10 RPA Implementation Best Practices for Credit Unions
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Looking to implement RPA use cases for your credit union, but don’t know where to start? Read our tips and strategies on how to make the most of your new robotic workforce!
RPA implementation in credit unions refers to using software bots or robots to automate repetitive, rule-based, and mundane processes, such as customer password reset and account opening.
The credit unions industry relies heavily on knowledge workers (white collar employees) for carrying out these tasks. And by adequately utilizing RPA implementation and solutions, we can shift their workload on the attended, unattended, or hybrid (attended + unattended) bots to ensure that the human staff population can spend their valuable skills and abilities on more crucial and involving tasks.
And so, in this blog, we will focus on the 10 RPA implementation best practices that credit unions can rely on to enhance their workflow and boost productivity in the long term.
What is RPA? And how can credit unions benefit from the best RPA implementation?
Robotic Process Automation, also known as RPA, is a combination of UI (User Interface) and API (Application Programming Interface) that relies on automation technology to mimic the task of front and back-office human staff members, like, data extraction, transferring files, maintaining attendance and register sheet, filling forms, etc.
As a result, it can integrate and do repetitive tasks, reduce cost charges, lessen the burden on the human employees, promise better results, and finish projects between productivity applications and enterprise in simple and easy steps (and without human-like errors or consuming too many resources).
By relying on the best RPA implementation practices, credit unions can:
- Automate their working processes and improve user experience and workflow efficiencies.
Many financial organizations are currently focusing on digitization to enhance their overall operations efficiencies and customer experience. It helps them accomplish their goals faster and get more tasks done in the long term.
- Reducing backlog tasks by supporting remote services.
After the pandemic, the workflow of credit unions has got tremendously disrupted. To get back on track, various financial firms are now relying on automation to accelerate their workflow and increase the productivity of the front and back-office tasks. It is helping them work in lowering costs, clearing a backlog of tasks, supporting the remote work and customer base, and enhancing their overall administrative services.
- Focus more on complex and value-added projects
RPA implementation allows credit unions to handle repetitive tasks by substituting digital workers to handle the manual process. And it results in the organization shifting its staff force to manage the more complex and value-added projects that are otherwise not possible for machines and bots to handle.
10 RPA implementation best practices for credit unions
So, now we understand RPA implementation solutions and how they are handy for credit unions. Thus, our next step is to follow the best strategies to obtain sound results by allowing the staff members to get the best out of such automation facilities. So, here is a list of 10 such best practices that the financial industry can implement in their working areas:
1. Learn all about RPA
Your first step must be to understand all about RPA technology. And it involves comprehending what RPA can do and what it cannot. As we know, RPA involves using low-run codes in the form of attended and unattended bots that can help you organize your work efficiently by handling repetitive manual tasks.
But these bots cannot learn independently and self-think and therefore need human intervention and support in the process (the human staff is still the brains here). So, by allowing RPA to collaborate with the human workforce, you can ensure that your organization can focus on completing manual and complex tasks faster and with better results.
2. Focus on identifying RPA opportunities
While the benefits of the RPA implementation sound pleasant and fascinating, you must not rush to automate everything in the process. And so, credit unions must start with small but gradually efficient steps to ensure success.
Initially, focus on identifying more RPA opportunities and the areas where you can implement different automation bots, like for repetitive tasks, cutting costs, following a routine process, or completing mundane workloads (data extraction and entry). It will give you a clear idea of how to get the best from RPA without flipping your workforce upside down.
3. Keep a realistic POV of RPA
As we know, RPA is currently one of the most sought technical services in any industry, be it credit unions, healthcare, or education. But don’t let this stop you from knowing the various limitations of the RPA implementation solutions. While it may help you cut costs and enhance your business operations, it is still not very matured. It requires human intervention to generate feasible and complicated (multi-step) solutions.
Therefore, instead of treating this technology as the ultimate solution to all your problems, you should see it as a seamless and healthy opportunity to enhance your internal working process, boost efficiency and results, and help your human employees get more automation benefits in their workload.
4. Start with small deployments
To get the best from the RPA implementation, focus on starting small at the beginning instead of designing an overly ambitious deployment plan. You should focus more on small successes like making the first deployment successful and following suit. It will help you reflect your performance and sound results to multiple investors and thus attract potential stakeholders.
