ThinkstockWhat exactly is robotic process automation?
At its core, RPA is “robotic” software that organizations configure to capture and interpret the actions of existing applications employed in various business processes. Once RPA software has been trained to understand specific processes, it can then automatically process transactions, manipulate data, trigger responses, and communicate with other systems as necessary. The technology is designed to reduce or eliminate the need for people to perform high-volume IT support, workflow, remote infrastructure, and back-office processes, such as those found in finance, accounting, supply chain management, customer service, and human resources.
RPA software is composed of multiple components. First, for collection, they employ a variety of tools for grabbing digital data, which can include screen scrapping, digital image recognition, or the ability to access a server or be linked to a website. They also make use of rules engines similar to those found in business process management tools.
“This is the basic requirement, that it works at the graphical user interface layer and doesn't need much, if any, IT support,” says Cathy Tornbohm, vice president BPO (business process outsourcing) research at Gartner. “RPA tools can be built from combining tools that perform the various elements of these tasks.”
On the one hand, RPA promises huge cost savings and the elimination of tedious tasks for IT infrastructure workers. On the other hand, it threatens the very survival of many of the jobs held by those same infrastructure workers.
This time around, automation is after more than manual data-entry positions.