The Ultimate Guide to Implementing RPA Successfully in 2018- A Whitepaper by RapidValue

The Ultimate Guide to
Implementing RPA
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO IMPLEMENTING
ROBOTIC PROCESS AUTOMATION (RPA)
SUCCESSFULLY IN 2018
A Whitepaper by RapidValue Solutions
©RapidValue Solutions

Implementing RPA
Executive Summary
Do you know what gets executives really excited? Automation and robots.
Do you know what scares the bejesus out of everyone else? Automation
and robots.
That’s why it continues to be a hot subject as more companies move to
implement Robotic Process Automation (RPA). It almost works too well.
RPA isn’t a new concept by any means. It’s been around for a long time and is
starting to gain momentum in large corporations as they’ve seen the results
of cost savings from previous RPA implementations.
In this article, we break down what RPA is and explain how you can use it
for your organization as well as how to best implement it - from creating
the business case, to the initial discovery workshops and implementation, to
testing, and rollout.

Implementing RPA
index
01 What Is Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and why would I use It ?
04 Common myths about RPA : Here’s what it can and can’t do
06 Pre-work part I: Is RPA worth the cost of investment? Here’s how to calculate the
ROI of RPA
08 Pre-work part II: Organizational preparation
09 Discovery part I: Workshop and roadmapping - The first week of the
project engagement
12 How to execute
13 Go-live & support
14 Bonus: How to choose a RPA technology service provider?
15 Case study : How we reduced a claims process from 14 days to 2-3 days using RPA
11 Discovery part II: Design the architecture and choose the tool(s)

Implementing RPA
RPA does exactly what it promises: It automates processes via robots. Well, more like digital robots AKA,
“bots.” There are, unfortunately, no real robots involved in RPA. RPA tools mimic the same manual processes
performed by a human in a digital environment.
Here is an example of a small manual process that can be automated via RPA:
In this instance, a RPA bot would automate that entire process because it is defined and contains digital data
from the beginning. The benefit of RPA in this case is that the systems (email, system #1, and system #2)
don’t need to be configured to speak to each other. RPA is literally mimicking Cindy’s mouse movements to
perform the actions. This is one small use case of RPA. Find below some more examples in graphical format.
1. Cindy receives an email notification that an insurance claim has been filed.
2. Cindy opens up the email notification, copy and pastes the contents of the email into another
system (system #1), and presses submit.
3. Cindy waits for the confirmation page to load, and after it does she copies the unique ID generated
by the system and pastes it into another separate, unconnected application (system #2), then she
presses submit.
4. Repeat.
What is Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and why would I
use it?
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Key areas where RPA can automate the process
Break down - Some of the top use cases
Lead Generation
Loan/policy
eligibility check
Account
opening
Lead
reporting
Mortgage processing
Enter data into various systems
Automate task assignments
Policy servicing Claims servicing
Fraud detection
Reporting
Digitization
of paper
mail
F&A; Travel &
expenses
processing,
Accounts
payable
Procurement
Generate PRs,
POs, Invoices,
Vendor master
data Customer
billing
KYC
Represents top areas to implement RPA
Operations
We can break it down even further with more examples of lead generation and operations.
OperationsLead Generations
Claims Servicing - First Notice of Loss
Mortgage Processing
Policy Maintenance/Changes to acoount
Business Services/Support
Lead Generations
1. Assign leads to agents/staffs
2. Create sales funnel report
3. Enter data into product offering
system
Policy Issuance/Account Opening/Mortgage
1. Enter data in system
2. KYC check
3. Document verification against provided data
4. Eligibility check based on rules
5. Issue policy/agreement letters
6. Verify no claims discount
1. Manual claims entry
2. Direct data entry
3. input data into various systems
4. Claims payout - Accounting, payment
1. Information validation
2. Document validation and data verification
3. Document checklist verification
4. Email follow-ups for documents
1. Change of personal details
2. Change in address
1. Digitization of paper mail and automated assignment/processing
2. Procurement - Verify and approve supplier invoices purchase orders and payments
3. Verify eligibility, entitlement & fraud checks
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In the following image you can see where we are in the evolution of digitization. ERP’s and eCommerce sites
are in place, and through the magic of mobile, they are putting a lot of power in consumers’ hands.
The problem with this natural evolution is that many of these new systems can’t talk to each other. So manual
work by humans is needed to keep the process moving and get information from one system into another.
