Robotic process automation (RPA) is necessary to modernize enterprise resource planning (ERP) technologies. Despite tight budgetary constraints and limited opportunities for broad transformation initiatives, businesses must implement an integrated automation strategy that includes knowing the best and most innovative ways to improve and modernize IT operations and ERP business processes in today’s unprecedented COVID-19 times. The goal is to reduce expenses faster and more profitably than a comprehensive transformation, which takes longer and costs more money. With the proper people in place, an integrated automation approach may help you achieve this goal while also setting the framework for future digital transformation.
Modernizing old enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms, in particular, begins with identifying the best modernization options and explicit knowledge of how automation can deliver business value. This paper covers firms’ steps to implement an integrated ERP transformation plan and the benefits obtained.
The potential of automation
In today’s organizations, automation is being scaled at multiple levels. When integrated with embedded artificial intelligence (AI), automation enables businesses to automate repetitive tasks and minimize various factors, including human and process errors, operational risk, and, probably most crucially, expenses. Simultaneously, automation allows a company’s infrastructure, technological applications, IT operations, and business processes to increase significantly.
Because of technical advancements, notably in process automation, a small business has sprung up around facilitating automation in the workplace. The recent success of RPA software from businesses an inflow of intelligent process automation service offerings from IT service providers has resulted in a host of new possibilities for rapidly automating applications and business processes.
There are currently more unknowns than knowns in the quest to automate important enterprise programs like ERP. Some of the difficulties that must be addressed are as follows: What should we do first? What would be the most suitable course of action for us? What criteria do we use to decide which places to adopt? What is the best solution for our company’s requirements? Is it appropriate for a specific workload, platform, or application? Is it feasible to utilize it in a variety of apps? What are the most effective tactics to employ? The list might go on forever.
The most critical challenges and opportunities
Every automation project must address many of the challenges that every automation project faces. Dealing with key performance indicators is a significant job (KPIs). This was due to many fragmented systems, manual and duplicate procedures, and resources. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) data flow was never appropriately scaled, or the flow of services was never fully automated. Although adopting intelligent process automation in older ERP platforms is fraught with difficulties. It also offers several potentials to improve business outcomes.
Other significant challenges include:
- Massive volumes of data pass via convoluted ERP process channels, served by many users performing a wide range of responsibilities.
- When you have an incomplete and sometimes inaccurate view of the process, it’s difficult to meet business value targets; processes evolve and splinter over time, resulting in process flows that are drastically different from expected.
- Earlier automation efforts were often unproductive because real-time solutions were chosen instead of a holistic, integrated approach. Human bias – people’s perceptions of the process – was commonly employed to make decisions rather than the actual technique.
- Automating a repetitive process is simple, but scaling and deploying enterprise-wide automation to drive and measure KPIs is more complicated.
Enterprises quickly embrace enterprise resource planning (ERP) cloud solutions in digital transformation programs. Still, they have so much invested in sophisticated legacy infrastructure that tears and replacing are rarely an option. Instead, hybrid ERP application environments have become the norm, with legacy ERP systems coexisting for the time being. To advance, businesses must embrace digital solutions like intelligent automation, which integrates RPA, machine learning, problem-solving, natural language processing, smart workflow, and cognitive agents to streamline and digitize business operations.
Modern intelligent process automation for ERP solutions combines the power of analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) and lean processes and leading automation capabilities to provide a high-definition view of how business processes are performing, resulting in more knowledge and valuable data.
Conclusion
RPA could be a game-changer for your old ERP systems, allowing them to operate more efficiently. RPA technology bridges the gap between older applications and modern-day ERP systems by delivering an agile solution to legacy application modernization. RPA-assisted legacy application modernization is a tried-and-true method of achieving digital transformation without having to rewrite your business processes. Choosing the correct technology partner, on the other hand, is essential for extracting the most value from legacy systems through RPA deployment.
