Businesses are too cautious to capitalise on their software robots

Imagine if all Volkswagen’s factories, Mærsk’s container ships or the operation theatres at Rigshospitalet were in stagnation for 270 days a year. Few top executives would accept that, but that is often the truth for software robots.

Software robots and robotic process automation (RPA) have become a success in both the private and public sectors. For example, ATP saves 300,000 working hours according to Computerworld, by letting software robots streamline and automate tasks. We hear corresponding reports from authorities and businesses across the country.

Software robots represent an important investment in licenses, IT infrastructure, education, and technical resources. However, the technology is not utilised efficiently enough, and in many places, it is accepted with a utilization rate of just 20-30 percent.

The reasons for the poor utilisation rate are numerous, but to a large extent, it is due to limited and inflexible control. If a specific task takes longer than initially anticipated – such as if a software problem occurs – it easily blocks up all of the other tasks that the robot has begun. Accordingly, they are not fixed until manually resolved.

It is slightly paradoxical that you develop an understanding that a process has been automated when you keep the robot alive in another room down the hallway. The robots can also come to a standstill for many other reasons and must continually be monitored and often restarted manually. People only work 8 hours a day, whereas the robot is available 24/7. It is not optimal to be dependent on manual control. It is labour-intensive, expensive, and does not create any optimal value for the organisation.

Many organisations lack the realisation that the RPA management tools are not good enough. As a result, you certainly miss out on the striking advantages of implementing a comprehensive and intuitive control of the software robots.

Therefore, we, at KPMG Newtech, developed a tool called Optomo, which orchestrates and automates a great deal of the management task. Experience shows that well-functioning management tools, such as Optomo, increase the average utilisation rate between 50 and 80 percent – corresponding to more than a doubling. Simultaneously, Optomo can generate an overview of all software robots across the entire organisation. In that way, the business gains insight into their digital colleague’s tasks. Automatically, the tasks are taken care of, where the most critical tasks are prioritised first.

It provides more automation and efficiency for the money and minimises the power consumption of the hardware and cloud services, which the business does not use – and which ultimately leaves a green mark. Everything is handled without the need to have employees monitor the robots 24/7. With this, you minimise a task that is costly for the organisation and – for the employee – nearly as professionally challenging as watching the grass grow.