Limitations of RPA and how your business can overcome them
Updated: Jan 21
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has the power to transform businesses by automating repetitive digital tasks. RPA can save time, reduce errors, and free people from repetitive work. But it also has a few challenges that can slow you and your business down if you don’t plan ahead.
In this post, we’ll walk you through some of RPA’s main limitations, how to address them, and why RPA is still one of the best ways to streamline operations, especially when you team up with DigitalStaff to achieve more with business automation and AI!
1. Limitation: Handling highly creative and complex tasks
RPA excels at repeating well-defined steps, making it ideal for repetitive tasks with little to no variation, like copying data from one system to another or creating invoices in your accounting software. But if you need creative thinking or in-depth judgment, a robot can’t handle that on its own which will limit the number of tasks that you can automate in your business.
How to overcome it
Add AI: Use AI like ChatGPT or build a Machine Learning (ML) model that can interpret data, spot patterns, and think by itself. This gives the RPA robot more flexibility and allows your automation to go beyond RPA’s standard rule-based approach.
Bring in people: You don’t need to do everything completely with automation! When work needs a more careful look, your team can step in and give the automation direction by making a decision for the RPA robot. This would allow your business processes to have human oversight while also benefitting from the efficiencies of automation!
How DigitalStaff can help
We can help you implement RPA with AI into your business, making it possible to automate repetitive tasks for your business without having to bring in your team members to make those decisions. And if you would prefer to have one of your people make the decisions instead, we can set up different ways for them to make those decisions and have the automation do whatever your employee chooses, enabling more complex and creative automations that free you from busywork!
2. Limitation: Difficulty working with unstructured or handwritten data
RPA generally works best with structured, digitized data (like spreadsheets, databases, web applications, etc.). If data arrives as handwritten documents, or photos of delivery receipts, the RPA robot will have a hard time making sense of the data. This limitation affects businesses that still rely heavily on physical documents or non-standard digital formats the most.
How to overcome it
Use OCR (Optical Character Recognition): OCR tools can turn images or scans into digital text so your robot can get the information it needs. This allows the RPA bot to read screenshots or scanned documents.
Use AI or other methods: If the OCR isn’t accurate enough, then we can use AI to extract data from unstructured documents and make sense of it; because the AI can read the document just like a person would. You can also use Intelligent Document Processing (IDP), which is really just a kind of AI to extract precisely the information you need and enable your RPA robots to use the new data in its daily work.
Move away from paper: Instead of trying to process and automate physical paper documents, move your business to more digital forms of receiving that information. The more you cut down on paper, the easier automation becomes and the more time and money you can save!
How DigitalStaff can help
We have various ways of programming your RPA robots to accurately pull important information from many different kinds of files so you can make use of physical, handwritten, or scanned documents in the automations we build for you. We will ensure that your automation gets accurate data and processes it correctly. And if you need advice on how to move your business away from paper, we can help you with our Digital Transformation Solutions!
3. Limitation: Frequent business process changes or application updates
Automation is really just following pre-programmed rules, like “if the customer is in the United States, don’t charge them tax on this invoice”, which is perfectly fine in most business processes. But if those programmed rules need to be updated all the time; like if the website you get data from changes its user interface, or if there are new tax regulations for the new year, then the automation might stop working and will be unable to do work for you.
How to overcome it
Hire DigitalStaff: Don’t waste your time updating your automations, instead, partner with us. We constantly monitor your automations to ensure that they are working 24/7, and if an issue is discovered, we will fix it ASAP so that you won’t experience any business disruptions.
Test your automations constantly: If you want to limit disruptions that broken automations can cause to your business, then make sure to test your automations frequently, so that if there is an issue, you can fix it before it causes delays.
Use AI: By integrating AI into your RPA robot, you can handle changes in business processes or websites. This reduces the need for constant manual reprogramming.
Program flexible automations: Keep automation workflows agile. Design them to incorporate easily updated parameters and logic. Regular audits of your automation will catch changes early.
Change management: If changes are going to be happening to one of the tasks that is important to your business, ensure that everyone knows about the change, especially the people in charge of your automations.
Set up an automation department: Cement automation as an important part of your business and ensure that you have people that can proactively monitor, maintain, and update your automations whenever things change.
How DigitalStaff can help
We can help you automate your business by learning how you do your work or specific business process, then programming automations that can carry out that work for you. We also monitor and manage your automations, so we will know before you do that there is a problem, and we can fix it before it impacts your business.
4. Limitation: Not handling sensitive data with care and respect and ensuring good security and privacy practices
RPA robots often have access to sensitive data, from bank accounts and customer payment details to patient health records. If these robots are not deployed or managed correctly, data leaks or unauthorized access can become a serious risk. Additionally, organizations in highly regulated industries need to ensure that RPA processes comply with industry standards and legal frameworks.
How to overcome it
Ensure safe handling of sensitive data: The best way to address this limitation is to ensure that your RPA robot accesses data in a secure and private way. The actual programming of the automation needs to be of high quality, using secure methods of accessing and storing data, as well as limiting the access that the RPA robot gets to that data.
Protect accounts and passwords: Make sure each RPA bot has its own secure login. Track who or what can access confidential data. Ensure that passwords and secrets are hidden via encryption.
