Robotic Process automation, otherwise known as RPA, is a significant, rapid change that’s encroaching upon many industries. Quickly evolving, implementing RPA into your industry could help to digitize labor using machine intelligence, capitalize on engagement, create big data, manage social media, and solve mobile technology issues, as well as cloud computing issues, that your industry might struggle with.

Implementing RPA into your industry or specific company might sound ideal, and in many ways, it is. RPA can help employees in your company to configure computer software or a robot to capture and interpret existing applications to help manufacture, transfigure, and analyze data. It sounds perfect, doesn’t it?

Unfortunately, it’s not as it sounds to implement RPA functions into your company. There are dozens of challenges that go hand-in-hand with deciding to implement RPA, which, we’d like to walk through with you now. Check out our list of the top ten challenges you will likely face if you and your company choose to implement RPA.

Process Analysis Issues

RPA implementation is one of those interesting, special programs where the demand for support from leadership and the working team are both required. Not only does this build confidence around the implementation of the RPA, it helps to include the entire company in developing a system that works with the RPA, rather than against it. The issue? Sometimes when working with operation leads, it’s hard to get them to focus on the concept, and also believe in the concept. How do you solve this? We suggest taking a different approach when dealing with process analysis issues. Instead of making your operating leads study the RPA upfront, knowing the details in and out, help them understand how the RPA will benefit them, how it can benefit the company, and get a better grasp on why the RPA is a good choice for the company.

Business Case Issues

Implementing successful RPA can be difficult to even get going because it requires – or should require – approval starting at the top. It should run through all of your company’s major departments, ranging from investor groups to operation floor leads to finance to management. Processes that will be affected by the RPA should all be consulted as well, and all departments should be considered in the RPA implementation process.

RPA Development

It’s quite possible that when choosing to implement RPA, you’ll want something custom developed specifically for your business. But, herein lies the problem. RPA development is a unique, new, and niche skill that isn’t quite readily available on the market. Working with a productive, efficient RPA team can not only be incredible difficult to track down, but also quite expensive. A design team is often missing in many of the organizations that are looking for RPA but working with professionals is quite critical to a successful RPA implementation.

Mismanagement of Responsibilities

Implementing RPA is, ultimately, going to be a beneficial move for your company, but what about the implementation process? There’s sure to be the unfortunate but inevitable mismanagement of new responsibilities dealing with the RPA. It’s important to clearly outline who is managing what, what the RPA will handle, and how each employee will be involved with the RPA implementation process.

Lack of Help from a Local Team

This can be one of the biggest issues when implementing RPA into your company. If you lack an appropriate, well-versed, and helpful team that’s centrally located, implementing your RPA correctly can be much more difficult. Having a well-staffed and knowledgeable, local team on hand to help you with your RPA issues is one of the ways to expedite your implementation process.

Desirable, but Not Economical

It’s true that most RPAs can help your processes improve by up to 70-80 percent without any great difficulty, however, the better the automation is, typically the more expensive the RPA, and the process it will take to automate those processes. For example, automating a process completely may end being more than five times the normal expense of your normal non-automated process. It will take process redesign, which will cost money, training employees to run the RPA, which will cost time and money, and operating and maintenance costs, too. It’s not always the most economical choice. 

Maintenance of Your RPA

This, technically, is the phase that comes after you’ve implemented your RPA, but we believe it still counts as one of the challenges you face during your first few months of RPA implementation. Maintenance is key when it comes to keeping your RPA up and running, as well as maintaining the efficiency it was put there to provide in the first place. If you’re not establishing a regularly scheduled maintenance protocol, you’ll find immediate issues with your RPA that might be reoccurring

Picking the Wrong RPA

This is one the most common issues when dealing with RPA because it’s typically the implementation phase when leaders realize that they’ve picked the wrong RPA for their business. Whether the RPA is too complex, doesn’t do the custom job that’s needed, or is simply too costly, this is typically the point where companies discover the RPA they’ve chosen might not be the right fit.

Infrastructure Issues

When implementing an RPA, one of the biggest issues and challenges that you’ll face will deal directly with infrastructure. Not only will it be difficult at first to get everyone on board, it will also be complicated if your company doesn’t have an interconnected system that keeps cloud or on-premise infrastructure updated in real time. It’s important when implementing RPA that your organization has a centralized infrastructure team that is helping to expedite the implementation process.

Post-Implementation Adoption 

It’s relatively normal to see some pushback when implementing RPA. Often, employees will see how RPA can automate some of their efforts and likely fear for their personal tasks or positions altogether. RPA works the way it’s supposed to when the leadership in your company helps your employees to understand how RPA can benefit them, provide opportunities for entrepreneurship and make their lives easier overall.