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We can deploy various types of robots in your company

With Robotic Process Automation (RPA), i.e. software robots, we can streamline and speed up many business processes while reducing the error rate to a minimum. When deploying a specific type of a robot, it is essential to clearly describe the processes in which the robot is to be involved and to define the exact criteria it should follow. The following examples will show you what types of robots are available and what kind of tasks they can handle either with or without human assistance.

A robot: your trusted colleague

One of the simpler software robots is an On-Demand Robot that works only when you need it. Let’s take the example of a contact centre. If a customer calls the contact centre with a request to cancel part of a purchase order, you as the operator then type in the purchase order number; this initiates the robot, which will find the necessary information about the customer and the ordered goods across various systems. The inquiry takes a few seconds. You then verify the information with the customer and modify the purchase order as requested. A more sophisticated solution is an Attended Robot working in tandem with you as the employee. Once the robot is running, you do not wait for the result and you can fully focus on the customer and other activities. The robot works in the background and notifies you when everything is completed. These types of robots function as virtual assistants, helping you when you need them, and are especially suitable for back-office tasks at Finance, HR, IT, and many other departments.

More work for the robot means less for the employee

By combining the two previous types of robots, we get a Hybrid Robot. This is particularly useful if the work takes a little longer to complete. An operator or other employee at the contact centre provides input data to the robot, which will check the original purchase order in all the necessary systems. This part is relatively fast, and the customer can stay on the line and be immediately informed that their request is ready to be processed. As the operator needs to continue using this robot, the collected data is sent to another robot that works independently. After working hours, or at a specifically chosen time, the second robot launches the completion process of things like cancelling all collected orders. When finished, it sends a notification about the job completion.

The robot can also work Partially Unattended, and hence you do not have to wait for the outcome. For example, if a company needs to refund a customer, a Finance Department staff member enters this request into a file (such as an Excel spreadsheet). At a specific time, the robot automatically activates itself, reads the file, checks the data, and then processes all the refunds. Similarly, this type of robot can also be utilised by IT departments for the onboarding of new employees, or for another process where you can enter specific input data and do not need to immediately work with the outcome of the robot’s work; in this case, the IT specialist only enters the necessary data, and the robot orders new devices for the new employee or generates access to the company’s systems. If a new hire is replacing a leaving employee, the robot revokes access for the offboarded employee and then generates access to the same applications and orders the same devices for the newly onboarded employee.

For processes that can be fully automated, you can use a Fully Unattended Robot. These robots need no assistance or activation. Whenever the robot detects a new request, it activates itself and performs the tasks based on predefined criteria. Flawlessly. We know from our own experience that the robot works reliably without any fluctuations according to the way we and our clients jointly set it up. If a new invoice arrives in our accountant’s e-mail, the robot opens, reads, processes, and books the invoice in all the required systems and we only get the final notification. We have used full automation for our clients to do things like process power supply disconnection and reconnection requests, generate various regular reports, and execute GDPR compliance processes where the robot’s task was to delete sensitive customer data.

Even though many business processes can be partially or completely automated, there are activities where the human factor is necessary and irreplaceable. Processes that cannot be completely automated include those where the robot does not have clearly set-up criteria for it to work reliably, where a decision or approval of a physical person is required, and where several departments need to be involved in the process: for example, a handwritten document can be digitised, but the robot cannot guarantee the collection of all the necessary data from it unless it is a structured document. A loan approval may require an assessment of the applicant’s current income and liabilities, but another important factor is the applicant’s behaviour during their interactions with banking staff. In such cases, we deploy Long-Running Robots combining the work of a human with various types of robots. When the robot completes part of its work and the next step requires human involvement, the robot creates a task for the human, clearly specifying the expected outcome, and waits for the task to be completed. It then resumes the automatic task processing.
The robot can therefore help with the processing and preparation of all necessary information, do the necessary checks, and display all the relevant information to the human employee. The task for the employee is to make a single-click decision about the next steps. The robot then completes the job.

