CXOS GUIDE TO

ROBOTIC PROCESS
AUTOMATION
CONTENTS

i PROLOGUE

ii INTRODUCTION

1 THE DIGITAL WORKFORCE: REINVENTING HOW WORK GETS DONE

2 THE BIGGEST MISCONCEPTION ABOUT RPA? ITS EASY

3 VIRTUAL MACHINES: PIVOTING FROM PEOPLE TO SOFTWARE

4 RPA SMOOTHES SPEED BUMPS IN THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

5 RPA PAYS OFF FOR MIDWEST BANK

6 HEALTHCARE COMPANY HEARTS RPA

7 VIRTUAL INTEGRATION

8 HOW TO GET STARTED WITH RPA

i PROLOGUE
Spoiler alert: This isnt a granular piece on Robotic Process
Automation (RPA).
Nope, for that check out the Gartner Report: Robotic Process
Automation: Eight Guidelines for Effective Results. Or dive
into the whitepaper called RPA and Enterprise and Automation:
Strategies and Technologies to win in the Digital Economy.
But heres the thing.
In the digital economy, theres a disruptive pivot going on in the
way work gets done.
In the past, CXOs offshored high-volume back office
production and IT operations to take advantage of cheap
foreign labor. Todaynot so much.
Labor costs have trended up. And software-powered digital
labor is now cheaper, faster, and more productive than old
school labor arbitrage ever was.
Meanwhile, the average size of the top global outsourcing
contracts has shrunk from $680 million in 2005 to $392 million
in 2015, according IDC.
The punchline? RPA represents the reinvention of how work
gets done.
The most successful companies are pivoting from people
to software for high-volume, highly transactional manual
processes, to take advantage of this emerging digital
workforceand this pivot is happening fast.
So why is this digital labor trend so important? Because
traditional approaches to labor arbitrage, and doing more with
less, are becoming less and less relevant each day.
Trend watchers warn that by the end of 2017, it will be totally
clear that tomorrows market leaders will be the companies
quickest to harness RPA to fuel their digital transformation
journeys.
The alternativeskeptics, naysayers, and wait-and-seeers?
They will struggle to remain relevant.
You get the picture.
But what if you could crack the offshoring conundrum, and
build a zero-drama, 24X7X365 digital workforce instead? What
if you could dramatically reduce your labor costs, and beat the
pants off competitors stuck in traditional outsourcing, pricing,
and business models? Would you do it?
If the answer is yes, read on.
ii INTRODUCTION

With RPA, were fundamentally talking about the

reinvention of how work gets done.

When you step back and look at the big picture,

the rise of RPA represents a pivot from people to
software, from high-volume, highly transactional
manual processes, to the emerging digital
workforcea fast moving pivot.

As a business leader, why is making this pivot

important? Because traditional approaches to
process automation are becoming less and less
relevant each day.

