Jan 2020

RPA: SOLVING IT'SLAST MILE PROBLEM

INDEX

Introduction

The Last Mile is a Systematic Problem

How RPA can solve your Last Mile Problem

Take the Robot out of the Human

Leapfrog the Systemic Problem using RPA

About Author

References

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In business and in everyday life the last few steps are oftentimes the most problematic

and most inefficient ones. You might have faced this as a commuter. We often pay

proportionately higher amount for the taxis than for our flights. The marathon

runners know the importance of 'last mile' too well.

The last mile is not only a problem in commuting but is a common challenge in

businesses. Take for example, the supply-chain industry. The industry pays a

whopping 28% of the total freight cost toward the last-leg.¹ In telecommunications, the

last leg usually requires 80% of the total infrastructure spend though covering for only

20% of the total infrastructure laid. Vilfredo Pareto - the Italian sociologist in whose

name the Pareto Principle stands - would be pleased to know how prescient his

theory applies to the telecom industry's last mile.

Thus, the Last Mile Problem (LMP) is more pervasive than we would have otherwise

thought. In the field of IT, the last mile problem inhibits businesses from empowering

themselves. For example, despite spending millions of dollars on enterprise

software, companies realize that flexibility is often the victim.

Imagine getting excited by the shiny new ERP or CRM tool that your company had

budgeted for, only to realize that the cost of implementation turns out to be several

times more expensive? Or, the times when IT told you to wait for six months before

they could take up your automation request?

For IT managers and executives, these are some of the common Last Mile

Problems. In the enterprise software the LMP is the proverbial elephant in the

room. Often times ignored, the challenges associated with the LMP show up late

in your planning stage (many times after you have written that expensive check,

ouch! ); causes more delays to your implementation and has the potential to derail

your best laid out strategic planning.

INTRODUCTION

Page 02Jan 2020

The standard way of solving LMP is to throw bodies at the problem and bridge the IT

gap. It is not unheard of to use humans to copy data from the trusted legacy

application into spreadsheet and have the spreadsheet emailed and then use another

set of human workers to copy the data from the spreadsheet into the shiny new ERP

system? Such process are rife in the BPO industry and has come to be known as 'swivel

chair' processes. A research paper from the London School of Economics (LSE) argues

that RPA is best suited to replace humans for such 'swivel chair' processes.² And why do

they use humans to move data between systems? Because the systems do not talk to

each other and plumbing that interconnection would take weeks if not months.

“Companies often use humans as band-aids to solve IT's Last Mile Problem

Companies hire, train and come up with a process to do precisely the types of work that

humans do not excel at. These type of work as best left to machines or robots and

humans should focus on higher-value added jobs such as focusing on empathy,

judgment, decision making etc..

Using humans as band-aid creates friction

between IT and business organizations.

Business owners think that their IT teams are

not efficient and the IT teams, in turn, think that

their business teams do not understand what it

takes to maintain large and complex technologies.

“IT's Last Mile Problem is an inherent

systematic problem, but often shows up as people or process problems.

THE LAST MILE ISA SYSTEMATIC PROBLEM

Page 03Jan 2020

Many times these problems are NOT man made, but take effect due to the weakness

in the underlying system. Author Peter Senge of MIT in his famous book, 'The Fifth

Discipline', talks about such problems as 'systemic problems'. He says, “When there

are problems, or performance fails to live up to what is intended, it is easy to find

someone or something to blame. But, more often than we realize, systems cause

their own crises, not external forces or individuals' mistakes” ³

In the famous example of the 'beer' supply-chain problem, he cites the example of

how despite the consumers, retailer, wholesaler, and manufacturer acting rationally

and ethically, end up in a system with large unsold inventories.

Likewise, IT practitioners should realize that the IT's Last Mile Problem is a systematic

problem and not necessarily due to any efficiency issues.

HOW RPA CAN SOLVEYOUR LAST MILE PROBLEM

In simple terms, RPA is a set of automation tools that is non invasive and enterprise

safe. Central to RPA is the fact that these software robots, though invisible perform

tasks very much akin to how humans perform.

