Task Mining: The Future of Robotic Process Automation

The future of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a topic of much debate and speculation in the business world. While some see it as a revolutionary technology that will transform the way companies operate, others are more skeptical about its potential impact. In this article, we will explore the potential RPA use cases, as well as the challenges and opportunities it presents.

Before we delve into the future of RPA, it’s important to understand what it is and how it works. RPA is a form of automation technology that allows businesses to automate repetitive, manual tasks. By using RPA software, companies can automate tasks such as

This can help reduce the amount of time and effort required to complete these tasks, freeing up employees to focus on more important and valuable work.

RPA has some amazing benefits that can help companies save time and money. It can automate boring and repetitive tasks, which can increase productivity and efficiency. This means companies can get more work done in less time, and they can also save money by reducing labor costs. All of this can help improve the bottom line and make businesses more competitive and profitable.

Here’s a few more specific benefits you could reap, if you gave RPA try:

Overall, the potential benefits of RPA are enormous. By automating tedious and repetitive tasks, companies can make their processes more accurate and consistent. This can reduce the risk of human error and make sure important tasks are always completed correctly. This can help improve the overall quality of the work that is done, and it can also help to ensure that important deadlines are met. All of this can help businesses to become more successful and competitive in an ever faster-moving world.

While the potential benefits of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) are significant, there are also some challenges and limitations to consider. These challenges can make it difficult for companies to implement and benefit from RPA, and can limit the potential impact of the technology.

Here’s a look at a few key considerations:

In addition to the above, especially smaller organizations will have a hard time with RPA. 

On the one hand small businesses may not have the internal expertise or resources to effectively implement and manage RPA technology. This can make it difficult to identify the best ways to use RPA to automate their processes, and it can also make it challenging to troubleshoot and resolve any issues that may arise. On the other hand, RPA technology is typically designed for larger organizations with complex processes and a high volume of data. This can make it difficult for small businesses to effectively scale RPA to meet their specific needs and requirements. In addition, small businesses may not have the same level of data and process complexity as larger organizations, which can make it challenging to effectively use RPA to automate their processes.

Overall, while RPA has the potential to deliver significant benefits to businesses, there are also challenges and limitations that need to be considered.  These challenges can make it difficult for companies to implement and benefit from RPA, and can limit the potential impact of the technology.

There’s no way around acknowledging the challenges of RPA we listed above. Overall, however, we believe RPA will stick around – with one important caveat.

Jobs – The Elephant in the Room:

There can be no doubt that some jobs will get lost if more and more mundane tasks are automated.  However, in our view, RPA’s benefits for the working world will strongly outweigh any job losses:

Identifying the best opportunities for RPA

A major challenge for any company engaging in RPA is identifying suitable process for automation. And believe it or not, even the largest organizations often resort to employee surveys or live workshops to come up with ideas.

Enter task mining.

Task mining is an immensely useful technique for companies implementing Robotic Process Automation.  It represents the automatic capture of business activity across desktop computers and mobile devices. Task Mining software can track any workflow, team interaction or other user behavior to generate actionable insights into large and small organizations.

By analyzing data from existing business processes, task mining can identify opportunities for automation and improvement. This can help companies detect the best tasks to automate and the most efficient and effective ways to do so.

If you are interested in a tool that helps identify automation tasks, check out AllActivity.  It’s free and can get you started really quickly!

Small businesses have alternatives

The main problem with RPA is that it’s not for everyone.  Sure, if you are a large enterprise, you have the budget, the consultants and perhaps the time to work on process automation through software development.  But small businesses obviously do not enjoy that luxury.

Fortunately, however, there are alternatives to RPA that even SMEs can pursue. Task mining tools like AllActivity, for example, not only reveal existing inefficiencies and imperfections in a company’s workflows. AllActivity also helps teams understand how to improve without pitching software robots as the only solution.  The four main ways to improve productivity that a tool like AllActivity suggests are

If you look at the big picture, the question is less whether Robotic Process Automation has a future – the question is: is it right for your organization and how do you make the best of it? It certainly has the potential to revolutionize the way companies operate and could become an essential tool for large businesses in the coming years. But RPA needs to be tackled intelligently and efficiently. Randomly looking around your company’s open plan office and interviewing employees about tasks they find repetitive and boring will not do the trick. Automate the basis for your RPA-efforts as well – using task mining-tools like AllActivity -, and you’re half-way there.

If your team is small, however, RPA may be a little bit out of your league.  But investing in a process analysis tool can still pay off. And if coding software robots to conquer your organization’s inefficiencies sounds too daunting, there are, fortunately, many other options available.