COVID did a lot of financial damage to businesses across the globe. Intelligent process automation (IPA) has built a reputation for fast wins, and this puts its implementation high up on the executive board’s to-do list.
Every business likes the idea of a quick win, but it’s important to understand the benefits and limitations of IPA before its implementation to avoid an expensive failure. An employer’s workforce should also understand the benefits/limitations that IPA has so they will know how it will affect their job.
With all that being said, here are some areas where IPA implementation can lead to some of those quick wins.
Read on to learn more!
Manage Expenses and Travel
It’s no secret that it’s hard to manage a company’s travel and overall expenses.
IPA solutions can help a company manage its travel expenses, which are one of the top three most troublesome costs to control.
An IPA solution can be used to create a rule-based process that stems from things like receipts, emails, and more.
The solution can then approve the correct claims while also highlighting expensive issues amongst the employees. This can be beneficial for a business that doesn’t have a designated accountant or financial advisor, and it can also speed the process along.
In the long run, money is saved because the employer doesn’t need to hire a financial advisor or pay for expensive financial tools. As the business grows, the IPA processes can be updated. Fraud risks are also reduced and IPA can make them more identifiable if they happen later down the road.
Reduce Operational Costs
IT services are expensive and can take a long time to implement.
IPA solutions can reduce the need for IT services and save costs at an operational level.
When there’s a workflow in a business, a brief evaluation can let the employer know if it’s suitable for an IPA process. It can also let you know what your savings are going to be. By identifying the areas where the most savings can occur, savings can be seen in a quick and timely manner.
Reduce the Wage Bill
No employee likes doing repetitive, mundane tasks. If they do, there are certainly jobs out there for them, but IPA takes these tasks into its own hands and lets the human workers focus on more important, fulfilling things.
An IPA solution can reduce the wage bill spent on simple tasks that IPA bots could complete around the clock and faster. You can also upskill them to add even more value to your business.
If there are positions inside of a business that only focuses on mundane, repetitive tasks, and the employer is looking to reduce the number of people in this position, then IPA can be used to take over this area.
IPA solutions are not meant to put a bunch of people out of work, but they can take over lower-level positions, which can lead to more savings because an employer doesn’t need to pay someone for less important work. Furthermore, the rest of the employees would have time to learn more skills to do more things in their position, making themselves more valuable to the workforce and the business as a whole.
Bring Offshored Tasks Back into the Workplace
Many companies spend a lot of money on offshoring mundane and repetitive tasks. When the economy was in a better place, this all made sense, but now re-shoring tasks and bringing them in-house has grown in popularity in order to shrink the gap in labor costs.
As we mentioned before, IPA solutions can handle many of these tasks. Some of these tasks could include filing, data entry, customer service interactions (like chatbots), and even accounting tasks.
Cutting or eliminating offshoring bills through low-cost IPA solutions can also help keep valuable and sometimes confidential company data inside of the business.
Simplify Accounting
Businesses vary in size, but even if you have a small business, the savings you receive from an IPA solution can be just as valuable because you are reducing the amount of mundane work that finance officers and accountants have to do.
There are many use cases like accounts payable and reconciling that show how easy the solutions can be. With error reduction, quick turnaround, and cost savings, an IPA solution in finance or accounting can help increase value in many ways while also acting as a base for future development of IPA implementation across all kinds of departments in a business.
Intelligent process automation is always evolving, and IPA can offer lots of benefits other than cost savings benefits. It can also be used to deliver a solution that has been proven to work, is easy to deliver, and can work inside any sized business. It truly is a one-size-fits-all as long as the implementation is done correctly.
Outside of savings, executives can also look at the benefits of improving their workforce’s productivity by giving them more valuable and meaningful work. This can affirm their purpose in the business, and it can also boost the employees’ morale.
Finally, IPA solutions can also be a catalyst for technological transformation inside of business by creating intelligent workflows/processes that get the most out of data and human resources.
IPA is a workplace solution that takes time to understand. If you or a business partner has questions regarding intelligent process automation, robotic process automation, artificial intelligence, or intelligent automation, get in contact with a Digital Workforce Solutions representative today!
