Robotic Process AutomationRobotic Process AutomationAnd The Digital Transformation Continuum

Summary

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is emerging as a cost-effective technique to get work done in Financial Services Institutions (FSIs).

As RPA software “bots” automate high-volume, repeatable tasks within existing processes, they free efforts and enable attention to higher-value interactions that build relationships and trust while expanding revenue opportunities.

With the advent of RPA, executives should reconsider how they manage organizational business processes and support information technology.

Benefits of improved accuracy, cycle time andtransaction process productivity are best realized bythose who appropriately shift their attitudes,accountability and attention.

This presentation explores the automation challenges facing FSIsand considers where RPA might best serve the organization.

What is RPA?

RPA is a software “bot” that handles a localized,frequent and repetitive task more efficiently andprecisely than a human can, by mimicking humanbehavior.

Shifting Attitudes: The Path To Value

Value in the Financial Services industry flows from relationship-focused activities.

Automation can keep monetary costs down but there is a significant opportunity cost in the reduction of personal considerations or custom treatment for customers.

As a result, the industry is undergoing a metamorphosis that will demand a thorough and radical alteration of its core operating model.

Changing Expectations

Consumers expect to be in control not just to access financial services, but secure, friendly and convenient access right when it’s needed, wherever they happen to be.

The economic value once generated by product and service now orients around data-driven relationships that depend on transmission, access and exchange capabilities available today through mobile technologies.

Data-Driven Value

FSIs should embrace new models of thinking that not only apply economies of knowledge at the margin, but also fuel cultural and organizational transformations

where value gets created by data-driven relationships.

The Longer View

Internal planning processes seek to identify the right use cases for innovation intended to optimize investments to generate the most revenue.

THE ONLY STRATEGIC CERTAINTY RESTS ON THE PROMISE OF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION.

This means greater economies of scale, more prudent resource allocation

and enhanced knowledge distribution.

Accountability: Shared Responsibility, Reliability And Cost Reductions

CIOs lean on IT infrastructure teams to make cost savings happen, help business partners bring ideas to market and respond to risks and competitive threats more quickly.

Strategic IT departments enable distributed networks and functional self-service, which can include RPA tools. This approach:

Pushes out control of workflow to the functional business unit, resulting in lower demand on scarce IT resources

Helps IT enhance front-end processes and positively impact customer experience without disrupting ongoing deeper-layer processes, governance and performance

Rpa Can Be Used To Extend Efficiency

Organizations that deploy enterprise business software add security layers on the network, like firewalls and governance rules at the application level, that can control individual access to both data and functional transactions.

This results in each application requiring separate logins and security checks that delay and frustrate end-users while decreasing effectiveness.

RPA can provide a logical bridge between separate applications when the task is consistent.

89 / 100 %

But It Cannot Deliver The Continuum Of Process Improvement.

A Digital Transformation Platform offers ever greater advantages by unifying multiple systems with both deeper and more comprehensive controls.

Greater Attention: Focus On Productivity

Automation of clerical processes increasingly can be handled by software “bots” that mimic key strokes, or “chatbots” that simulate human conversation.

RPA can take on the non-thinking efforts related to:

Reading Scrolling Typing

Searching for relevant information Comprehending information presented

Clicking or touching Page loads and waiting times Attention switches

Memory load

89%

Stop Thinking Tasks...Start Thinking Results

RPA can:

Deliver good results when automation operates in tandem with the efforts of people enabling continuous activity as RPA completes one task and the agent completes subsequent tasks

Increase control with a more uniform approach to a given task to focus knowledge workerefforts on more complex issues and decisions

Serve as a valued assistant in compliance and streamlines processing through the re-use of dataand automation, retrieval and verification of documents

The Automation Continuum

RPA has become a standout in the continuum of automation tools that help contain cost, assure compliance and enhance employee and customer satisfaction but it is limited in its applicability.Investing in a Digital Transformation Platform—in combination with RPA—offers considerably greater advantage, as well as opportunities for innovation.

A better technique for melding automation with processing improvement andknowledge-worker expertise than RPA is a companion technology approachthat has emerged specifically for loosely automated work: Zero-code development of enterprise apps, accomplished with a low-code digital platform.

This is precisely the approach that Quick Apps on The Appian Platform uses.

The Automation Continuum

The Automation Continuum With Quick Apps

The Quick Apps Designer prompts business users for the key points of their application and all necessary data, forms and processes are auto-generated, resulting in a fully-functional Quick App that executes on The Appian Platform.

Building a Quick App from concept to solution can happen in minutes and may be used as-is to support loosely automated, data-centric work, ideal for knowledge-worker projects and case work.

Quick Apps are automatically and instantly available for use on leading devices, from desktop web browsers to mobile devices, with zero additional effort.

Quick Apps provide the basis for full designers to expand the application appropriately with more advanced functionality, including dynamic rules, automated process decisioning and system integrations to deliver a continuum of automation benefits.

With Quick Apps, the vision of rapid idea-to-innovation becomes a reality with no technical ability needed.

The Automation Continuum With Quick Apps

Take The Next Step

IT executives and business leaders who adjust their attitudes, accountability and attention to how to best use and deploy automation technology across theirorganizations are the ones that will achieve both near and long-term success.

Visit Appian.com to take the next step toward meaningful digital transformation.

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