To be more cost efficient, companies are looking at ways to automate these processes without initiating
complex and expensive IT projects to connect the systems. This is where RPA comes in. It’s a way to get data
from one system into another.
The evolution of digitization and how RPA is part of it
Banks, insurers, pension funds and other financial services institutions operate in a highly regulated
industry and are faced with high demands for auditability, security, data quality, and operational resilience.
Robotic process automation allows modern banks to meet these demands and achieve significant operational
efficiency.
A big benefit for any company in a highly regulated industry
Evolution of digitization
*Many companies are actively experimenting / considering RPA and AI as the next steps in technology
Most companies are here
Touchless
Transactions
10-20%
30-50%
70-80%
80-90%
90%
Digital
Journey
ERP eCommerce Self Service
Robotic Process
Automation
Artificial
Intelligence
Digitization
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The Boston Robotics robot is smart enough to evaluate its surroundings and make an appropriate decision
based on the goal and the data it has collected. It can walk around moving blocks, stop when someone is
coming and open doors it has never seen before.
RPA? Not so much.
RPA works when the data is structured and has a high transaction volume, and the decision paths are fairly
standard and have direct digital access to the data.
You know that video from Boston Dynamics where the robot opens doors and does backflips? That’s a
real robot. It also has the capabilities to think for itself and walk around barriers. It doesn’t need structure.
The word robotics is the first misconception about RPA, especially because you can use RPA with machine
learning and artificial intelligence.
Myth #1 - It works well on unstructured data
Common myths about RPA: Here’s what it can and can’t do
The way to really think about RPA is that the “robots” will do exactly what the humans used to do. If the
humans were inefficient because of unstructured decision making, then the robots are almost guaranteed to
be worse than the humans. RPA works great when the processes are already defined and easily automatable.
Myth #2 - Automation will help improve our bad processes
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Great! This can be automated
The AP Person has a clear process on how to categorize invoices based on data characteristics. This makes
the job of for RPA easier because the data is structured and clearly defined.
Process A:
1. AP receives 100 invoices a day.
2. AP Person 1 categorizes the invoices based on data from the invoices and clear instructions on
how to categorize them.
3. Invoice gets routed to right team for approval.
4. Team member gets notification and approves invoice.
5. Payment is made upon approval.
Process B:
1. AP receives 100 invoices a day.
2. AP person prints out 100 invoices during weekly invoice meeting with multiple team members
and each team decides what invoices need to be approved or rejected.
This can’t be automated with RPA! But this situation can be entirely avoided with RPA.
The process is broken. How to categorize invoices isn’t defined and there is no clear data structure for making
decisions. Too much human judgement and other contingencies involved.
Here is a simple broken down process of how to determine which process can be automated.
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There are three reasons why companies choose to implement RPA:
See the image below for more details on each reason.
Pre-work part-I: Is RPA worth the cost of investment? Here’s
how to calculate the ROI of RPA
1. It significantly boosts productivity with minimal process change.
2. It’s easy to calculate the ROI.
3. It’s a fresh alternative to the large complex projects of typical BPM programs.
Boosts productivity with minimal process changes
Robots can replicate human tasks without affecting underlying systems. As a result, the process
in place is unchanged, eliminating data integration and analysis efforts.
Is a fresh alternative to the “Big spend” of typical BPM programs
Business Process Management (BPM) as a technology strategy to often drives a wedge
between the business and technology management organization. BPM has a legacy of long
implementations and fuzzy business cases - the opposite of RPA. The head of robotic processing
at an Irish bank put it in stark terms: “The minute you use the BPM word, it is five years and £5
million.”
Brings an essay-to calculate ROI
The cost of an RPA robot will range from $5,000 to $10,000 annually. In some use cases, there
is one-to-one relationship between a robot and a worker. In others, a single robot replaces
three to five workers. Savings are easy to calculate. It’s 65% less expensive than the full-time
employees. Industry expers expecting RPA to disrupt the conventional BPO model and alter the
global outsourcing industry.
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Do business leads feel that certain manual activities can be automated? If so, how many?
Let’s say that it makes financial sense to initiate RPA for certain identified processes. The next step is to
visualize what other opportunities will occur in the next 6-12 months.