Flawlessly and with a quick return on investment

Robots work exactly the way they were set up. If we enter the right criteria together, the robot makes the right decisions. It accesses systems based on how we have set it up. It never gets tired or stops working due to being bored of repetitive processes. It is not a problem even if the system is overloaded or if it crashes. The robot reopens the system and resumes working where it left off because it continuously logs all completed operations. If you decide to invest into partial or full automation, the return on your investment depends on the size of the automated process. It may vary from three months for simpler solutions to one or one and a half years for automating more complex processes. The robots will also save you labour costs and eliminate errors. If you need advice on how to start or extend process automation and digitisation, we will be happy to help you, analyse options, and prepare a strategy for your company. Getting all the necessary licences will not be a problem for you either. We can rent them (RPA as a service) or get them for you. The benefit of renting is that you get all the updates as well as the IT support and service. At Soitron we take care of the robot completely. If you decide to purchase a full licence, we can train your specialists and provide them with all the necessary information.

5 basic questions that need to be answered when choosing an RPA supplier

VIKTÓRIA LUKÁČOVÁ BRACJUNOVÁ

Digitalisation, robotisation, and automation have become an essential part of the strategic thinking of all managers and entrepreneurs who look for ways to improve performance of their companies so that they do not miss the boat and lose their competitiveness.

Anyone who has learned about the benefits of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and decided to use this technology to increase people’s productivity, reduce costs, speed up processes, and improve efficiency and customer service is inevitably faced with the dilemma of choosing a supplier.

Since process automation solutions can be based on several different technologies, and companies that implement RPA systems may be very different in nature, choosing the right supplier can be quite challenging. Soitron consultants have suggested five questions that need to be answered carefully when choosing an RPA supplier.

What technology will we use?

For robotic process automation, it is necessary to choose a supplier who will implement the RPA solution as well as the software technology the solution will be based on. The most frequently used tools include UiPath, Automation Anywhere, and Blue Prism.

Naturally, each of them has its pros and cons that make it more suitable (or unsuitable) for certain cases. They differ in what options they offer, the ways they are used, their abilities to collaborate with existing systems, and in their licence pricing.

This is why if the decision on which RPA to use is made by a company’s business department, it is advisable to also consult IT specialists or choose a supplier who is a partner of several RPA tool manufacturers, who can thus recommend the most suitable technology to each customer based on practical experience.
What type of supplier should we choose?

Today RPA solutions are offered by a plethora of different companies, such as consulting firms, software houses, and system integrators. There are pros and cons associated with each type of supplier.

Companies who have a core business of consulting may emphasise that they have a good understanding of business processes and have extensive experience in optimising them. On the other hand, technology companies may highlight the technical know-how needed to acquire digital data from various systems and integrate the RPA with the existing IT environment.

The ideal choice seems to be a supplier who has the consulting capacity for optimising business processes as well as strong development and integration skills that allow it to overcome potential technical issues and make automation work well with existing information systems and applications.
How are we going to operate the RPA?

In addition to choosing the tool and the supplier when implementing a robotic process-automation solution, it is necessary to decide how you intend to operate the software and how you want to pay for it. One option is to purchase all the necessary licences and install the RPA in your own IT environment.

However, a good supplier will also allow its customers to use software automation as a service. This option may be especially suitable for companies that do not have strong IT departments, or who lack the time and human resources to dedicate to automation.

Moreover, few companies have processes that require a non-stop robot usage. Some companies need to activate automation for no more than one to two hours a day. In such cases, it may be more cost effective not to purchase licences but rather to pay only for the time that the robot actually works.
How do we maintain and further develop the RPA?

Software process automation solutions are not off-the-shelf software. That is why it is better to avoid suppliers who approach RPA implementation as a one-off project which is completed by signing the acceptance protocols.

The way a supplier suggests handling the implementation says a lot about their approach. There is a world of difference between blindly following a customer’s assignment and striving to understand and analyse in detail what impact the automation will have on other related processes. It is equally important to test the solution in different scenarios before handing it over.

