Artificial Intelligence, Marketing, Robot Process Automation

5 Ways within Organizations to Efficiently Enforce RPA in Marketing

RPA stands for automation of robotic systems, which is the mechanization of business processes using routine activities done by machine tools. There are numerous cases of automation of robotic processes that can lead to substantial improvements in productivity and time. Specifically, in terms of sales and marketing, RPA adoption will reduce repetitive tasks by almost 80%. This means that humans can have much more time and energy for innovative and non-repetitive activities, with 59% of business processes predicted to be automated by 2022. It also means you may have to hunt for a new career, but now let’s not get into it.

Automation plays a growing role, encouraged by the often simple integration of RPA with the existing IT infrastructure.

Here are 5 ways within these organizations to efficiently enforce RPA.
1) Storing Current and New Information for Consumers

A noteworthy case of robotic process automation is that it helps one to store consumer data in a structured and open way. Automatic sorting of various data types, as well as simple visualization of company-wide data, can save time compared to manually entering this information.

2) Cultivating Leads

To automatically nurture leads from a number of different networks, RPA can be used. RPA will lead to quicker and quicker lead nurturing to boost revenue by facilitating instant follow-up and connexions with leads. RPA may encourage the providing of timely responses to data as well as produce polite and attractive responses to advance the discussion.

3) Business Intelligence Reporting

There is a multitude of marketing and distribution details available to the organization that will take way too much time having to manually manage it. On the other hand, in order to simplify these procedures, RPA can be used to set business-defined laws. For eg, RPA bots can all be followed by new business entrants, related activities, promotions, and competitor messaging. Most notably, insights into current account behavior will enable sales reps to reach out at the right time. For eg, if an existing customer has not renewed and is close to the end of their RPA subscription, the respective account holder will be told to check up with the customer and seek to get a renewal.

4) Maintaining & Analysing Competition and Pricing

There are numerous RPA solutions that allow one to watch websites and prices of rivals in real-time, to obtain updates when there is one. This will allow corporations to change their rates accordingly without having to search rival websites manually.

5) Efficient Processing of Sales and Invoice Orders

It is a very time-intensive process to ensure that the data is accurate within an organization. Sales professionals expend large sums of time inserting data into the CRM system, which for the finance department must then be entered into a separate system. Such knowledge transitions contribute to substantial decreases in precision, accuracy, and efficiency. Sales order activities, such as entering sales orders and generating their corresponding invoices, can be automated by RPA on an end-to-end basis. It can also process invoices from multiple formats into unified data directly into a single storage structure. RPA does not only simplify the input of data, but it can process multiple stages of decision-making and search for separate errors.

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healthcare, Robot Process Automation

5 Ways RPA is Changing The Healthcare Sector

More and more firms across different industries are adopting RPA solutions to catch up with this fast-paced technological world. According to a recent Deloitte RPA Survey Report, most organizations opting for RPA solution said that improved productivity and increased customer satisfaction was their key concern and prioritize. The survey also showed that out of 400 respondents, more than 50 percent had already adopted the automation solution and around 72 percent are expected to start the automation journey within the next financial year.

Quoting the Survey Report, “RPA exceeds adopters’ expectations not only when it comes to the rapid rate of ROI increase, but also when it comes to facilitating compliance (92%), improved quality and accuracy (90%), or improved productivity (86%).”

The healthcare industry also reaps the benefits of automation solutions. A report by Healthcare Leaders stated that three out of four hospitals and health systems have CEOs cited a reduction in total cost incurred and increased efficiency as two of their top financial priorities and concerns. The healthcare industry has been looking for improved efficiency, reduced costs, and automation of manual and repetitive tasks.

From fixing appointments, scheduling for doctors and other medical staff, generating and updating patient’s prescriptions and records to generating bills, and collecting payments, a hospital has to deal with many operational and administrative works, which are mostly handled by humans-employees. Slight irregularities or delays in any of these have a ripple effect on all other activities, which in the case of a hospital can lead to some serious human damage.

