Businesses are best matched with RPA if employees are consumed with high volume repetitive tasks that follow structured business rules that generally result in different outcomes. These are good guidelines:

1. You are able to describe the work. This doesn’t mean your documentation exists or is current. The task could be described by recording a user performing their work on a computer including how they handle exceptions.
2. The work is rules-based rather than subjective. Robots need to be prepared (aka, taught, trained, configured) to perform specific actions on your systems. While getting closer each year, current technology is insufficient for a robot to determine on its own what to when faced with a new situation.
3. The work is performed electronically. It doesn’t matter how many different applications are required or whether they are in-house, cloud-based, Citrix, desktop or mainframe.
4. The required data is structured (could be structured). If not, you may be able to utilize an OCR and/or cognitive application capable of structuring the file. Alternatively, you could have people enter the data into a structured format.

There are many factors that influence the CBA for robotics automation. For example, are you standing up your first automation or are you at scale and adding another automation?
Generally, it's hard for slow-moving organizations to make a great case as they are unable to generate enough value to offset financial entry costs. However, a hard-driving organization with scale should expect to save 50-80% of onshore costs and save 25-40% of offshore. Our solutions offering helps organizations achieve comparable value.

There are several roles to be covered

1. Robotics COE (below) is the governing body within the organization with representatives from the business and technology as well as its own dedicated resources for benefits realization tracking, scheduling, methods and standards, and prioritization. The Design Authority role which has final say on automation design and configuration delivery quality would sit in the COE.
2. Configuration teams comprised of robotics developers, process analysts, architects and quality control. A rapidly scaling organization would have its own teams and would often contract additional third-party teams. In addition to robotics expertise, configuration team members are often highly proficient with common tools/skills like spreadsheets, formulae, workflows, and macros.
3. Business-as-usual teams who load and keep the robots running in production, and may also perform minor enhancements
4. Control room team (which may be part of BAU team) schedules robot resources, sets and resets priorities for processing and engages with the operations on the performance of the robots, including identifying potential functionality enhancements for additional value.

It is not necessary for IT teams to change any existing systems for an RPA solution. RPA software can non-invasively interact with target applications through same user interface utilized by humans. Leading RPA software tools can interact with most major mainstream and legacy thin and thick client applications based in Java, Mainframe, Web, and Windows. If the robots were run off-premises, IT team would need to grant robots with system access as they would do with a new employee and keep the underlying applications running.

Robots simulate end-user interaction with networks and target applications. If networks and target applications are unavailable it will impact a process but alerts can be set to immediately flag internal staff. Well designed will maintain the integrity of the work queue when faced with an unanticipated application or network performance breakdown.

Leading automation solutions have native multi-level, configurable, auditable logs in addition to reporting and alerting features. These allow organizations to meet or exceed their industry-specific regulatory requirements including SOX, HIPAA, and PCI DSS.

Yes -- leading RPA tools provide global and customizable dashboards, audit logs, and management information reports and features for enhanced visibility and monitoring.