It’s easy to present a powerpoint slide about how RPA will save the company $200,000 a year if implemented,
which can be entirely true. What’s usually missing from these presentations is all of the related effects of RPA
which can actually increase costs that aren’t easily measured. For example, an automated process can trigger
more support calls and complaints from other parts of the business where RPA isn’t working properly. Also,
if it reduces headcount, are you really saving on headcount or are you transferring that resource, and also
cost, to another department? And don’t forget about implementation costs. All of a sudden your $200,000
per year savings doesn’t look as nice. So, calculate the real value of an RPA and calculate the external factors.
1.1 Start with a survey of multiple business functions
1.3 Calculate the opportunity that RPA can make in the next 6-12 months
1.2 Calculate the REAL ROI
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Due to the business impact of RPA, this step shouldn’t be taken lightly. We have seen great RPA projects fail
mainly because the organization wasn’t prepared for the impact, which caused a lot of issues downstream.
The goal of this section is to be ahead of the game. Making sure the right people within the organization are
aware of its potential impact and are actively engaged in the project is vitally important.
Pre-work part-II: Organizational preparation
Governance is not a new word and is business-as-usual for most corporations. Creating a governance board
should be one of the main priorities for the sponsor of the project. The executive sponsors on the governance
board should include the business executives, technology executives and relevant resources of divisions that
will be impacted by this change. That could also mean including HR on the governance board to control the
message.
2.1CreateagovernanceboardwithITandbusinessfunctions.Communicate
the need for RPA and the potential impact once it’s implemented.
The workshop will be used to flesh these high-level processes out, but it’s always a great start to get the
business and IT teams to think about what processes can be automated. This is the responsibility of all
executive sponsors and members of the governance board. Collect all of those ideas in one place.
2.2 Document which high level processes can be automated
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So you’ve decided to move ahead with your RPA project. The most critical part of an RPA engagement is
the first week of the discovery process. Now, let’s walk you through how to best structure your future RPA
engagements for maximum success. These guidelines are based on our years of experience implementing
RPA for many organizations.
The first thing to be done is getting your IT, Business, Governance and most importantly, company politics
aligned. The word “robots” and “automation” used in the same sentence will easily trigger the fastest 100
email thread in the history of your company. So this needs to be taken very seriously, and communication
regarding this should be tight. When we start a RPA project, our next step is an in-person workshop to help
flush out what’s being implemented.
Discover part-I: Workshop and roadmapping - The first week of
the project engagement
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Since this meeting involves a lot of people, it needs to be organized and fluid.
Here are the main deliverables for a workshop:
All day workshops tend to be exhausting and oftentimes, things will be missed. By sending out a clear
definition of everything that was decided on, it gives the teams a few more days to fill in any gaps.
3.2 Structure the workshop for maximum effectiveness
3.3 Send out results of the workshop and clearly communicate next steps
1. A defined list of processes that can be automated and ranked by priority
2. Detailed process flows for the main processes to be automated.
3. Strategy roadmap and Return On Investment calculation
4. Project development plan
5. Governance model and dependencies
Depending on the complexity and number of processes, the workshopping could last anywhere from 4
hours to 4 days. One of the first things we do is schedule a workshop with all the decision makers in one
room. Every owner of the business and relevant IT Directors should be part of this workshop. This is also not
an activity that can be done over the phone. It’s interactive and requires a lot of communication.
3.1 Invite all the decision makers impacted by RPA
(executives & sponsors)
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The biggest misconception about RPA is that it’s one-size-fits-all, when in reality it can be a variety of tools
that do widely different things under the guise of RPA. In this section, we’ll overview the different types of
tools you can use for RPA. In the workshop and discovery part of the project, all of the requirements were
listed, so the next step is to define the right tools.
Discover part-II: Design the architecture and choose the tool(s)
Standard RPA tools - Many of the best RPA tools are simply powerful macro bots that can mimic human
behavior. As long as there is a standard process involving digital data, there are some great tools.
Here are our top recommendations of RPA tools:
Chatbots - A good example of a use case for Chatbots is when a human used to ask the same set of
questions to a customer. Instead of having a human asking and recording the answers to those questions, a
Chatbot can ask those questions and even ask follow up questions, depending on the answer to the previous
questions.
Chatbots are already replacing contact centers in responding to the FAQ-type questions. They are also being
used within enterprise. The use case can range from letting you know the status of a tech support issue, to
answering scientific questions on pharmaceutical formulas or investment models.