Thorough documentation and testing of the automated process reduces the risk of the solution not working properly. However, a fair supplier will also monitor the process in its live operation for some time and then guarantee support for possible changes in the future.
Will data be handled in compliance with legislation during automation?

Due to strict data protection legislation, companies must be extremely careful when handling data, including data processed by software robots.

That is why when choosing an RPA, one should inquire if the supplier can prove what activities the robot performs during the process and if they can support this with corresponding documentation if necessary. It is also important to make sure that companies involved in the project have developers who are certified according to the standards of the technology being used. Moreover, the supplier should guarantee that no data is permanently stored anywhere where it could be exposed to the risk of misuse or of being leaked without the customer’s knowledge.

Before handing the solution over, a meticulous supplier goes through the source code with the client and transparently explains what the software robot does in individual steps, what data is accessed by the robot, and how it is handled.

Viktória Lukáčová Bracjunová

Business & New Technologies Products Development Manager
viktoria.bracjunova@soitron.com

Three questions to answer before RPA deployment

If you have ever been interested in Robotic Process Automation (RPA), you are most likely familiar with its benefits, which include increasing productivity and efficiency as well as reducing cost.

A software robot never sleeps, which saves a lot of time and speeds up processes; it also relieves people of time-consuming and routine tasks. This results in improved services for customers and the general public as well as higher employee satisfaction.

But even RPA technology cannot do everything. For it to be successfully deployed, some necessary prerequisites must be met. Here are the three basic things to keep in mind before implementing RPA.

1. Nothing is done without input data

RPA needs digital data; it cannot handle paper documents. If you want the software to automate things, such as the processing of written customer complaints or invoices arriving by traditional mail, these documents need to be digitised first.

Ideally, input data should be “structured”, i.e., organised in a predefined way. The data available in companies and organisations (such as emails, audio recordings, videos, and images as well as digitised handwritten forms) is often unstructured, which may seem to be a major obstacle to the effective implementation of RPA.

However, having data in a form inappropriate for robotic processing is not an insurmountable problem. Today, paper documents can be quite reliably “read” using Optical Character Recognition technology. Similarly, there are solutions for transcribing audio recordings from contact centres and turning them into text files.

2. A software robot has no brain

Robotic software can process anything it was programmed to do, but it is not intelligent enough or able to learn on its own. So you cannot expect it to answer questions that have no clear answer to them. Such questions require careful consideration by humans and cannot be outsourced to robots.

For example, when approving loans or any other type of application where an applicant may meet some yet not all criteria, an automatic rejection could possibly mean the loss of business or an unhappy customer. This is why the automated application approval process should be complemented in some cases with the expert opinion of an experienced person which may be partly based on feelings.

However, the need for human judgement and decision making at some stages of the process does not automatically mean that the activity is not suitable for automation. It only means that the automated process conducted by a robot may sometimes require the involvement of a human. This can be done, for example, by a window popping up on the screen of the person in charge whenever the robot is unable or unauthorised to do something on its own.

The lack of RPA intelligence can also be dealt with by incorporating artificial intelligence and machine learning elements. In such a combination, the software robot is able to adapt and learn to make decisions based on the broader context as well as past experience.

3. Necessary integration

For RPA to be effective, it may sometimes be necessary to process large amounts of data in a variety of formats from multiple sources. For example, accounting departments tend to receive invoices from multiple vendors in a variety of formats, with individual data being located in different parts of the document. For the software to be able to read the data, it is necessary to either unify the format or adapt the robot to be able to read the data from any required form and shape.

As with the previous points, the diversity of formats and data sources is not an insurmountable obstacle. It is merely a complication to consider when determining the total labour intensity and making a costs-benefit analysis when deciding which processes are cost effective for automation and where the return on the investment may no longer be adequate.

When considering limitations and possible obstacles to the implementation of RPA, it is worth remembering that a software robot will not fix an essentially faulty or inefficient process. This is the reason why we at Soitron analyse the affected processes and, if necessary, propose how they can be improved using business process management tools before the automation.

