What RPA Technology Can Do for Your Company

What RPA is, how this technology can help in a company, and whether there is a real risk that jobs will be taken over by robots are just a few of the topics we discussed with an expert in the field. Andrei Ghiorghiu is a certified UiPath trainer with more than five years of experience in RPA project development and over 10 years in business management and analysis.

What exactly does RPA (Robotic Process Automation) mean and what does a robotization look like in practice?

It is a term that defines a software type robot. Specifically, a software program that is intended to help companies by automating repetitive tasks, processes or pieces of repetitive processes, with the aim of relieving human resources from these activities. They can often be boring, and at the same time, when monotony sets in, mistakes can occur.

Automation in the IT industry is not new. Today we have computers precisely to relieve humans of things they cannot do or that robots can do better.

But the term RPA is increasingly used in recent history because it refers to low-code or no-code automation. Specifically, RPA robots can be implemented by people who do not necessarily have a technical background, but rather a good understanding of processes from a business point of view.

For example, I graduated from ASE and am more of a business process person who migrated to the technical area.

What is the difference between physical robots and RPA technology?

The term robot is used in RPA and caught on very well because it also created a bit of misunderstanding when it comes to why it should do RPA. There is not much connection between the physical robot and the software robot. Rather it should be compared to a sequence of steps that are programmable. In essence, it has nothing much in common with a robot that we use in industry or with a robotic arm that we probably think of when it comes to robots.

There is a myth that robots will take our jobs. How do you see the situation?

I think it's easy to notice around us so many small tasks that have migrated from our hands to machines. Here we can draw a parallel with physical robots. Most of us no longer waste time doing laundry because we have a washing machine. We probably don't even wash dishes much anymore, because we have a machine that does that for us, just like maybe we also have a smart robot vacuuming around the house.

However, it does not mean that we have been relieved of what housework means, only small pieces of our family work have been replaced by robots. I think the parallel is respected in the business area as well. I do not expect that robots will soon be able to replace our daily activity. However, in our daily work there are many components that can be handed over to a machine.

In general, they are aspects that do not please us and that do not add much value anyway. And if the role we have in our daily work is entirely defined by such tasks, then we could be at risk. But there is an extremely small percentage of the working population that now has tasks that can be fully automated.

What does an RPA Business Analyst do and what is its importance in a company?

This role may have different functionalities. We are discussing an industry that has recently caught wings. We are talking about no more than five years since the role began to exist through companies. Thus, we observe that various companies choose to give his role a diverse palette of responsibilities. We meet analysts in companies who simply go to track processes, document them, and then send them to a team of developers.

At the same time, there are companies that choose to give much more responsibility to the role, considering it as the one that promotes RPA in the company, and then convinces stakeholders of its usefulness. He also helps to discover the processes, documents them and forwards them to the development team. But throughout the development, it also deals with the area of testing or improving processes.

So the answer is not necessarily a standard one. We will find a very large palette within companies in terms of how they choose to treat this role. In essence, the role of an RPA analyst should be that of a person who understands technology very well, can build a bridge between business and technical, and can document a process so that it is the only point of contact for business in a digitalization.

What skills are needed to learn RPA? And how long does it last?

Depending on the role we are talking about (Business Analyst or Developer), it takes a different set of skills and a different time. Even if an analyst quickly understands how RPA works, he needs extensive business experience to understand the processes in various departments. Also, a programmer who has some experience with a programming language can adapt much faster than a non-technical person.

Most providers have an academy that prepares you for the role. The developer academy can prepare you to become a developer in a short period of time. At Digital Stack we have an RPA Developer course that brings you up to the employment level and you can produce robots. This course comes in addition to the one offered by the provider. Thus, in 40 hours we could say that you become an RPA Developer if you finish the academy from UiPath to the same extent that we can say that after 24 hours of driving school you become a driver.

From being able to build a robot to being able to build a good robot is just a matter of the individual, how easily each person assimilates and what background they have.

In terms of soft skills, if we talk about Business Analyst, it is very important to be able to analyze, understand business processes and be able to predict the various pitfalls. On the development side, we need a set of technical skills, such as knowledge of SQL or SQL. NET. Along with these, it is the set of soft skills that any developer should have.

What is the RPA Business Analyst course at Digital Stack?

I take the RPA Business Analyst course that I developed together with Digital Stack which, in addition to the traditional business area we are used to, also comes with the strong component of understanding RPA technology. It is a course that I recommend primarily to those who occupy a Business Analyst position, but there are many useful components also for those with positions of Project Manager or Solution Architect in the RPA area.

The learner goes through extremely many stages — from understanding the basics of business analysis, how we should relate to a company's processes, to then going into details about how an idea pipeline should be generated and what pitfalls must be overcome when it comes to automation. We also learn how we can gain stakeholder buy-in so that the digitization effort is a success. And we finish in a technical area where learners have the opportunity to build with us a robot that they then use. And so, we introduce a practical example that allows everyone to anchor in a functional reality the information from which they assimilate during the course.

What benefits does RPA bring to a company?

An important benefit is the considerable reduction in operating costs. This is also a great competitive advantage, which thus forces the competition to adapt.

We also have other advantages:

• It is also very helpful for customers to have better and faster processes. It is obvious that a client wants to solve their problem as close as possible realtid,and robots can solve some customer requirements during the night.

• We greatly reduce the error rate. A software program gets used to not making mistakes and then we greatly reduce the problems caused by them (time, costs, etc.).

• The workforce is happier. The more we manage to relieve colleagues of such tasks, the more time they can devote to tasks that bring value and at the same time are more satisfying.

• Another advantage is that RPA is a first step in the digitization area. It gives companies the opportunity to align themselves with a startup that allows for ever greater changes, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms, which are increasingly used in business. Without an RPA-type resource it would be very difficult to implement adjacent technologies that bring benefits in turn. This is how they prepare us for the future.

• We can also get through peak periods in business much more easily. For example, financial departments at the end of the month have a lot of pressure and a high level of stress. Similarly, financial auditing requires a large volume of work at year closings. With the same human resource augmented by robots we can get through such periods much easier.

How do we figure out that we need RPA in a company?

If we have a number of more than 20-30 employees, most likely there is a real utility for automation. This is a statistical finding after collaboration with multiple companies. For a concrete analysis, someone within the company should understand the technology. We should educate our people in the company so that we give them the opportunity to understand if and where such technology can be helpful. I think the question is more about how much can we save if we use this technology and what ROI can have.

You can meet Andrei Ghiorghiu at the course of RPA Business Analyst and you can watch it on LinkedIn or on its channel of YouTubers.

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