You can accomplish the same by starting with attended automation software initially and achieving buy-ins for other future deployments. In this way, you can also slowly transition to unattended and cognitive technology and secure faster ROI, lighter infrastructure, and better employee buy-in in the future.
5. Break down the entire task process into multiple workflows
Some businesses, like credit unions and the healthcare system, are complex and involve several tasks and points of allotment at every step and area. And each of these steps can further also have various processes that are complicated and value-based (that may require a bigger chain of the workforce to handle). And implementing RPA technology can become very challenging in such situations.
So the best option here is to break the complete task process into specific and multiple workflows, where each task has its dedicated automation handling (only if necessary). It allows you to combine the efforts of several RPA workers, whether it is data manipulation, listing orders, or navigating the working flowchart in one process. And thus, you can also ensure each area’s independent testing and performance without disrupting any work sequence or tampering with the final result.
6. Choose a high-level framework in the beginning
After deciding on the deployments and how you want to fragment your workflow, it’s time to choose a high-level framework. A good and successful RPA implementation in credit unions stems from excellent design and an understanding of the critical features of the process design. So ensure that your PDD (Process Design Document) covers the task process at the keystroke and workflow level.
By allowing the developer to use this PDD to design an automated solution for your financial organization, you get a guarantee that your automation will be organized, functional, consistent, and thoroughly productive. Most of the processes follow a typical set of process sequences: initialization, cleaning, work processing, and error detection/solving. Therefore, the developer can go deeper into these precise details and include all these components in your PDD to make it the initial point for the RPA implementation and automation process.
7. Adequately choose the initial use case
Selecting a suitable initial use case will enable you to define your success criteria. After preparing your wish and to-do list, prioritize choosing an initial use case. By ranking your wish list, you can narrow down your initial use case choice based on different factors, like the effort from the automation software, time consumption, urgency, task frequency, saved work hours, etc.
You can then pick those projects/processes that check most of these attributes. And after that, you can explore and define how the RPA implementation can act as a helpful and improving tool in each section. Ensuring the same will deem your workplace guaranteed success and better handling of RPA technology in a short time.
8. Obtain executive and stakeholder buy-in
One of the best RPA implementation solutions for credit unions is to form a collaborative alliance between their IT and business sections. So, you can enhance your overall decision-making process by ensuring both groups’ proper and equal representation.
It can further help you to improve your buy-in from different departments and thus, invest in obtaining executive buy-in. Through proper and constant searching, you can also find a strong executive who will understand and support your RPA implementation projects and help them last for a long time in the industry.
9. Your RPA process must have proper vetting
Often we do things only for the sake of completing them. And many credit unions do the same when automating their work process. But relying on automation technology doesn’t mean you must go through all the steps and somehow accommodate them in your workflow. You want positive results using these bots and not see your problems double up instantly.
Remember that automating everything doesn’t solve your problems or reduce your workload. It might even topple your front and back office altogether. So keep checking which processes need modification while automating your company and inform all the departments well in advance of the same. You can also choose to keep a review tool or be in charge to deeply go through the process and recommend which areas fit and don’t need RPA implementation.
10. Partner with a knowledgeable developer
It is always advisable for credit unions to partner with a vendor/developer who is well-versed and an expert in the field of RPA technology and business domain. Today, you can easily find various bot developers and experts. But you need to choose someone who can provide you with valuable insights on how you can automate your workflow and achieve the most excellent benefits and optimum results with proper definition and frequency.
Your RPA implementation must balance flexibility and smooth structure delivery to ensure its proper functioning in the work ecosystem. Therefore, credit unions must enlist a suitable and knowledgeable vendor to help you accomplish your goals and roadmap in this process.
Conclusion
We now understand almost everything about RPA implementation for credit unions and the best practices you can follow for positive and enhanced results. And now, you can explore these features to get the best out of them for your financial company. It is an essential endeavor, and the more you research them, the better.
Remember that RPA bots still depend on human staff for their brains and work on strict data input, so you should thoroughly map all the essential processes. And once you are sure of the same, you can let the data scientists and programmers standardize the automation and deploy it accordingly in your firm.
At Zuci Systems, we have worked on use cases ranging from lending & mortgage, risk & compliance, customer service, report automation, employee on-boarding, service desk automation, and more. With a gamut of experience, we have established a highly structured approach to building and deploying Credit Union RPA services and solutions. We work hand in hand with you to define an RPA roadmap, select the right tools, create a time–boxed PoC, perform governance, set up the team, and test the solution before going live.
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