RPA systems such as Blue Prism, UiPath, Automation Anywhere (AA) are designed

from the ground up to solve the last mile problems faced by organizations. These

systems allow you to interact with all your existing applications without the need to

change any of these systems (hence non-invasive). You do not need to device new

web services or device a new methodology to access your systems or expose the

database schema to enable system to system or system to human interactions. In

fact, you do not even have to devise new policies for data access and governance.

These RPA systems can seamlessly use your existing policies and frameworks and

achieve interaction between your existing IT systems (hence enterprise safe).

RPA systems use software robots (bots) to achieve these tasks. These bots or Digital

Workers assume the persona that is very much akin to the human workers and

perform the same operations as a human would normally do.

Page 04Jan 2020

The critical advantage with these kinds of system is that you get unprecedented

scale. Let us say that your business is booming and you are running out of capacity.

You can simply scale horizontally by adding more of these digital workers. There is no

additional cost of training; these bots do not go on vacation or coffee breaks and can

work 24x7. Once you automate the process for one bot, you can scale to hundreds or

thousands or more.

What is more? These bots are multi-skilled in that you can remove them from one

process and put them on a second process or have multiple of them work on the

same process? The bots do not require a ramp-up period either. They simply perform

at optimal speed process after process, tasks after tasks tirelessly from the get go.

While humans are prone to making errors, these Digital Workers do not make typing

mistakes or copy wrong fields, etc.

RPA is non-invasive and enterprise-safe.⁴

TAKE THE ROBOT OUTOF THE HUMAN

One of the common concerns expressed by business stakeholders is what happens

to human workers? Would there be a backlash? Should employees fear the advent of

such digital workers? While these concerns are legitimate and should be addressed,

studies have shown that human workers are oftentimes benefited by the advent of

these Digital workers. Let's face it, if you use a BPO agent for mundane jobs such as

copy-paste, search and update and such other activities where he/she rarely gets to

exhibit his/her human talent, he/she would be bored. Boredom leads to motivation

issues which in turn leads to productivity loss and rework. On the other hand, these

bots are designed to eat boredom and take the low value added chores out of

humans.

“Bots are designed to eat boredom for breakfast. Consequently,

they help human workers alleviate the monotony at work

by chipping away the mundane low-value repetitive tasks.

Page 05Jan 2020

Take for example as to what happens in the call center industry. Here, the industry is

going through huge changes thanks to RPA. Remember the times when the call

center agent puts you on hold saying that their systems are slow today? The real

reason for this is that the agents are busy navigating half a dozen applications trying

to pull the right information needed to service you.

With the arrival of the Digital Workers, the human agents can really 'outsource' the

low-value tasks such as opening the CRM system, navigating to the right web page

and pull the right information (say an outstanding payment) etc. Many times, these

agents feel liberated as they can focus on the caller leaving the mundane tasks to

these bots. This is a perfect example of a bot and human worker in tango.

“More CIOS are turning to robotic process automation to eliminate

tedious tasks, freeing corporate workers to focus on higher value work.

- Clint Boulton, Senior Writer, CIO Magazine⁵

LEAPFROG THE SYSTEMICPROBLEM USING RPA

If you are wondering whether RPA systems do really make an effect in the

organizations , let us understand what industry analysts have to say. Forrester says

that close to 4 million bots would be in production by 2021.⁶ According to McKinsey,

50% of current workforce activities can be automated.⁷

No doubt, the industry adoption is picking up at warp-speed. Gartner says that by

2020, 90% of large and midsize organizations will have at least one process supported

by RPA.⁸ With a year over year growth rate of 63% in 2018,⁹ the RPA market is one of

the fastest growing software verticals.

According to Gartner, 90% of large and midsize organizations

will have at least one process supported by RPA.

Very much akin to the internet boom of 1995, we see a new wave in the form of

automation and RPA is clearly leading the automation wave. Numerous studies have

shown the benefits of RPA and the timing is right now.

Page 06Jan 2020

Apart from the fact that RPA adoption follows a hockey stick pattern, there are other

significant advantages for enterprises. Even for those companies that have not

traditionally spent top dollars on IT investments, RPA can bring significant benefits. It

is better to illustrate this point through a case study.

A top retain firm in the mid-east has been using old versions of ERP, CRM, and sales-

force systems for a long time. They did not upgrade their enterprise software owing to

difficulties they faced with the upgrade and customization they had done over time.