To sum it up, when considering RPA, it is essential to find a partner who knows the prerequisites for the successful implementation of automation very well and who provides a wide range of services (including integration and process management) that may be critical for the effective use of RPA.

Utopian visions versus real experience: What lessons have companies learned from the cloud?

“The end of the IT department – is it in the cloud?” This was the question asked by the headline of the British magazine Computer Weekly back in 2009. Ten years ago, this new five-letter technology started to appear on the covers of technology and business magazines. Which parts of what was promised came true? And which parts have been a lesson in over-optimism? Together with three IT specialists from Soitron, we dissected the cloud into bits and pieces.

One of the first cloud ads dates back to 1993. It was an ad by AT&T simply entitled “What Is The Cloud?” (the video is still available on YouTube). The three advertised key benefits of this completely unknown technology were choice, control, and convenience.

The king is dead. Long live … many kings

There is no denying the fact that the cloud has made IT services more accessible. All of a sudden, the traditional players had new competition. Who would have said in its early days that one day Amazon would be selling computing power and data storage as well as material goods?

The arrival of the Windows 7 operating system in 2009 was a major milestone for the cloud. Despite the commercial success of this new system, the cloud market has been much more strongly affected by its competitors.
Source: reprofoto, The Economist

The cloud simplified the calculation and comparison of corporate IT costs. “The cloud made it much easier for IT people to provide relevant arguments about the costs. This is much clearer for CFOs – unlike in the past, when IT departments would say that, in addition to CRM systems, they also needed to buy additional data storage, add servers, increase computing power, and so on,” says Zbyszek Lugsch, an IT consultant from Soitron. On the other hand, it led to the misleading impression that the cloud was always less expensive. “Since the advent of the cloud, new technologies have emerged, such as hyperconverged infrastructure: this has brought the price of on-premises solutions down so much that when I compare the cost of the same computing power, servers, storage, and so on in the cloud, and I also include the management costs, I realize that having my own on-premises infrastructure would actually be less expensive.”

IT specialist: The cloud is not for everyone, but every company can enjoy its benefits

Many companies cannot afford to move their sensitive data and critical applications to the cloud, but they would love to use something that is just as easy to manage – where storage or a new server is just a few clicks away, and you can use it immediately.

One solution is a “hyperconverged infrastructure” integrating all three hardware components – storage disks, computing power, and networking – into a single “box” with unified management. This eliminates the need to change or set up hardware every time a new application or an upgrade is deployed.

Our data is safe … somewhere else

The problem is more than just the protection of sensitive data and GDPR compliance. Many companies cannot migrate fully to the cloud, because the downtime or unavailability of their critical applications would cripple their operations.

“Let’s take the example of a local manufacturing plant that produces parts for car manufacturers using a ‘just in sequence’ system [i.e. parts arrive at the assembly line exactly at the moment they are needed]. They have their information system in a data centre in Germany. Can you imagine what would happen if they lost connectivity to Germany? Their production would stop. In their case, this would mean fines that they have no chance of paying. That is why they have a second data centre in the plant as part of their own hyperconverged infrastructure, where they keep a copy of the information system,” explains Lugsch.

The automotive industry is a sector where there is simply no room for downtime.

This is why some companies that have tried the cloud are considering at least a partial return to their own “on-premises” infrastructure. “For instance, large retail chains used to have strictly centralized systems, but today they tend to switch to distributed systems. This means that they have at least part of their infrastructure in their subsidiaries.”

Sit back, relax … and wait

Lugsch’s colleague Marianna Richtáriková is in charge of computer networks. “Our customers, even the really large ones with the latest broadband connections, sometimes experience sudden traffic overloads and application slow-downs, and then we discover, for example, that this was caused by Microsoft updates,” says Richtáriková, correcting the misconception that with high-speed guaranteed internet corporate IT would be as fast as if the company had it on their own premises. “If someone had believed that the connections would become so inexpensive that it would not be a concern anymore, and that the capacity would increase, this turned out not to be entirely true.”

The bottleneck is not just the line speed and throughput but also the availability of services and, more importantly, data. Many data centres guarantee 99 per cent (or even higher) availability. But it is important to know what it actually means.

