Robotic Process Automation (RPA) allows organizations across multiple industries to turn arduous, repetitive tasks into automated ones so critical resources can focus on more complex tasks. According to Gartner’s forecast, global RPA software revenue is projected to reach $1.89 billion in 2021, a nearly 20 percent increase from 2020. A lot of businesses are hopping on the bandwagon of automating tasks, but it’s important to understand how incorporating an RPA strategy into your business model can impact the organization and not just because it’s the next best thing and because “everyone is doing it.”  There are many benefits to RPA overall, but some are unique to a tool such as Microsoft Power Automate, a leading RPA tool. Step one is to always do your research and identify which tool is best for the job, but let’s dive into how Power Automate can bring a gold-standard RPA strategy to your business.

Boost your productivity

The number one reason why RPA makes sense is to increase your organization’s productivity levels across the board. If resources are limited, you will want skilled workers to focus on more complex and creative tasks other than repetitive ones that just take up a lot of time-but are still necessary for the business. Power Automate offers a comprehensive SaaS-based automation solution that is cloud native and low-code. Not only that, but Power Automate also brings UI and API-based automation together with AI. One of the typical barriers or challenges organizations have been the implementation process-especially with automating processes-and it can be quite costly. With Power Automate, users can start using the RPA tool and deploy their first automation in very little time without having to make a huge money move.

Power Automate has three different types of flows, cloud, desktop and business process flows. In order to automate certain tasks, you need to create a flow for it- each one designed for certain use cases. Not only does Power Automate help increase productivity, but it allows users to do that intelligently with its AI Builder. Users can add AI to flows without having to write any code themselves due to the user-friendly templates, guided process, and prebuilt components that can be embedded within flows.

Get Connected

With Power Automate, the automation processes aren’t limited to Microsoft software. Currently, Power Automate connects over 400 applications and services including Microsoft Teams, web services, and third-party applications. This is critical to the flexibility of your RPA strategy and speed up time to market. According to a Deloitte study, one of the biggest challenges stakeholders face by implementing an RPA strategy is the integration and the tool’s flexibility. Power Automate is a low-code platform meaning you don’t have to go running to your IT team to get things up and running. It’s built to have people who don’t have a programming background to use it effectively and start building workflows very fast with drag-and-drop tools and pre-built templates. There are useful templates for common tasks including approvals, social media mentions and notifications. However, users do have the ability to also start from scratch and create their own workflows in a visual designer if they don’t see a solution within one of the prebuilt templates. Members within your organization won’t need to be tied down to a desktop either. If several workers are out in the field and need access, no problem. Power Automate is available on desktop, mobile and the web.

Don’t Break the Bank

One of the primary aspects to consider when implementing any new tool to the organization is the cost. RPA implementations can be extremely costly and unfortunately have a bad track record of not being very successful to start if the proper steps aren’t taken into consideration. While Power Automate does have premium features, it won’t require major stakeholder buy-in to start and if you already have Microsoft 365, it could even be built into your licensing as an add-on. Also, there’s free inclusion of Power Automate in Windows 10. Other users can either purchase licensing by user or by flow depending on what works best for the business.

What organizations can’t afford is losing out on the cost savings associated with implementing an RPA tool like Power Automate. According to Gartner, by 2024, they expect organizations will lower operational costs by 30 percent by combining hyperautomation technologies with redesigned operational processes. RPA tools like Power Automate help this become a reality for those who really struggle with being efficient and challenged with limited resources.

Don’t know where to start?

Sometimes it’s hard to know where to start with an RPA strategy and how you kickoff your RPA strategy is key to its success. You need to have a solid plan first before you start putting bots and flows into place. Power Automate’s Process Advisor captures the steps involved in a particular process in the organization and assists you with streamlining those processes. It identifies the processes that would gain the most benefit from being automated by obtaining insights into those processes that do take the most time, are repeated the most and where the inefficiencies are. So instead of a team of your resources doing all of the legwork, put the software to work as soon as you make the decision to start with RPA!

This discovery phase is critical in creating the most logical workflows for your organization and it could make or break your entire RPA strategy. According to an Ernst & Young report, anywhere between 30 and 50 percent of initial RPA projects fail and it all starts with having the proper plan in place to have a solid foundation to build off of. One caveat to using process advisor though, users do need to have a Microsoft Platform environment with a Microsoft Dataverse database.

While there are many RPA software vendors, Power Automate leads the pack in a lot of areas and climbing to the top of its competition quickly due to its flexibility, user-friendly templates and how it can be integrated into an enterprise’s overall architecture to interact with legacy systems. Power Automate definitely has the features to set a business up for RPA success and to realize impactful ROI.

Learn More

Aptude’s Robotic Process Automation is a smart application of automated transactional rule-based tasks that will integrate human-like actions within data workflows in order to optimize your internal data process. Sound difficult? Not if you know what you’re doing. RPA can replace overly repetitive tasks performed by your staff. Click here to learn more.