All these very-likely issues make the healthcare industry turn from human-employees to automated-employees and look for Robotic Processing Automation solutions.

Here are five reasons that will definitely make you want to adopt RPA solutions, at the first possible chance

1. Managing Insurance Claims

Data tells that around 91.2 percent of Americans are covered under health insurance schemes. This indicates the bulk of processes involved in completing the claim procedure, as well as a considerable amount of time. Also, manual handling of claims can go wrong directly impacting the healthcare organization. RPA helps to optimize information and records for processing the insurance claim. It guarantees 100 percent accuracy in filing the claim, filtering relevant information, and making the correct payment on time. Automation also reduces the time taken in the process as the robotic-employee works 24*7*365 without any tired. With the RPA solution, the average time taken to process a transaction gets reduced from 12 to 2 minutes.

According to a study undertaken by KPMG as much as 30-40 percent of insurance claims don’t comply with official demands. RPA tools can easily identify such claims, and save unnecessary payments.

2. Maintaining and Updating Patient Records

Managing patients’ records and updating their database is the most crucial task in any hospital. It is a tedious and regular job, which requires a time-to-time update and accuracy. A minor mistake in updating patients’ records will result in a major mishap for the patients and as well as takes a toll on the hospital’s goodwill. Erroneous or delayed records are mostly the outcome of the callousness of human-employees. A programmed employee who runs on an algorithm has an advantage over humans when it comes to proper record keeping.

3. Optimizing Appointment Scheduling

While fixing an appointment it is important that the availability of doctors matches the requirements of the patients. This requires a proper run-through of the doctors’ schedules and their availability. RPA provides an easy solution to this. It fixes appointment schedules to the patient according to their needs and the availability of a doctor. Once the appointment is booked, it updates in the database and removes that appointment slot. RPA automatically notifies the patient via email, confirming the appointment details. This improves accuracy in data collection and processing and increased client satisfaction.

4.  Added Value of Discharge Instructions

When a patient gets discharged from the hospital after the treatment, he/she is supposed to follow post-medication and healthcare routine. However, most of the patients tend to ignore post-hospitalization recommendations and follow-ups. RPA provides the exact guidelines on following check-ups and post-medication. It is programmed to send timely notifications informing the patients about their schedule, appointments, and tests. RPA solutions ensure continuous communication between a doctor and a patient required for post-hospitalization medical assistance or doubt-clearance, thereby helping with a proper recovery schedule for the patient.RPA helps in optimal post-treatment coverage and a well-organized recovery process.

5. Well Organized Audits

Auditing is a crucial process in the healthcare industry. It keeps the financial health of the hospital in check. Regular audits also help the hospitals to keep a tab on unnecessary expenditure and discover the cost-cutting areas. It is an indispensable routine for any healthcare organization. Auditing is done periodically and includes various categories ranging from patients’ service efficiency check to process safety check.RPA solutions though cannot execute the audit, they can be certainly useful in data recording and report generation, accurately.  This results in well-organized compliance checks and data-informed decisions without any wastage of resources and time.

These are a few of the numerous advantages of adopting RPA solutions. RPA tools ensure improved productivity and efficiency of the hospitals. As per the Deloitte RPA Survey Report, between 51 to 60 percent of the hospitals could see negative margins by 2025 if they are not able to achieve productivity growth. So if the hospitals want a smooth running without any financial distress, RPA is the way to go.

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Uncategorized

How Automation is Making Inventory Management an Efficient Yet Effortless Process

Inventory management forms the heart of all the manufacturing and allied activities – procuring the raw material, converting it into the final offering by the firm, determining optimum stock levels, and reorder quantities. The optimum level of inventory, at a given point, avoids under- and over-investment of funds and resources. An efficient inventory management system is crucial to saving firms from stock-shocks and losing customers.

Role of RPA in Inventory Management

Inventory management includes a series of repetitive tasks across various departments with a mostly transactional nature. Automating, with better coordination among the various departments, reduces redundancy, duplication of work and saves time and effort.

