How Will Robotic Process Automation Replace Business Process Outsourcing?

Both technology advancements, as well as customer expectations, have increased exponentially in the last few years. Now customers expect to have their questions answered in no time, putting a burden on companies to keep up with their demand while maintaining the cost of doing business at a reasonable level. Therefore, it is a must for the businesses to evolve according to the current as well as future business conditions and Robotic Process Automation Services can be the catalyst for them to take the next leap forward.

Is Robotic Process Automation a threat to Business Process Outsourcing?

RPA has the potential to make many outsourcing relationships obsolete. According to business experts, RPA can save up to 70% cost in comparison to outsourcing. Apart from cost saving, there are many more threats to outsourcing from RPA. By replacing outsourcing with RPA, companies stand to reap benefits like these:

Comprehensive Control: 

With the help of automation, you can keep control of all your activities, leaving no chance for a third party to lose sight of your company�s goals and vision.

Lower Costs: 

The cost associated with the designing and implementing RPA at the workplace is typically a fraction of an outsourcing contract.

Wider Scope: 

RPA can be applied to many business processes. If the tasks are rule-based and definable, then they are a good candidate for RPA.

Easy to Scale: 

Scaling RPA is a quick and easy process and it could also be moulded to meet variations in the business activities.

Simplified Communication:

 Once you define the task and the process to do it, the bot will perform it repeatedly, accurately and uncomplainingly.

Compliance: 

It totally depends on your programming skills because how you will program RPA, it will follow the same guidelines each and every time, and record an audit trail of its actions, ensuring compliance with business mandates.

RPA�s Weaknesses Compared to Outsourcing:-

Although RPA is quite effective in comparison to outsourcing, there are a few negative points also that are as follows:

• RPA is not as good as humans for some tasks � processing scanned images and unstructured data such as free-form emails and attachments. To make these things compatible with bots, you need to accurately digitize the data using OCR or similar sort of technology.
• Due to the very nature of RPA, an error in one entry or transaction can be repeated across multiple entries in multiple applications.
• RPA is best for rule-based processes and if a business has frequent changes, RPA�s productivity and its competitive advantage over humans will be diminished.
• Robots can never replace the experience of human interaction, therefore, some outsourcing tasks are not compatible with this technology.

Bottom-line

RPA is itself a type of outsourcing � outsourcing to a software/robot rather than an overseas-based company. This type of outsourcing is effective for businesses, as it helps to free up employees from doing mundane and repetitive tasks and focus on more cognitive tasks.

The key differentiators for a successful business are flexibility, agility and the ability to cost-effectively scale up or down as per customer requirements. RPA comes with these differentiators, allowing companies to boost efficiency and productivity, lower costs and reallocate their human capital to business-building activities.