The availability of services and the availability of data are two different things. “Services include things like email. It will run with 99 per cent availability – i.e. the mail server may be down for only a few hours a year. However, the availability of your corporate data, such as the data you have stored in your SharePoint, is something entirely different. Information about data availability is often hidden somewhere deep in the small print. If you manage to find it, you realize how much it would cost you to ensure the 99 per cent availability of your files. As a result, you need to either create some backup scenarios so that you can restore the data, or you need to buy another service. And suddenly the price is in a totally different ballpark,” says Soitron consultant Štefan Pater in conclusion.

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An IT specialist: Myths about expensive corporate IT are partly the fault of IT experts

Who should be in charge of quantifying how much corporate IT costs and how much it earns? Until recently, this was mainly the responsibility of IT staff. However, according to Soitron’s specialist Zbyszek Lugsch, this has often caused more harm than good. Rather than realistically quantifying actual costs, many companies have chosen to move to the cloud. At first glance, this seems easier and more cost-effective. But is the cloud really always less expensive? And how can one find out what is best for their company?

In this interview, you will learn:

why companies should not consider IT only in terms of costs but also in terms of revenue
what the deployment and testing of new online services and applications in companies looks like
how some IT departments cut corners when discussing IT investments
why some companies pay too much for IT, even when they do not have to
how to enjoy the benefits of the cloud in your company without having to move everything to an external data centre

What are the most common myths you encounter when talking to managers about their corporate IT?

They often complain that there is a mismatch between IT investments and the actual benefits for the company.

Is it a myth?

I personally think that, in many cases, this is the fault of IT managers who have an inability to provide valid arguments and show the added value and importance of the IT environment they create for the company.

But it is unreasonable to expect that IT administrators are able to sell their accomplishments. Their role is to understand those systems.

This is also because companies are unable to quantify their dependence on IT. And this is despite the fact that their core business often depends on it. Nevertheless, IT is often viewed solely as a cost item.

How should it be viewed?

For many companies, their IT is essentially a revenue item. In other words, their core business would never work without IT.

But it was not always like that.

They have already reached this point. However, one of the frequent objections is that the costs associated with running IT are disproportionate to its benefits.

What is the problem? Are we unable to quantify it?

The problem is not so much quantifying the initial investment as how much the operation of individual parts of the infrastructure costs.

Business people want more and more systems. But they have no idea about what it takes to make it all work. This is often because their legacy systems – that were built in the past – are ineffective.

To get a better idea of what you are talking about, could you give us a simple example?

Let’s say that a company has a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system. It costs a certain amount to buy, deploy, set up, and operate. If the company was more interested in the costs of each aspect, their second step would be: “OK, now let’s achieve some savings.” And so they turn off the CRM system, because they do not use it much, it costs them a lot of money, and they can actually do without it or get something simpler and less expensive. And that is exactly how much money they want to save.

So is the problem that we shouldn’t look at every bit of the system in this way?

Well, we know how to do it, but most companies still do not do it – even with traditional systems. This prevents them from switching to newer systems – such as hyperconverged infrastructure – which could reduce their costs. If they do not even know how much their IT is costing them today, they are unable to calculate any savings. To make matters worse, the traditional IT infrastructure that used to be built in companies is fragmented. It comprises many different systems from various vendors, with each of them having a different management tool. This makes any calculation all the more difficult.

IT staff have transferred the responsibility for cost calculation to cloud providers.

There are probably some cases where it has worked out. How do these companies differ in their philosophy concerning IT?

They look at it as a service. They are no longer viewing it as just a pile of hardware but rather as a price that includes operation, maintenance, upgrades, and so on.

Isn’t this what I get as a company when I switch to the cloud?

Yes, that is exactly what is so sexy about the cloud. I buy a clearly defined capacity and then it is easy for me to calculate that if I were to add a CRM to my system, it would cost me this much. In fact, the cloud has made it much easier for IT staff to provide relevant arguments about the costs. This is much clearer for CFOs, unlike in the past – when IT departments would say that, in addition to CRM systems, they also needed to buy additional data storage, add servers, increase computing power, and so on.