With automation of inventory management, oversights in determining optimum reorder levels, quantities, and delays are eliminated. An automatic system continuously monitors the stock levels, provides day-to-day data on usage rates of various stock items, notifies, and orders when the levels go below the safety-mark.

It analyzes the average daily consumption of raw-materials and adjusts the reorder levels according to the market demand. It determines an optimum stock level by regularly calculating turnover ratios and time period.

Increased levels of transparency help the organization to rectify the stock levels at any time and evaluate present requirements. It is a stable system that gets updated continuously which makes it simpler and easier for the organizations to absorb market shocks and adapt to a dynamic external working environment.

How Inventory Automation benefits SMEs?

For SMEs, with limited free funds, an over-investment in inventory results in a huge opportunity cost as well as carrying and holding costs of the excessive stock. An under-investment, on the other hand, can distort the entire manufacturing process thereby not catching up with the market demand and ultimately losing its customers.

The SMEs, in their growth phase, manually maintaining and monitoring an increasing data on sales, finished goods, WIPs, raw materials, parts, and components, etc. is not an easy task, it more than often results in inaccuracies and mismanagement.

Integrating the inventory management automation system with the firm’s EPR eliminates the need for manual recording and stock-taking by developing a separate database for each of the stock and produce and updating the change in their levels as and when it happens.

How does it work?

It develops and maintains databases for different departments. The automation system keeps accessing the databases of different departments – sales, purchase, production- modifying the re-stocking levels according to the needs of the departments.

Once the stock levels are reduced below the threshold, the automation system kicks in the procurement process. It generates requirement details, sends it to the concerned department for approval, places the order for purchase, collects the invoice from the vendor, and updates the payables account.

The automation system, while ordering the stock, goes through and analyzes all the options available to the firm and identifies the lowest price at which the inventories can be re-ordered. It keeps on evaluating the various lag-periods to determine the time duration that is most cost-effective for re-ordering.

Market research shows firms that have adopted the automation system have effectively reduced their inventory processing time. The time taken for completion of each operating cycle is down by 20% and the entire inventory processing time has been reduced by 70-72%. It also reports, these firms have nearly zeroed the losses incurred due to delays and discrepancies in reorders. The firms with automation have reported zero line stoppages.

An automated inventory management system makes the firm more efficient and organized. Here is how it does it.
Eliminating Mundane Manual tasks:

The process of inventory involves many mundane manual tasks including stock-taking, making purchase orders, updating data on raw materials, finished goods, spare parts, etc., which are prone to human errors The automated system takes over these tasks, executes without any inaccuracies, and on time, and releases much of the human resource blocked in the process.

Efficient coordination:

The process requires a lot of external and internal communication and coordination. The system is integrated with the operating system of the firm, it coordinates the demand and requirement for various inventories at various production and sales levels. Automation, also, communicates with the vendor, supplier, and end customers, resolve their queries instantaneously, and collects feedback.

Cost-effectiveness:

Since automation is able to determine an exact stock level required to keep the business functional, it reduces over-stocking thereby cutting down on the warehousing and holding or carrying costs of the inventories. It also avoids under-stocking and hence, zero or negligible costs are incurred in terms of customer or goodwill loss.

Selecting the right seller:

An automation system thoroughly analyzes the various alternatives available to the firm and picks the seller that asks for the least price. It lists the vendors, gets quotations, matches the offering to the requirements of the firm, checks for hidden costs, if any, and selects the right seller to place the order.

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Robot Process Automation, Uncategorized

Why Accounts Payable Automation a key game changer to the success of Mid-Size Businesses?

The current tools required to optimize and automate Accounts Payable (AP) are designed to accommodate the objectives and challenges of larger enterprises. As a result, small to mid-sized enterprises, with annual revenue ranging from $1 Million to $100 Million, are left with limited options. They are more than often reduced to patching together a series of disparate tools, to address the issue. These strategies have limited advantages. Primarily companies use a method to minimize the data entry job to a single pain point.