Regular audits: Schedule routine inspections of your automations to ensure they meet industry-specific and legal requirements. Confirm that your bots are only pulling the data they need and not storing anything that could expose you to risk.
Restrict access: Restrict RPA robots so they only access the specific data they need for a particular process. For example, don’t give a RPA robot full administrator permissions to an accounting program if they only need to send an invoice reminder to a customer.
How DigitalStaff can help
We use industry standard security tools and encryption methods, and compliance best practices to keep your data safe and secure. Our team can work with your legal and IT departments to ensure that your automations follow industry regulations and protect sensitive data at every step. We abide by Canada’s PIPEDA and PHIPA and take care to ensure your data is handled safely and securely. To learn more, please read our Privacy Policy.
5. Limitation: Not possible to carry out physical tasks in real life
RPA robots can’t assemble products on a manufacturing line, bring you a coffee, or put a letter in a scanner. Business automation, RPA, and AI is focused on digital only work, like reading, typing, clicking, calculating. Business processes that are only physical handling of items, like taking boxes out of trucks or driving to deliver a letter are impossible to automate with RPA.
How to overcome it
Divide up the work: If a task involves digital and physical work, break it up! RPA can handle the digital work (data entry, system updates, reporting), while your people can take on the physical steps. This can actually be a very effective way to speed up and improve your business processes!
Consider ACTUAL robots: While this is outside of the realm of the services that DigitalStaff can provide, actual robots with robotic arms or sorting machines or drones could be the solution to your problem. However, this is a very complex undertaking and is far too expensive for most businesses to consider it unless it truly makes business sense.
How DigitalStaff can help
We can analyze your business process to see which parts can be automated by RPA robots and which parts 100% require a person to carry them out. We can help you think about new and creative ways of automating the work you do.
When RPA shines (and when it doesn’t)
Tasks perfect for RPA:
Data entry and migration: RPA is excellent for transferring or copying data between systems that don’t connect to each other or that lack APIs.
Repetitive, rules-based processes: Any task that is performed the same way each time is a prime candidate; e.g. sending notifications emails when a specific thing happens, like if an invoice is paid and the RPA sends a receipt to the customer.
Automating applications with user interfaces: RPA can click buttons and type details into software applications just like a person would! You can automate programs that don’t have APIs and collect data from them automatically.
“Attended” automations: RPA bots can help your team directly on their computer by handling the repetitive, data entry part of a workflow while the person can focus on the parts left to the person.
Tasks not so great for RPA:
Highly creative work: Where innovation, brainstorming, problem-solving, or human reason or emotion is needed, RPA won’t be as effective.
Complex decisions: Tasks that require understanding context, reading nuanced signals, or exercising complex judgment are difficult (if not impossible) to automate. Think of a unique case being handled by a judge in the Supreme Court of Canada that has never been seen before.
In real life and hands on: Anything that requires physical movement in the real world is not able to be automated by RPA or AI.
Why RPA is still a smart investment for your business
Even with these limitations, RPA remains a game-changer. That’s because you can:
Automate any business software: RPA interacts with computer programs just like a person would (through the user interface) so an API is not required and you don’t need to develop custom integrations.
Boost efficiency and accuracy: By removing manual errors, speeding up digital tasks, and working 24/7 around the clock, RPA can bring significant productivity gains to your business.
Lower your costs and get a fast ROI: You reduce the need for manual labor on repetitive tasks, freeing up employee time for strategic initiatives.
Easily grow your company: Are you getting more business and need to scale your operations? It can be as simple as increasing the number of RPA bots that run, much easier than hiring new staff. And as soon as you automate a task with RPA, replicating it to work across different departments or regions is straightforward.
Improve your customer experience: Faster processes mean quicker response times, more consistency, and happier clients.
Achieve more with DigitalStaff!
At DigitalStaff, we are passionate about helping you harness the amazing abilities of business automation technologies like RPA and AI. If you’re ready to see how RPA and AI can power up your business, we’d love to hear from you.
At DigitalStaff, we’ll help you:
Identify work that provides a fast ROI: We’ll help you identify and prioritize the best business tasks for automation with the quickest payoff.
Plan, build, and launch: Our team will design and set up your RPA solutions so they work smoothly from day one. From mapping workflows to coding the automation, we handle the heavy lifting.
Combine RPA with AI: We provide business automation solutions that incorporate AI, machine learning, OCR, and other smart technologies to overcome RPA’s limitations and help you automate your work in the most efficient manner.
Maintain and scale: As your partner in efficiency, we take on the ongoing maintenance and make sure your RPA solutions evolve alongside your business.
DigitalStaff has helped countless organizations streamline operations, reduce overhead, and free employees from the shackles of repetitive work. You’ll gain more time for strategic, high-value tasks that drive growth.
Your next step: Schedule a free automation and AI consult
Ready to see what business automation can do for you? Reach out for a free automation consult to explore how RPA and AI can transform your everyday operations. Let’s talk about your challenges, map out a plan, and help you achieve more with automation!
Schedule an appointment today!
Phone: (844) 255-0840
Email: info@digitalstaff.ca
Website: www.digitalstaff.ca
We look forward to helping you take the next step toward a more efficient, enjoyable workplace!
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