Robotic process automation for small businesses: The starter manual

ROBOTIC Process Automation (RPA) is the technology that lets you assign manual and repetitive tasks to a software. It is as simple as that. The technology exists to help you do less of the low-value tactical repetitive stuff so you can spend more time doing the high-level strategic stuff.

Today, enterprises big and small, have come to rely on RPA Software to not only reduce costs and make employees more productive, but to also reduce human error in manual tasks.

Imagine sitting next to a robot that’s not as smart as C-3PO (from Star Wars) but can do simple things for you once you’ve trained it. Whether you want emails coming in about a certain kind of transaction to be recorded in a spreadsheet or want to automatically invoice clients based on task-sheets your executives send to you, RPA can do it for you.

If you’d like to explore how you can make the most of this technology, you could get in touch with a RPA-based solutions provider such as ActiveOps, Aspect, or Calabrio. Or you could try it out yourself.

To help today’s tech-savvy generation of individuals, entrepreneurs, and business leaders get a taste of what RPAs can actually do, WorkFusion offers an enterprise-grade product that’s absolutely free to use, called RPA Express. It’s built with business users in mind and doesn’t require you to write a single line of code to get the job done.

How does it work? You use the application’s recorder to show the bot how to do the tasks you’d like to get done, and it will learn. It’s that simple. What’s even better is that RPA Express works just as well with Web and custom-built software as it does with enterprise-grade business applications from Oracle, Citrix, SAP, and Microsoft Office.

Tech Wire Asia got in touch with WorkFusion Asia Pacific Managing Director Ronen Lamdan to learn more.

“The idea behind RPA Express is to democratize and make RPA technology available to anybody, be it private individuals or enterprises,” said Lamdan.

He revealed that the RPA Express community has grown to about 25,000 people across 10,000 different companies, in 143 different countries. So, if you run into trouble, you can always find someone online to help you out.

Lamdan loves what his company helps people achieve – and always keep his ears open for customer success stories.

“In Singapore for example, there is a very large hospitality company that’s automated the booking process. Reservations from online booking platforms such as Agoda and Booking.com are now entered into the hotel’s reservations system automatically,” reveals Lamdan.

The manager who took the initiative accomplished all this in one afternoon and found that accuracy shot up 30 percent since there was little scope for human errors to creep in and turnaround time decreased by 90 percent. He now has more time on his hands to service his customers and think about other areas to grow the business.

Earlier this month, Motorola Solutions Corporate VP and Chief Information Officer Greg Myers published an article on LinkedIn about his experience using WorkFusion’s RPA Express to automate a task on the Oracle E-Business Suite ERP system. Long story short, he accomplished what he set out to do, and loved the experience.

There’s plenty of things you do on a daily basis that you can automate, so get started now and give it a shot? Come back and tell us in the comments section below if you tried your hand at it, we’d be excited to hear what you trained your bot to do and your experience setting it up. Oh, and if you get stuck, head over to WorkFusion’s Automation Academy for some free immersive e-learning courses on getting your RPA up and running – or ask the RPA Express community.

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