Managing Accounts Payable (AP) is a costly and tedious process that requires accuracy and regularity. The Automation of Account Payables provides for a simple yet effective way to manage the AP while cutting down on back-office costs and manual errors.

The real advantages of a completely integrated and controlled AP system, though, go far beyond an optimal data entry system. AP Automation guarantees rigorous supervision, simpler authorizations, strategic transfers, and access to transactional data in real-time. Thus, financial practitioners will take quick and optimal decisions for the bottom line of their company.

With the present-day advancements, automation technology has caught up to the specific needs of SMEs. They are no longer deprived of the advantages of an efficient and mature AP state. Robust AP technologies and systems to serve the needs of a mid-size business are now available. They also provide efficiency gains and control enhancement functionality to optimize the results.

Mid-sized firms already enjoying the benefits of AP Automation

Some have just entered this sphere while some others are still stuck with erroneous and expensive manual processes. However, given the advantages and effectiveness of the automating solutions more and more firms are steadily integrating these solutions in their daily operations ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning).

Front Runners

Many firms have digitized the maximum proportions of their invoices. These are the front-runners in AP Automation management. They use cloud-based automation solutions that ensure accuracy in financial statements, reduction in fraudulence and embezzlements, freedom from manual errors, and cost-efficiency.

Followers

Next comes the followers, these firms have done partial digitization of the invoices and continue to have a decent percentage of paper invoices as well. Such organizations do not have a well structured and functional automated AP workflow. At most, they have adopted elementary automating solutions such as an invoice registering tool, e-payment tools, etc..

Beginners

There are, still, some firms that are purely manual-labor intensive and have little or no automation. They are dependent on human-driven processes to manage their AP. These are the beginners and they undertake massive paperwork, manual entry of invoices, and book-keeping. Such firms are prone to human error and bias at multiple levels and processes. Fraudulence, an error of omissions and commissions, delay in payments, and distorted recording to the accounts payable is also seen

The manual recording and discharging of accounts payable result in discrepancies with the supplier’s and vendors’ portfolios, delays in payments, and lower early-payment discount benefits.

Current Scenario

While the front-runners can reap the maximum benefits of the AP automation, the followers avail lesser benefits and aren’t as efficient as the firms which have completely automated the process of AP management. The beginners are yet to start benefiting from the automation technology and are still struggling with the drawbacks of manual AP management processes.

Recent market analysis shows that 42 % of the SMEs are still at the Beginner’s level in terms of AP automation while less than 10% makes it to the Front-Runner’s level. It has been observed, the overall cost of managing the accounts payable reduces concerning the increase in the automation levels of its management. (Figure 1)

Figure 1. Shows the statistical difference between beginners, followers, and front runners.

How to make a high-rewarding investment in AP automation?

The investment in automation technology, like any other, is made post-measuring a bankable ROI. It involves strategic-level decision making. An assured high-percentage return on investment is crucial for Small and Medium-sized businesses as they have fewer resources and small-irregular inflows of investment. It becomes a key issue for SMEs to analyze and invest in the most rewarding automation technology avenues.

Here is a detailed check-list for SMEs on what to look, while investing in an AP automation system :

Compatibility with the existing ERP

The operations and administrations of SMEs are mostly inter-woven in a well-developed Enterprise Resource Planning System. AP management is also an integrated part of this system. The new AP automation technology should be compatible with the existing EPR system and should complement its working. A complete revamping and re-organizing of existing workflow would disrupt the financial and functional soundness of the SMEs. Hence, while evaluating various alternatives, an SME should look for EPR compatibility and integrating features of the AP automation technology.

Establishing an analyzed business case for the adoption of AP automation

Before adopting the AP automation management system, the firm should assess the current position of their payable levels. the current cost incurred in the entire AP management process, and the time consumed should also be considered. This helps SMEs in deciding the end objective of adopting AP automation. Increased visibility, reduced back-office costs, and elimination of manual errors are some of the benefits of AP automation that make a strong case for its adoption.

