We’ll talk about RPA shortly but first. Investopedia defines Enterprise resource planning (ERP) as the process of integrating the important parts of any business. This is made possible with the help of an ERP software system. These same ERP systems appeared by this name in the 1990s and promised to integrate your business planning, inventory, sales, marketing, finance, human resources, and just about anything into one single place. Pretty powerful, right?! Well, we certainly think so.
What is RPA?
Before we move on though, it’s important to clear out what we mean by RPA or robotic process automation. According to our partners and friends at Robocorp, it is a type of business process automation that involves software robots. These robots automate manual, multi-step tasks and processes that typically take a lot of time, and energy to complete. It would have been cool to watch if they did, but sadly you wouldn’t find RPA robots walking around your office, shouting “fire” every time they launch an automation. Instead, they’re lines of code that we implement on our desktops, internal servers, or the cloud to perform tasks for us automatically.
Why would we do that? Well, because we have far more valuable things to do than enter data, classify emails, scrape data from the web. You get the idea.
Link between RPA and ERP
ERP systems have come a long way to the point where Cloud ERP is not even a new development anymore. However, many legacy systems, critical in the business operations, have lacked the modernization of the ERP space. This has slowly resulted in a lot of manual interlinking required to be made between legacy systems and Cloud ERP. Luckily, RPA is here to help!
RPA replicates human actions without the need for any additional software, IT upgrades, or interruptions. What that means is that RPA has an impressive track record of helping companies become more efficient. This is achieved by automating data flow between systems and freeing up people to invest time into more meaningful activities.
This makes ERP automation one of the key processes to automate within your business operations.
How RPA helps you get more out of your ERP investment
How many instances can you point to where your business has invested in a piece of technology or software and paid a significant amount for it. Yet, the adoption of the technology or the utilization of its full capacity has been somewhat disappointing?
Wherever the ERP needs to be integrated with bespoke or legacy systems, the use of its full functionality is limited. This is where the use of RPA becomes very powerful.
Senzcraft have noted that integrating ERP systems with other systems takes months of effort. That’s especially the case if the integration is with customer or supplier systems. RPA helps to accelerate the process through automated communication between systems.
The world is going on the Cloud! And so are you ... despite any legacy systems
When integration between a Cloud ERP and a legacy system is not available, the data transfer is performed manually. In such cases, RPA bots come in with a bang to transform this manual process through automation.
Through successfully implemented RPA businesses achieve greater effectiveness and speed. However, they also get an economical interim solution until a legacy system is upgraded or replaced.
This is particularly important in M&A situations where legacy systems are inherited as part of the merger only to create operational “mayhem” and inefficiency. RPA, and especially open-source RPA, becomes the perfect solution in these scenarios due to its flexibility, affordability, and quick deployment.
You can go "modern" without the cost, hassle, and time usually required
The upgrade or replacement of a dated system causes disruptions. How severe they are depends on the size of the business, the data stored, and the attitude of staff towards change. This is often caused by a significant amount of time and money spent, staff resistance, and short to long-term loss of full operationality.
Often the risk and unpredictable business consequences that may follow a technological revamp incentivise leaders to delay the system modernization until it is absolutely business-critical.
In these circumstances automation robots allow businesses to benefit from the latest digitalization technologies and developments in process automation.
There are already multiple real-life examples of “use cases across diverse functional areas such as order to cash, tax & compliance, logistics that are based on RPA working with client ERP systems. In these cases, value is created through improved automated operations, low cost to scale, and future-ready process design. ROI is often reflected in improved process KPIs in less than 8 weeks”.
It's time to build in a better performance & more flexibility
RPA allows for a significantly improved synchronisation between systems. It ensures faster performance and access to a lot of capabilities that human task performers would take far more time to execute. The scope for error is significantly reduced too.
RPA also brings in an eased access to the benefits of both Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), such as image processing, character recognition, and language recognition capabilities. It’s important to note that otherwise, both AI and ML would not be available unless a direct investment is made into the technologies.
RPA essentially mimics the behavior of ERP users, records their actions as they enter data, access applications/ systems/ databases, perform commands and transfer files and data in-between applications. These are only a few examples of how RPA ensures an improved ERP performance and as such, an optimum version of your ERP which is automated, responsive, and more user-friendly.
End-to-end process automation
ERPs are incredibly helpful and the benefits of RPA have been proven time and time again. However, the ultimate focus now is not only on the automation of standalone tasks but the streamlining and automation of entire end-to-end processes. RPA adds speed and accuracy to the business architecture and makes possible the connection between different processes which otherwise may be impossible to link smoothly and effectively.
Just recently at Capto we had a great example where a client had to connect their ERP with their bank’s access portal via an SFTP server. Whilst the process on the bank side and the process on the client site were well defined and streamlined, they were not connected. This meant that a significant amount of time was spent each week by the client’s team to review the information on the bank’s portal and transfer the data into the ERP.
This is a good example where RPA offers end-to-end automation of the entire process which ensures the automated transfer of data between the bank’s portal and the ERP, thus saving a lot of time for manual review and data transfer. This is a strong example of how powerful RPA is in the automation of entire processes as opposed to disconnected tasks and standalone processes.
Ending note
The implementation and increased utilization of ERP and RPA are here to stay. The ultimate business advantage, however, comes in the combination of ERP and RPA. This results in a smoother, faster, and error-free utilization of the ERP of choice. It also ensures access to the latest technological developments and benefits of both AI and ML. It is the proven shortcut to maximizing your ERP investment without the need for additional applications or IT upgrades of any sort.
What’s more is that with open-source RPA there are also no annual robot licenses or high maintenance costs, since the cost is determined based on consumption. This way you only pay for the true value you receive from your hard-working robots 🙂
Better, faster, stronger … cheaper!