A chatbot can be script driven, data driven, or inference driven. Script driven chatbots are for basic purposes
such as providing application status. Data driven chatbots can be used to support complex scenarios, such
as the eligibility for a credit card. Inference driven chatbots can be used in complex, unstructured, and
unknown scenarios. For instance, a robo-advisor in a volatile market will make a recommendation while
considering the investor’s sensitivity to risk.
As chatbots get smarter, they will become more popular.
4.1 Choose the right tool
•• Uipath
•• Blue Prism
API Integrations - Integrating with API’s is oftentimes a last resort when it comes to RPA, considering the
whole purpose of RPA is to mimic screen movements. However, if strategically done, API integrations can
help expedite a RPA that can’t be done with a standard screen-mimicking RPA tool.
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At this point, an RPA implementation runs similar to any technology implementation. There is no golden
answer to how you implement it. It’s all based on your company’s and implementation vendor’s preference.
How to execute?
There isn’t one clear answer to this. In some instances it makes sense to do the easiest process first via an
Agile methodology and push it to production. In this case, you can get it running as soon as possible, work
out the kinks, and use it as a baseline for future implementations. This also helps you build more confidence
with other team members that implementing RPA is a benefit to the company. Both are development
oriented. RPA involves more business intervention and continuous testing and approval. DevOps is highly
preferred while implementing RPA.
If you are partnering with a technology vendor, a transaction based model makes more sense. When your
transactions increase, the overhead also increases. With RPA, the overhead reduces. You pay only for the
transactions.
5.1 Development based - Agile or Waterfall methodology?
5.2 Transaction based - Pay as you go
What if the invoicing system gets upgraded and causes the data mapping to stop working?
It’s fine to trust the robots. But have a plan just in case the robots get stuck. Create a risk assessment and
define any points of failure, and have a backup plan. Assume anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.
Alternatively, work with a technology vendor and opt for a managed services model. A managed services
model is where the vendor will take care of the entire process and is responsible for the uptime and process
quality.
5.3 What happens if the bot stops working? Define a risk assessment and
business continuity model
•• Does the AP team stop approving invoices?
•• Do you wait for IT to fix it?
•• What’s the process for handling emergency invoices?
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Go-live & support
•• All signed-off test documents
•• Sign-off from all executive sponsors
•• Sign-off that all backup procedures are ready to go-live if a “disaster” occurs which causes a RPA
procedure to stop working
1. A dedicated control center with all the relevant implementation members and vendor support. We
recommend having this until the RPA is stabilized. The control center should have:
2. Go-live checklist updated frequently
How you go-live depends on the methodology that you’ve chosen. For RPA, since it involves automating
an entire process, it is important that close attention is being paid to the individual transactions as they go
through the system. Here are the things we recommend to have during go-live:
•• Implementation members
•• Team members who were responsible for manual activities
•• Tech representatives of the vendor available in case software expertise is needed
•• An RPA checklist is critical not only for ensuring things are going smoothly, but also for reporting
to the executive committee
The three things we need to have before we go-live:
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There are two ways to implement RPA. You can do it straight through the vendor or you can hire a technology
consulting firm to do it for you. What we’ve seen from our clients is they will often get a proof-of-concept
from a tool vendor, and then after they see it’s a fit for their company they will look for a vendor. We’re a little
biased since we specialize in RPA; so here is what to look for in vendors:
Just because they have it on their website as a side note, doesn’t mean they have resources dedicated
to RPA. It’s important that RPA is an actual practice within the firm since there are a lot of various
ways to implement it.
We have seen the biggest impact of RPA in financial services and mainly in Insurance. We’ve been
able to build up extensive knowledge in business processes and tools involved to spot issues before
they arrive.
Here is a link to our RPA case study
Some IT consultancies have agreements with vendors that unfairly bias the tools they select during
the implementation. The process and roadmap defines the tools you use, not the other way around.
Do your own due diligence on tools and look into the full cost, including the licenses of each robot.
Bonus: How to choose a RPA technology service provider?
1. Do they have dedicated resources to RPA?
2. Do they have case studies of work done in your industry?
3. Do they pitch a tool before they know your requirements? If they do, be cautious.
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An average claim takes 10-14 days to process if only humans and ERP systems are involved. Here’s what a
sample manual process looks like for claims processing.
