{"id":6058,"date":"2023-10-23T19:01:39","date_gmt":"2023-10-23T19:01:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.peeriosity.com\/shared-services\/articles\/?p=6058"},"modified":"2023-10-23T19:01:39","modified_gmt":"2023-10-23T19:01:39","slug":"setting-priorities-for-rpa-and-intelligent-automation-opportunities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peeriosity.com\/shared-services\/articles\/2023\/10\/setting-priorities-for-rpa-and-intelligent-automation-opportunities\/","title":{"rendered":"Setting Priorities for RPA and Intelligent Automation Opportunities"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n

Intelligent Automation including Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solutions have become mainstream for large companies with developed Shared Services or Business Services organizations. With thousands of transactions each month with different touch points and multiple system applications for every process area within scope, there can be a seemingly endless list of possibilities to leverage Intelligent Automation tools with expected payback periods often measured in weeks or months.<\/p>\n

Creating a structure for setting priorities and managing implementations is critical to ensuring opportunities are evaluated appropriately, and expected returns are achieved.<\/p>\n

Company Experiences<\/strong><\/p>\n

A Peercast discussion in Peeriosity\u2019s Intelligent Automation research area featured a global company with over $5B in annual revenue discussing their approach to developing and managing the pipeline for RPA and Intelligent Automation projects, with the Director of Finance Data Analytics and Automation leading the discussion and sharing openly with Peeriosity members.<\/p>\n

The Finance Data Analytics and Automation team was created in 2020 by bringing together people from different Finance areas who share a passion around processes, automation, and data analytics.\u00a0 The DA&A\u2019s team\u2019s goal is to create value for the organization by shifting workloads for staff to issues that are more strategic.<\/p>\n

A team of thirty professionals located at three different regional centers focuses on developing solutions by asking the right questions, understanding priorities, and identifying stakeholders.\u00a0 Tools used by the team include Celonis, RPA, Altreyx, SQL, PowerApps, PowerBI, and OneStream.<\/p>\n

The company uses a defined governance process to make sure the team is working on the right deliverables at the right time.\u00a0 Creating optimal governance and prioritization processes required the company to establish a digital governance team, create a PowerBI dashboard for reporting, and ensure alignment with IT, global processes, and business stakeholders.\u00a0 Based on a scoring for each evaluation criteria a value score is populated and used to set priorities.<\/p>\n

The governance process doesn\u2019t end when the project is completed.\u00a0 An important component is to perform a formal \u201clookback\u201d to ensure expected benefits are achieved.<\/p>\n

For more details, including a list of the fifteen questions used to set priorities, Peeriosity-100 members are encouraged to review the full presentation and listen to the Peercast recording in the Intelligent Automation research area.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Polling Results Review<\/strong><\/p>\n

To support the Peercast, a poll was created to understand the methods Peeriosity-100 members use to identify and categorize automation opportunities.<\/p>\n

The first poll question asked about the methods used to categorize improvement opportunities.\u00a0 Interestingly the results were evenly split between categorizing based on expected time or cost savings at 45%, and categorizing based on business priorities at 45%, with 10% reporting that they don\u2019t have a specific categorization method.\u00a0 Our feature company used both methods, with one of the first questions asked when setting priorities focused on business requirements as set by either the board or directors, Internal Audit, or company leadership.<\/p>\n

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The second poll question asked about the use of a process mining or process discovery tool to identify and prioritize opportunities for automation.\u00a0 Using these types of tools is new for many companies, with 18% who have implemented, 9% who have attempted and were not successful, and 50% who are currently evaluating the opportunity.\u00a0 Here are the details:<\/p>\n

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Here are some of the comments from Peeriosity-100 members:<\/p>\n