A ‘firm-friendly’ solution provider

The SMEs investing in AP automation solutions should be cautious while choosing a solution provider. Many solution providers offer AP automation services. A firm should go for a solution provider who ensures a tailor-made option. It should be customized to fulfill the requirements of the firm and takes into account all its limitations. Few of them are size, space, turnover, existing technical infrastructure, and feasibility. SMEs should look for service providers who provide ‘firm-friendly’ automation solutions after assessing the internal and external environment in which the firm operates.

For the efficient and smooth running of the businesses, automation of repetitive and regular tasks is a must. This helps firms to reduce huge costs in terms of resources, monetary, human, and time. Hence, a necessity to survive the competition. Management of Accounts Payable is one such task, making it’s automation highly recommended.

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Artificial Intelligence

What is RPA and How Can You Improve Your Business’s Accounting Efficiency.

As companies continue to search for cost-effective solutions to increase performance, Robotic Process Automation ( RPA) becomes one of the most prominent breakthroughs. According to a new study by Deloitte, 53% of the companies surveyed already have incorporated or started to integrate robotic process automation into their invoice management approach. This is anticipated to accelerate to a universal implementation within the next five years.

Robotic Process Automation is robot technology that can complement people to simplify the routine, rule-based, and operating procedures. By communicating with current IT systems, RPA software is capable of obtaining and evaluating those tasks and then automating them continuously. Introducing a digital workforce in place, employees would also be able to devote more time to the client and other higher priority activities.

 

 

What is RPA?

Robotic Process Automation ( RPA) is considered to be the technique for mechanization of company processes by automation to minimize human interference.

If each of these words must be sorted out one by one, Robotics are entities that imitate human activity. A process consists of a series of steps leading to productive work. For instance, making your favorite beverage or dish, etc. Automation is any robotic action that does not require human interaction. If we sum up all these concepts, it is also known as Robotic Process Automation. It imitates human behavior to execute a series of steps leading to concrete action without any human interference.

 

RPA boosting your business’s operating efficiency

Since the Payable Accounts (AP) are critical for the competitiveness and financial results of the business entity, AP procedures are manual and time-intensive for many North American organizations. Leading companies are adopting software techniques to boost AP performance, adding to reduce departmental expenses and growing profits within the enterprise. Technology helps AP agencies to retain a solid bottom line for their support. Large organizations with broader financial and technical capabilities have historically powered AP automation, but today automation is adopted in back offices by businesses of all sizes.

 

AP challenges faced by organizations without a proper RPA solution

Organizations strive to maintain an effective invoice mechanism without the correct AP technologies.

Figure 1 depicts the leading organizational challenges :

  • Unproductive procedures and manual data entry.
  • Manual transfer of invoices for authorizations.
  • Constantly losing or missing invoices.
  • Major receipts of invoices being in paper format.

In their own words, the companies cited several difficulties when asked to identify their most significant AP problems. They referred to the handling of obsolete, outdated AP applications with entirely manual AP units. Many have used an ERP or an invoicing control program for their applications for the manual submission of invoices information. Many have been criticizing their applications. One respondent who uses an ERP tool also described its AP Department as “paper-intensive” despite the AP program, which was focused on its tool creating the “no constant method of obtaining and authorizing invoices.” Others found ERP based instruments “unsatisfactory” and “glitchy.”

 

 

 

Benefits of using an RPA for your Accounts Payable

Automation of AP tackles a variety of limitations in the AP Division. Figure 2 shows that many businesses can increase approval periods by using AP automation, to improve the productivity of workers.

It points out the major organizational and strategic benefits :

  • Improving supplier relationships
  • Simplifying the auditing process
  • Reducing fraud and duplicate payments
  • Overall resulting in lower AP costs
Organizations have recognized the beneficial effects and see automation technology as an ability to transform and improve their AP systems technologically and functionally.

 

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