It may seem quite easy to instruct a robot to do this and do that. But in reality, running the RPA or robotic process automation in your large-scale organizational operations is not an easy deal. Around 30% to 50% of the RPA adaptation process thus miserably fails globally. This may make you wonder how to avoid RPA failures in your case. So, this guide has the answer for you. But, before that, let’s look at the growing adoption of RPA along with its definition.
An Explanation of RPA and Its Growing Adoption
RPA, or Robotic Process Automation is nothing but a software technology that exclusively uses robots to perform those repetitive rule-based tasks automatically. Previously, these tasks, performed by humans, used to take hours.
- With RPA inclusion, businesses are getting greater efficiency in their workflow. In RPA, robots are strategically programmed to interact with digital systems. They can thus log into applications, copy and paste data, perform calculations, and even mimic human interaction styles.
- RPA tools have become an attractive choice for business owners looking to streamline their business operations. They can use RPA for data entry, a vast amount of report generation and storing, and for immediately and intuitively communicating with their customers as well.
With more and more businesses embracing RPA in their regular operations, this RPA services industry is accelerating at a rapid pace. It is estimated to witness a massive 43.9% CAGR growth rate between 2025 and 2030.
However, this rapid inclusion needs to lay some emphasis on the strategic use of RPA. Otherwise, reckless dependency on this novice system can make you face challenges. Note down the reasons that often derail the successful inclusion of RPA.
Reasons for failure of RPA
Understanding why RPA projects fail can be instrumental for you to know how to avoid RPA failures. Below are the most common reasons behind RPA failures;
- Insufficient Process Analysis
It becomes extremely important to understand which process can be automated with efficiency and what not. However, businesses often fail to identify these tasks thus leading to granting wrong or overly complex tasks to the RPA. Their insufficiency in process mapping and analysis often creates misalignments between their aimed objectives and the actual results.
- Lack of Clear Objectives
Catching the same note, businesses are often not clear about their own objectives. Therefore, they fail to offer clarity to the RPA model too. Without clarity on their own objectives, organizations also struggle to measure the success rates of the RPA as well. This lack of strategic alignment due to uncleared goals often results in a waste of investment in RPA with dissatisfaction.
- Overlooking Change Management
The inclusion of RPA requires certain changes in the existing workflow as well as the role of the existing employees. Without properly defining these changed roles can inflict RPA challenges due to resistance from employees. Without proper change management strategies and their documentation, RPA projects can fail due to organizational resistance.
- Insufficient Stakeholder Engagement
Another crucial reason for the failure of RPA initiatives is often that organizations fail to secure stakeholder engagement. The automation journey with RPA gets smoother if one gets the initial engagement of IT teams, their leaders, and other business users. But failing to attain this can lead to poor resource allocation, a lack of buy-in, and subsequently, the failure of the RPA.
- Technical Challenges and Scalability Issues
Implementing automation systems across the entire organization is bound to face technical challenges. Organizations without conferring a stable IT infrastructure and experts handling those challenges may often experience setbacks in RPA adaptations. Moreover, the lack of intuitiveness of robots can decrease their scalability with the evolving business needs.
- Lack of Holistic Platform
One cannot treat RPA as a standalone solution. It should be a part of the greater digital ecosystem to be ultimately effective. Your RPA integration is bound to fall short if you do not integrate with other assisting technologies of today, like machine learning and artificial intelligence.
- Unrealistic Expectations
Another reason that may cause RPA to fail is the high expectations that businesses bestow on them. Unrealistic expectations cause disappointments. RPA can offer true value only when you align your expectations with what is possible rather than what you wish it to be.
- Underestimating Political Implications
It is a glaring truth that the rapid inclusion of RPA has an adverse impact on the psyche of individuals fearing job loss. This fear of shifting roles and power dynamics often hinders a smooth acceptance of RPA. Failing to address this fear and mistrust thus often leads to failure in RPA project adaptations.
- Weak Administration
The initiative toward RPA adaptation demands careful monitoring from the administration. Without a strong governance, the organizations will fail to define the RPA its roles. Moreover, poor communication between the employees and the organizational heads and between employees and RPA hinders the overall process.
- Insufficient Testing
Lastly, testing is vital for the success of any such tech implications. Inadequacy of testing before their deployment often causes system crashes, and error outputs that lead to consumer dissatisfaction. Neglecting this vital step is definitely one of the RPA pitfalls you need to avoid.
How to Avoid RPA Failures?
Avoiding the chances of RPA failures becomes easy if you keep a sincere eye on the above reasons. Follow the below best practices for RPA adaptation and you can skip the risk of its failure;
- Conduct Thorough Process Analysis
Before integrating RPA into the system, take time to identify the places and operations where you want to deploy automation facilities. Take time for analyzing the complexity of the task as well as the process volume. This is because RPA can act marvelously with simple, rule-based, high-volume tasks, but may fail as the complexity increases.
- Set Your Objectives Clear
You will have to be thoughtful but realistic in setting the objectives. Try to establish achievable, measurable, and specific goals for the RPA. These short-term, attainable goal-setting will help you align the RPA initiatives with your business strategies and easily track its success.
- Engage Stakeholders Early
You must focus on involving relevant stakeholders as early as possible. This can be the business leaders interested in your equity, IT teams, and even the end users demanding an improved service facility. Early engagement with them helps you secure necessary resources and build your confidence to run the organization with complete authority.
- Address Technical Challenges
The RPA tools that you adopt need to seamlessly integrate with your existing system. For this, organizations have to consider investing more in a stable and reputable IT infrastructure that supports complete automation and rigorous testing to check compatibility with the legacy system.
- Integrate a Holistic Platform
Introducing RPA alone will not be beneficial if you do not merge it with the larger digital ecosystem. You will have to follow the latest trends in AI and machine learning to boost the performance and intuition of your RPA. This holistic approach allows RPA to evolve and increase its scalability as your business grows.
- Set Realistic Implication
RPA will bring new scopes of improvements. However, businesses need to be realistic in their demands. Just like any other technical tool, RPA has its own limitations. Therefore, design the tasks that it can perform with the highest efficiency while leaving the brainstorming part to the human brain.
- Implement Strong Change Management
Lack of knowledge inflicts fear and resistance among employees to widely accept RPAs. To minimize this resistance, organizations need to prepare their employees for this transition with constant training. This will deliver them some highly tech-skilled employees full of confidence to adapt to the new RPA-powered environment.
Conclusion
The secret to making your RPA adaptation a success, therefore, depends on how strategically you deploy it, knowing its benefits as well as pitfalls. Set realistic expectations and spend time upskilling your employees to increase their compatibility and confidence in dealing with RPA. By understanding the main RPA challenges and the measures to avoid them will help you successfully attain its real value in your organization.
FAQ
- Which RPA tools are considered best?
Among RPA tools, UiPath right now is the industry ruler. Other leading RPA tools that can suit you are Blue Prism, Appian, Automation Anywhere, Pega, Power Automate, etc. All of them are efficient and capable of offering optimum automation facilities.
- How do we integrate RPA with the existing system?
To deploy and integrate RPA smoothly in the existing legacy system, organizations can use the methods of APIs, screen scraping, and other dedicated connectors. This will allow the RPA bots to mimic human actions of typing, clicking, and data extracting.
- What is the failure rate of RPA?
The failure rate of RPA is a shocking 30% to 50%. This means a considerable amount of RPA project adaptations often fail. This failure is caused due to poor process selection and lack of governance.
- What are the main challenges faced during RPA implementation?
There are several challenges during RPA implementations. Among them, the fear of changing management, scalability issues, and lack of goal identifications remain to be the most impactful.
