of performing those repetitive mundane tasks.

The opportunity for maximizing the value from RPA

RPA is particularly effective in voluminous setups of outsourcing services providers. Typically, one would expect that such last mile automation activities are supported by a central business process orchestration platform, but enterprises are also sometimes looking at optimizing the worker performance independent of process management efforts, such as in ERP and core domain applications. In order for an effective leverage of RPA, however, the following considerations are important:

RPA is in essence a Process exercise: RPA holds tremendous promise, however, organizations have to look at RPA as a “part of the solution” and not the end in itself. It may look like an extension of an underlying ERP in some cases. An effective RPA implementation works in conjunction with a robust BPM platform that supports structured as well as unstructured processes.

BPM Platform is critical prerequisite for RPA: Without an effective BPM platform, an RPA implementation would be like town exits without an interstate freeway. Process orchestration at the business unit level is what drives the overall business value, while RPA implementation at the tasks level gives the incremental leverage that it promises.

RPA is a perfect foil for effective Case Management: Considering that RPA is primarily targeted to free up the knowledge workers resources to allow them to focus on the real knowledge work, it is critical to have a process solution that allows such work to happen in a well defined manner. The key here is the support for unstructured processes and a strong capability for handling exceptional scenarios through decision making driven by knowledge workers.

Straight-through Processing & Integration is Key: This goes without saying. However, it is the most critical aspect of RPA, without which any implementation would be a replica of human swivel chair scenario. The process platform should have the capability to integrate with various systems as well as to allow for smooth passage of data from systems to robots and vice-versa and to process platform, in oder for the process to work seamlessly.

Finally, how can RPA help the SSCs and BPOs to become value partners?

An increased turnaround time and a consistent and responsive process is the key for an effective customer service process. RPA can add great value to these processes by selectively automating mundane portions of the process and at the same time allowing client frontline to focus on customers.

SSCs and BPOs can realize the direct benefits of RPA, however it would be a mistake to think of it as operational efficiency tool for profitability alone. RPA can be a shot in the arm for BPOs if they leverage it as a way to add value in the outsourced processes and pass the benefits to their client organization.