Industry visionaries say that by the end of 2017,

the next generation of successful companies will
be those quickest to harness RPA to fuel their
digital transformation journeys.
1
THE DIGITAL WORKFORCE:
REINVENTING HOW WORK GETS DONE
If you Google Robotic Process Automation, youll see lots
of commentary about the emerging 24X7X365 digital
workforce, and how it can instantly scale at a fraction
of the cost of traditional outsourcing and offshoring
business models.
Yet, many business leaders dont know what RPA is, or why
they should care about it.
The research shows that 40% of executives worry their
leaders dont understand digital transformation and
related technologies like RPA, and arent responding to it
with a sense of urgency, according to the Global Center
for Digital Business Transformation.
Meanwhilewith constant advances in RPA and the digital
workforcedisruption will happen sooner and faster
than you ever imagined.
As companies transition to robotic process automation,
says Frank Casale, Founder and CEO of The Institute for
Robotic Process Automation and Artificial Intelligence,
they will aggressively re-engineer themselves with smart
systems to reduce the need for remote labor pools, and
execute business processes with faster, more accurate and
more scalability than ever before.
Casale says that after 50 years of companies using
software to help knowledge workers get their work done,
we have a new generation of software that replaces the
knowledge worker. This is digital labor. Fundamentally,
the notion of how work gets done has been reinvented.
From a cost savings perspective this is hugeespecially for
outsourcing service providers that rely heavily on cheap
offshore labor.
Theres only one thing better than having someone in
some distant country doing work for you says Casale,
and thats having no one in a distant country doing work
for you. Thats what you get with software.
2
THE BIGGEST MISCONCEPTION
ABOUT RPA? ITS EASY
Weve gone from offshore to onshore to noshore The biggest misconception about RPA is that its easybut
which is software, says IRPA AIs Casale. After 25 years
of labor arbitrage, weve now shifted to digital labor.
For those looking for a silver bullet from a cost saving
standpoint, RPA is it. And for those looking for an on ramp
to digital transformation, RPA puts more fuel in digital
transformation as well.
After 25 years of labor arbitrage, weve
now shifted to digital labor.
Across thousands of work activities and hundreds of jobs,
approximately half of all the work people do is ripe for
automation, according analysts at McKinsey & Company.
its not easy. Thats why less than 10% of Global 2000
companies have embraced it, according to Casale. He
says that Initially, adoption of RPA was hampered by lack
of awareness. Today, more organizations have a sense of
what RPA is, but they arent sure about how to do it.
RPA is still new and complex. Many companies are
evaluating it, doing proofs of concept, integrating it, and
thats just on the technology and logistics side of the RPA
spectrum. Another important factor is human naturethe
politics of RPA. Casale says that the key to executing RPA
successfully is emotionally moving people to a place where
theyre willing to do things differently.
3
VIRTUAL MACHINES:
PIVOTING FROM PEOPLE TO SOFTWARE

I was in a meeting with a company about three years
ago, says Casale. They did their homework. They
did an analysis, and discovered that the head of this
division could get the same amount of work done
with 500 less people, by using software.
The shift to RPA will dramatically and permanently
change business and pricing models. It will provide
a great advantage for CIOsand be dangerously
disruptive for businesses that do not make the pivot.

So, is it time to update your digital

The analysis proved it out. And then the decision transformation playbook?
makers colleague looked across the table and said:
Are you willing to make that move?

