Release Productivity Lock
In our report “Breaking Free of Productivity Lock” we define Productivity Lock as an organisation’s inability to free themselves from humans filling the gap between existing applications.
McKinsey’s have calculated that 30% of working hours in a modern economy are spent on those repetitive routine office tasks which your employees perform using a mouse and keyboard in any of your IT systems.
Productivity Lock exists because resources and IT investment budgets are thinly spread. Transformation projects cost a lot, take time to deliver and there’s always a risk that they don’t deliver the planned returns.
There is a Smarter way to release Productivity Lock. The OPTSM Fresh Approach does not require up-front investment and delivers predictable benefits in week. It creates capacity for iterative, scalable change – making it possible to release that 30% cost burden bit by bit and ease your way out of Productivity Lock.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) uses a software robot – we call ours Jo – to carry out repetitive, rule-based tasks in existing IT systems in the same way as a human user.
It is an extremely effective way of freeing up humans for higher value work, reducing cost and increasing capacity and flexibility.
A Fresh Approach implies there’s an old approach. The traditional approach is one taken by many big corporates – to great effect.
The traditional approach is to licence software, develop it and implement an RPA platform. It works really well where there’s budget and time available – i.e. a big benefits case and you can afford to wait 12 months plus to achieve a net benefit. Whilst a software licence may be as little as £10k, by the time developers, business analysts, infrastructure, support and coordination is taken into account it can be a significant investment to implement an RPA platform.
The Fresh Approach delivers the benefits of capacity, speed, cost-saving – but without the wait times and up-front investment.
Our Fresh Approach is to train and deploy the robot and only charge for the work the robot completes. It’s ‘robot-as-a-service’ or ‘process-as-a-service’. Think of it as micro-outsourcing repetitive manual tasks that tie down expensive human resource – with the benefit of retaining control.
It’s fast to deliver, and because you only pat for the work done – if there’s a benefit to be had it’s realised immediately.
A Fresh Approach to RPA delivers the benefits of releasing humans for higher value activities, reducing costs and increasing flexibility / capacity – without the wait times and up-front investment associated with the traditional approach.
Because you’re only paying for the work the robot does (we call ours Jo), if there’s a benefit to be had, it’s realised immediately
For smaller organisations, or for organisations where budget and resource is thinly spread, this can have a massive impact
- Capturing inbound emails in a small call centre – creating a 3-4 FTE increase in capacity for the investment of less than 1. Smarter Processes in Action: Managing inbound service requests
- Another similar example that’s creating capacity in a sales setting: Smarter Processes in Action: gathering and consolidating pricing information for client quotes
- Cutting the cost and increasing the speed of invoice processing
The Fresh Approach can deliver these benefits in days / weeks – no up-front investment. Just pay for the work the robot (Jo) does and deliver the benefit immediately
Creating the capacity for business improvement makes transformation possible by degrees. Transformation by small steps is lower risk and easier to get started.
The benefits of RPA are well documented – but the traditional delivery model involves significant investment, takes time to deploy – meaning that it might be over 12 months before a net pay-back is achieved.
Being able to release humans from manual tasks in days / weeks – and to achieve immediate pay-back creates new opportunities.
- For organisations who would like to transform systems and processes but budget and resource is thinly spread – it creates the capacity for change
- Organisations who feel hamstrung by legacy systems can find the approach particularly effective – as we discuss in more detail in this article
- For organisations who have invested in transforming systems it frees up the staff who have to pick up the residual or consequential tasks – typically higher skilled people who could be doing something more valuable
- For organisations in the midst of transformation, it frees up the time to make a smooth transition – making the launch of new systems / processes a less painful experience
Deploying a software robot – in our case, Jo – without up-front investment and only paying for the work that Jo does creates flexibility, agility and reduces costs.
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