Automation and Return on Investment
Making the decision to embark on a digital transformation, for a company of any size, is a considerable undertaking.
If you are the driving force encouraging the transformation it is likely that you will have to successfully convince key stakeholders and senior management staff that disrupting a process or changing how a department is run is worthwhile in the long-term.
Whether this is the first digital transformation or changing existing systems, the stakeholders will want to understand the return on investment (ROI) and what makes doing this worthwhile.
So, where do you begin?
There are many options for bringing a company into the digital world and we will briefly outline just two common choices below.
Option one — an automation Center of Excellence (CoE)
An automation CoE is typically described as the people, processes and technology needed to successfully execute automation.
This is an expensive route, from our own experience annual operating costs are approximately $3m, but capable solutions can be built. As a result, the total cost of ownership per automation is considerable and likely will not deliver an ROI.
Another challenge is once a CoE is up and running, the team can spend a lot of time finding things to automate which can lead to some suspect decision making.
Statistically speaking, only about 4% of CoEs deliver a positive ROI.
Option two — a Citizen Developer
In short, a Citizen Developer is a process expert or a developer (but not both), who is given the necessary tools to develop automation and solve business problems (read more on the pros and cons here).
In theory, this can be cost effective and quick but the results are mixed:
- Quality is often sacrificed
- Governance, Risk and Control are often forgotten.
- In regulated industries including banking, insurance, and healthcare, Citizen Developership has led to concerns around failed compliance to HIPAA, PCI, GDPR (to name a few).
- Solutions tend to focus on today’s problems and are not designed to grow and change for tomorrow’s challenges
Option three — Digital Coworkers
At Roots Automation, we spotted a gap in the market and concentrate on providing the capabilities of a robust CoE for a fraction of the cost, without compromising on quality, scalability, complexity and value of the automation.
The focus of our business is providing pre-trained, skilled and eager to learn Digital Coworkers. We train them in a way that ensures scalability so they adapt when the scope of work increases or changes, and we strive to make automating one process profitable for our customers.
One of our bots typically completes the same work as six full-time employees. This means breaking even on the investment within a five-month period and enjoying 250% ROI.
It also allows your valuable employees the time to enhance their skills and grow the business elsewhere; through building relationships, customer service and creative problem solving — the areas in which humans excel.
Contact us today to find out more and begin your digital journey: info@rootsautomation.com or visit us at: www.rootsautomation.com