We have always seen businesses as people-based,

but supported by software, says Casale. But what
were seeing now is a shift to a software-based model
thats supported on the perimeter by people. Virtual
machines are the next wave of the future.
4
RPA SMOOTHES SPEED BUMPS
IN THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
Forrester data shows that 72% of businesses prioritize
improving customer experience as their number one goal.
Picture this scenario:
Youre the successful CIO of a major brand, and youve
got the battle scars to prove it. You serve on several high-
visibility executive committees. But, you want to win
more respect from your CXO for adding value to your
companys customer retention goals.
The problem is, your old school back office systems are,
well, old school.
Customer data is scattered across your organization,
with multiple logins. On top of that, customer records are
manually updatedwhich really slows things down.
Unhappy customers are forced to wait in endless call
center queues to speak with a contact center agentwho
has no idea why they called in the first place.
Get the picture?
A frustrated customer here, a ticked off customer there,
after a while it all adds up.
The punchline? When your business processes arent
evolving, when your systems arent talking to each other,
when your software isnt keeping up with customer
expectations, the disconnect creates friction in the
customer experience.
So a key question to ask yourself is this: If you had to start
from scratch, would your back office systems resemble
anything like what they are today?
Would your app development platform work as it
currently does? Would you invest in a platform that takes
years to update with traditional software? Would you
rely on manual processes to manage inventory, customer
service, or compliance?
5 RPA PAYS OFF FOR MIDWEST BANK
FirstBank fast-tracked their digital transformation
journey by combining RPA with a low-code approach to
regulatory compliance.
With over $15 billion in assets and over 120 locations,
FirstBank is the largest locally-owned banking organization
in Colorado. It is also among the biggest privately-owned
banks in the country.
The thing is, in incredibly complex environments like major
league banking, digital transformation can resemble a block-
stacking game of JENGA.
Perhaps this is why 96% of bank executives fear coming
up short on digital transformation, according to a recent
study by Capgemini and Efma.
Last year, a quarter of businesses opted to outsource
compliance to overcome a compliance skill gap, according
to Thomson Reuters. Additionally, 67% of firms expected
higher labor costs because of the growing need to manage
regulatory requirements.
Something else to consider. In the banking industry, Anti
Money Laundering (AML) compliance is a high priority
item. In fact the cost of AML compliance has skyrocketed
more than 50 percent in the last three years, according to
Accenture.
Against this backdrop, FirstBank decided to build an AML
solution in SharePoint. But this approach missed the
mark on workflow visibility, system scalability, and data
synchronization across the companys multiple systems
and databases. So bank officials decided to run their AML
processes using the Appian Low-Code Platform instead.
As a result, FirstBank gained full-visibility into data,
documentation, and audit trails for potential AML
cases. Appian automatically-generated AML alerts and
intelligently routed data to specific work queues for
processing. With this cloud-based approach, FirstBank
was able to quickly implement an AML Case Management
process, and get a jump on AML compliance.
6 HEALTHCARE COMPANY HEARTS RPA
Over 50 percent of developer teams will embed cognitive
services in their apps by 2018, compared to just 1 percent today,
according to the experts at IDC .
In other words, companies are integrating artificial intelligence,
machine learning, and RPA into their digital transformation platforms.
This is precisely what London-based psHealth did with their
innovative, Appian-powered patient referral management program.
psHEALTH is a leading provider of cloud-based, customized
patient management, and workflow solutions to independent
healthcare providers in the UK.
Business and IT leaders at the company needed a better
approach to developing applications to meet customer
expectations, accelerate time to revenue, and sustain
psHEALTHS success in the healthcare market.
With a cloud-based, a low-code BPM platform from Appian,
psHEALTH created an automated referral management
application called Advanced Referral Triage (ART), which
combined Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotic Process
Automation (RPA) functionality.
Better, faster, smarter patient outcomes
By integrating RPA and AI features with Appian, psHEALTH was
able to create smart applications to automate routine processes,
like copying and pasting medical history and treatment data
across multiple systems.
They were also able to build, and deploy ART in weeks instead
of months.
RPA and AI functionality boosted productivity for the referral
management team, lead to better patient outcomes at lower
costs, and allowed psHEALTH to take advantage of new
subscription-based revenue streams, which added to the
companys bottom line.
Appian has been a key enabler of our digital transformation
strategies, said psHEALTH founder Ingolv Urnes. Theyve made
it easier for us to constantly adapt to the changing demands
of customers and employees, said Urnes. For example, we
are leveraging Appian and AI...for smarter, faster and safer
management of patient referrals to hospitals and other services.
7 VIRTUAL INTEGRATION

One of the biggest challenges of RPA is integrating
it into your overall digital transformation journey.
Think about the difficulty of building and deploying
modern apps on top of old, legacy systems, and
getting bogged down in time-consuming, costly
integration projects.
The best digital transformation platforms
allow you to combine RPA with low-code
development and modern BPM, without
the months or years typically needed for
large-scale integration initiatives.

Overcoming this challenge is just a fact of life

for many organizations that run their operations
on complex business processes and legacy
business systems.

But theres a better way to harness RPA as part of

your low-code and business process management
(BPM) back office eco system, without the
nightmare of risky integration projects.
8 HOW TO GET STARTED WITH RPA
The Appian RPA with Blue Prism offering
is a case in point.
It combines the speed and agility of Blue Prisms RPA
with Appians low-code development platform, and
the power of Appians intelligent BPM capabilities to
turbocharge your digital transformation efforts.
You could sign up for a demo of Appian RPA with Blue
Prism today.
Or, you can take a fast follower approach, sit back
and wait for RPA to mature instead.
But your biggest risk is the one youre not thinking
of, says Casale. The one where you choose to sit
back while your competitors are doing RPA. Or your
board or shareholders are wondering why you havent
made any significant changes, or moved the needle,
while you competitors have. So, is there risk in getting
involved in RPA now? Sure. But for many CXOs,
theres greater risk in sitting back and waiting.
The punchline?
Better to embrace RPA now than end up in the
trophy case of a digital disrupter instead.
Appian provides a leading low-code software development platform that enables Financial Services
Institutions to rapidly develop powerful and unique applications. The applications created on
Appians platform help companies drive digital transformation and competitive differentiation.

For more information, visit www.appian.com