Technology Reseller - v10

01732 759725 RPA 38 Bring on the robots Ultima has seen productivity in back-end processes rise by a factor of two since it implemented robotic process automation (RPA). James Goulding reports service solutions first got to grips with RPA when setting up a new business practice, Intelligent Automation, of which RPA is a component. It quickly gained first-hand experience of RPA technology and for the last 12 months has been using the Thoughtonomy platform to automate back-end processes in its managed services operation, planning, finance (invoice processing) and HR. In some areas, productivity has increased by a factor of two as a result. “On the forecasting and planning side, we have introduced a robotic process to collate a lot of real-time information across the business. That runs automatically now, and just pulling that data together saves sales and marketing up to 8-10 hours a day. That one relatively small processes is saving us a lot of time and, more importantly, giving us massively increased business intelligence,” explained Dodds. Another process that he says has been made more efficient through the use of Virtual Workers is the administration of leavers and joiners. “There’s a lot of work involved in setting up new accounts, in automating the process of ordering equipment and devices for joiners. The software robot can take basic information about a starter (including PII information, which is part of GDPR) and manage it in an automated way. It goes away and sets up on various systems, logging into our ERP systems, logging into our payroll systems, our finance systems, Last year Ultima launched a robotic process automation (RPA) solution in conjunction with RPA leader Thoughtonomy. Designed to bring the benefits of RPA within reach of small and medium-sized businesses, the intelligent automation platform is now available to SMEs as part of Ultima’s SaaS offering and, for smaller installations, requires little or no infrastructure and application re- architecture. Ultima says that using software robots, or ‘Virtual Workers’ as it calls them, to automate time-consuming, repetitive back-end processes in HR, legal, finance and IT frees up staff to spend time on strategic projects that offer a competitive advantage, while improving productivity and enhancing compliance and data security by removing human error. Ultima CEO Scott Dodds told Technology Reseller that while larger businesses have been enjoying these benefits for years, cloud delivery means that they are now also available to smaller organisations. “RPA is fairly standard now; it’s a 10- year old technology. The new bit is the ability to deliver it from the cloud and, from our point of view, open it up to mid-market and lower enterprises where it has traditionally not been much of a focus,” he said. Enterprises a little like Ultima, which employs 400 people in offices in London and Reading and has annual revenues of £100 million. The fast growing provider of on-premise and cloud IT infrastructure and managed Because the Thoughtonomy platform is running in the Azure cloud, it can take advantage of capabilities being built by Microsoft, and that includes AI and document reading polling four or five different systems and pulling everything together. It’s auditable and traceable, and rather than having 3, 4 or 5 people involved in setting up those things, with everyone having to remember to do it on the right day, the process is automatic. As soon as the base information is set up – the name of the person, their bank account details, address – it is automatically managed and automatically audited and qualified.” Basic process automation is just the first stage. One of the benefits of cloud delivery, says Dodds, is that it makes it easier for organisations to access new capabilities as they are developed, including AI. “Because the Thoughtonomy platform is running in the Azure cloud, it can take advantage of capabilities being built by Microsoft, and that includes AI and document reading. Once the basic processes are in place, you can start introducing AI and cognitive stuff on top. That’s where RPA starts to get clever and starts recommending how a process can be improved. Because it’s on the Azure cloud, the Thoughtonomy platform can plug in and add new services all the time.” Managing growth Dodds claims that RPA has already had far-reaching consequences for employees and customers. “Taking the highly repetitive stuff that isn’t adding massive value out of the day job gives you time and energy to do other things in the business. It enables people to retrain and learn new skills, which is all part of employee development. And it increases customer satisfaction because you have a faster response cycle – you are using humans to interact with customers rather than managing processes behind the scenes,” he said. Dodds adds that by enabling the smarter use of resources, RPA is also helping the company manage high growth levels. “Ultima is seeing double-digit growth and that needs managing. One of the things that RPA and intelligent automation does for us is enable us to grow without massively increasing our cost base, whilst retaining customer satisfaction and a focus on quality of service. We believe pairing very smart human activity with smart software robotics is one of the keys to our growth,” he said. www.ultima.com Scott Dodds What UK SMEs think about RPA 57 % fear big businesses’ use of RPA will help drive them out of business in the next five years 65 % already use, or have plans to use, RPA to automate repetitive tasks 56 % saying freeing up staff to focus on more strategic work is a key driver for RPA 63 % believe RPA can help improve IT security 88 % would consider using or investing in RPA to help improve IT security and data compliance. (source: Ultima)