In recent times, their market has been flooded with products from their competition

and they realized that part of their loss in market share is due to their use of archaic

systems which resulted in slow decision making. Too much information flowing in XL,

email, PDF, and papers – causing a near red-tape situation.

The company had the choice of upgrading all their enterprise applications and spend

a bomb on integration and customization or look at alternative newer ways. That is

where the IT director explored the option of using RPA.

A large retailer in the Middle East avoided costly upgrades

to their legacy systems by leapfrogging to RPA.

Convinced about the benefits of RPA, they did a pilot run. Their initial use cases

mostly revolved around rekeying data from XL and email to their backend ERP

system and vice versa. In the next phase, they automated eighteen processes

including employee onboarding, Purchase Order generation, etc. The company got

its ROI within 12 months and the net result was improved customer satisfaction,

shorter issue resolution time, and more importantly a significant improvement in

employee morale and satisfaction. Their employees felt liberated after they realized

that the bots can do what they considered as 'monotonous' jobs.

Several companies such as the above retailer in the Middle East are realizing that they

can 'leapfrog' their IT footprint by moving towards cutting edge RPA toolset. A

second hidden, but often ignored benefits of leapfrogging through RPA is that

organizations can extend their investments in legacy systems and get more value out

of their sunk costs.

Now that is a proposition that any CFO would like to hear.. !

Page 07Jan 2020

Vuram is a hyperautomation services company that specializes in low-code enterprise

automation. Since its inception in 2011, Vuram has been maintaining 100% customer success

and 100% customer references. Powered by 600+ passionate people, Vuram—an HFS hot

vendor (Q3 2020)—has served 125+ happy enterprise customers and has successfully built

750+ applications. In 2020, Vuram ranked 10th among the top 50 Great Mid-Size Workplaces

in India certified by Great Place to Work® institute.

Vuram’s hyperautomation technology stack encompasses business process management

(BPM), robotic process automation (RPA), optical character recognition (OCR), document

processing, and analytics.

ABOUT VURAMDigital Transformation has been ranked

as a top priority by technology executives

consecutively for two years. We will be

happy to share with you our insights on

what paves for a successful digital

transformation program and discuss your

enterprise road map and challenges. Please

write to ask@vuram.comwww.vuram.com

Interested in RPA?

Please reach out to us at to speak to one of our RPA specialists.ask@vuram.com

ABOUT AUTHORNarendran Thillaisthanam is the Vice President of Emerging

Technologies at Vuram Technology Solutions, a multi-national

technology consulting company that specializes in BPM, RPA,

and Analytics consulting.

Narendran brings more than two decades of industry

experience and is based out of Bangalore, India. He has rich

experience in the fields

of BPM, RPA, and Data Management & Analytics. At Vuram,

Narendran and his team of RPA consultants provide solutions

using Blue Prism, Automation Anywhere, and UiPath.

Narendran can be reached at narendrant@vuram.com

1. Luigi Ranieri & Salvatore Digiesi & Bartolomeo Silvestri & Michele Roccotelli, 2018. “A Review of Last Mile Logistics Innovations

in an Externalities Cost Reduction Vision” Sustainability, MDPI, Open Access Journal, vol. 10(3), pages 1-18, March.

2. Lacity, M. and Willcocks, L., 2015. Robotic process automation: the next transformation lever for shared services. London School

of Economics Outsourcing Unit Working Papers, 7, pp.1-35.

3. Senge, P. M. (2010). The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization: Crown Publishing Group, pg 31.

4. Based on research done by Lacity, M and Wilcock,L of London School of Economics. Vide. Lacity, M. and Willcocks, L., 2015.

Robotic process automation: the next transformation lever for shared services. London School of Economics Outsourcing Unit

Working Papers, 7, pp.1-35.

5. What is RPA? A revolution in business process automation, Sep 4, 2018, CIO Magazine

6. The Forrester Wave™: Robotic Process Automation, Q2 2018

7. Manyika, J., 2017. A future that works: AI automation employment and productivity. McKinsey Global Institute Research, Tech.

Rep.

8. Gartner, Competitive Landscape: Consulting and System Integration Service Providers for Robotic Process Automation by Arup

Roy, Cathy Tornbohm - Aug 2018

9. Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Robotic Process Automation Software - 8th July 2019

REFERENCES