Case study : How we reduced a claims process from 14 days
to 2-3 days using RPA
100% Manual Cost: $175 / Process
Register FNOL Planning Verification Claims Servicing
Day 1
Sunday
It’s a holiday, customer
can’t reach contact
center. Registers through
website.
Day 2
Day 2
Day 2
Calls customer contact
center multiple times to
know the status.
Insurer assigns the case to
adjuster.
Adjuster calls to review
policy coverages.
Day 4-6
Day 5-9
Claims adjuster visits the
location to assess the
damage.
Submit document
describing incident and
recommendations for
claims amount.
Day 10-14
Claims handler assess
the document and
disburses the claims.
Manual process: Multiple touch-point for schemes
10-14 days
7 steps
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In the next phase, instead of jumping straight from manual to a 100% RPA and machine learning solution,
we decided to prove the value of RPA with automation and human involvement. It was a logical step to
continue.
PHASE 1: Semi automated: Bots and humans co-work to process claims
6 steps
5-8 days
35% Automated 25% semi-automated 40% Manual 20% Cost Reduction
Day 1
Sunday
Day 1
Day 1 Day 1-2 Day 3-6
Day 5-8
Day 2-5
Register First Notice of
Loss (FNOL).
Insured can know the
status, resolution, timeline
and other details by
talking to bot.
Bot automatically assign
case to claims adjuster.
RPA Bot automatically
schedules an
appointment based
on insured and field
adjuster availability.
Submitted documents
are used by RPA Bot to
assess damage based
on configured rules
and machine learning.
This shall be updated
in Payment and Claims
Server.
Claims adjuster approves.
Automatically process
the payment.
Field adjuster visits
the location to check
authenticity, takes &
sends pictures, fill in the
document.
Chatbots and humans co-work to process claims
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In this phase, we took it to the next level and automated more of the complex processes and eliminated
most of the human interaction.
After all was said and done, we reduced the claims processing period by 97%, which was a huge win for the
client. If you want to learn more detail about this case study, download it here.
PHASE 2: Automated: Bots do the hard work
Bots do the hard work
5 steps
2 days
100% automated
Complicated scenarios
will be referred to claims
adjuster
40 -60 % cost reduction
Day 1
Sunday
Day 1
Day 1
Day 1 Day 1 Day 2
Register First Notice of
Loss (FNOL).
Click & send appropriate
images of damage
through an app/ web/
Chatbot.
Details like location, time
of picture taken, device
used, phone number,
etc., are captured to
verify authenticity. RPA
Bot record these into
necessary systems.
Insured can know
the status, resolution,
timeline and other
details through any
convinient channel, as
RPA Bot updates all
necessary servers.
RPA Bots reads the
policy agreement and
checks for terms &
conditions and eligibility
status. If eligible
automatically assigns
case to claims adjuster.
Submitted documents
and images are used
by RPA Bot to assess
damage, based on
configured rules and
machine learning. This
shall be udated in
payments and claims
servers.
Automatically process
the payment after
claims adjuster reviews
it.
Implement Machine Learning
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Author
RADHAKRISHNAN NR
Practice Head - FinTech
RapidValue
If you’re looking to implement RPA, this guide has all the details you need to be best prepared for it. If you would
like RapidValue’s expertise in a RPA implementation, please reach out to contactus@rapidvaluesolutions.com and
we’ll be in touch with you shortly.
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Disclaimer:
This document contains information that is confidential and proprietary to RapidValue Solutions Inc. No part of it may be used,
circulated, quoted, or reproduced for distribution outside RapidValue. If you are not the intended recipient of this report, you are
hereby notified that the use, circulation, quoting, or reproducing of this report is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful.
RapidValue is a global leader in digital transformation solutions including mobility,
omni-channel, IoT, AI, RPA and cloud to enterprises worldwide. RapidValue
offers its digital services to the world’s top brands, Fortune 1000 companies
and innovative emerging start-ups. With offices in the United States, the United
Kingdom, Germany and India and operations spread across Middle-East, Europe
and Canada, RapidValue delivers enterprise services and solutions across various
industry verticals.
www.rapidvaluesolutions.com
+1 877.643.1850
www.rapidvaluesolutions.com/blog
contactus@rapidvaluesolutions.com
©RapidValue Solutions May, 2018

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