Does this mean that companies’ desire to innovate their IT is still best answered by the cloud?

It depends on what kind of company we are talking about. For many of them, it will be more beneficial to move to a hyperconverged infrastructure combining the benefits of the cloud and having an on-premises system of their own. This means that they do not need to run any critical applications in an external environment.

Let’s look at another example. Let’s say I have an e-shop and, in addition to conventional online sales, I also sell goods using a mobile application.

The first thing I would probably consider is how often the company makes changes to their systems. Many companies struggle with the fact that they often need to upgrade their environment. For instance, e-shops are essentially dependent on it. Something new comes along, and they need to do a quick upgrade and refresh the platform which their online shop runs on. They need to fine-tune the user experience and temporarily limit users or customers while the company upgrades its platform to a newer version. In practice, this is done by having multiple test environments for the existing e-shop for development purposes.

You mentioned a hyperconverged infrastructure. How would you describe what that is to non-IT people?

Hyperconvergence basically means that the three parts of the IT infrastructure in any organization – data storage, server computing power, and networking – are integrated into a single solution. To put it very simply: it is all in one box.

What is the advantage of this?

Extreme flexibility. I no longer need to worry about how each of the three parts works and how to set it up. It is largely automated and controlled with a single management tool rather than three separate tools. The environment in which the software runs seems to be less dependent on the hardware settings. In IT jargon, we can say that it is “virtualized”.

I am not sure if it is apparent how companies can benefit from that.

We have mentioned companies that often make some changes to their software and applications. In the case of a hyperconverged IT infrastructure, software is much less tied to hardware. There is no need to constantly reconfigure, physically reconnect, or buy anything if you want to change something in your software.

In addition, something like this can be implemented extremely quickly. In another words, you can quickly make it work in your existing IT infrastructure and start reaping the full benefits of hyperconvergence.

There are situations when owning your own IT is less expensive than the cloud.

When software is independent of hardware, isn’t it potentially less stable?

Real-life experience does not suggest that. Another benefit is that it reduces the number of hardware manufacturers, because ideally a hyperconverged infrastructure is a single-vendor solution. This is the case with HyperFlex by Cisco.

Isn’t it a disadvantage for companies to narrow down their choices and reduce their ability to use hardware from multiple vendors?

Not necessarily, because it can still be combined with the existing infrastructure and the cloud. The only question is how cost-effective it is. And we are back to square one, because if companies really knew the cost of each part of their IT – including the costs of administration, management, and dealing with availability issues – they would find that buying the cheapest products from various vendors is actually not the most economical solution.

But this does not explain why you should not buy it all inexpensively in the cloud.

The reason for that is that the cloud appears to be cheaper simply because you pay for it in monthly instalments rather than up front in one large investment. Many companies have found that cloud services are not a universal solution. In many cases, the cloud is more expensive than building an on-premises environment.

What makes it more expensive?

From a certain size – and I do not mean the company size, but rather the size of the IT environment that the company needs, and also depending on other factors – the cloud can be much less cost-effective. Hyperconverged solutions bring the price of on-premises solutions down so much that when I compare the cost of the same computing power, servers, storage and so on in the cloud, and I also include management costs, I realize that having my own on-premises infrastructure would be actually less expensive. In other words, for the same money, a company could benefit from more power than in the cloud.

Despite that, many companies have moved to the cloud.

The reason managers find it so appealing is that they do not have to make any initial investment. They buy everything in the cloud. But when they calculate their expenses over five years, they may find that they would have paid much less if they had bought it themselves.

But from a managerial point of view, it makes sense. Companies rarely have a pile of money lying around that they can afford to spend on IT.

This is the wrong way of looking at it, because if it is only a question of money then the initial investment can be financed.

It is rather about changing the attitudes of people – both managers and IT staff. It is important to educate them so that they realize that there are more cost-effective solutions out there than buying everything in the cloud.