Why BPOs Are Turning To RPA Amid COVID19

As COVID-19 continues to have disastrous effects on almost all industries worldwide, businesses have been forced to innovate to survive in this testing climate. BPO services had to re-think their service delivery models to ensure business continuity without compromising on quality – which is not an easy task given the number of obstacles created by the pandemic. Thankfully, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has slid in as the perfect solution to tackle such challenges, assisting BPO enterprises to sail through the chaotic COVID-19 storm with minimal disruptions.

The challenges – and the solutions

The main hurdles faced by BPO enterprises relate to the adjustment in the working environment. Employees working from home through a single laptop raises many questions surrounding the necessary infrastructure, data security, and employee productivity.

Distributed workforce: BPOs have found themselves asking, "What can be done now that all our centers around the globe have been impacted by the virus?". And there has only been one answer: move work to employees' homes. This has led to the need to build distributed connectivity to support remote-working environments which comes with its own set of limitations.

RPA solution: RPA bots are able to communicate with the entire team since they can be activated through any machine. As a result, it's easy for staff to manage bots from any software. This fosters a team-oriented remote work environment in which humans and bots work side-by-side to deliver high-quality service. 

Data security: With employees being sent home, a reasonable concern expressed relates to data security and the increased risk of exposure to sensitive data in remote work settings. To effectively manage this, a Virtual Private Network or Virtual Desktop Infrastructure would have to be implemented in the homes of employees. However, this would be immensely time consuming and, therefore, particularly undesirable in a period when calls and customer demands are likely to be high.

RPA solution:  RPA bots can help with VPN implementation with zero errors. They can be programmed to deal with relevant matters such as network operations, and send emails to suitable staff with relevant credentials and instructions. In addition, RPA helps create a cyber-secure environment by automating tasks ranging from vulnerability scanning to access management.

Low productivity: Staff productivity may suffer significantly due to a greater number of distractions present at home. Employers worry that they may struggle to accurately assess productivity levels since the staff will be working in remote environments.

RPA solution: Organisations can explore RPA tools that will improve employee productivity by liberating them from tediously repetitive work. With the help of RPA, HR will be able to better manage attendance and employee performance remotely. RPA makes it convenient for HR to validate records through cross-verification of employee activity time while bots can send alerts relating to employee absence or other related aspects.

The above are a few examples of the manner in which Laiye has been assisting BPOs to maintain productivity during the pandemic. Laiye continues to use its extensive experience in both AI and RPA to offer enterprises truly innovative solutions in support of business sustainability and growth.

About Laiye

Founded in 2015, Laiye has rich experience in RPA + AI and helps businesses achieve more, reach their full potential, and transform into smarter, more effective, efficient, productive enterprises. Laiye helps businesses and people realize their full potential by optimizing the human-machine collaborative alliance with sophisticated, dynamic, productivity-enhancing digital "workforce solutions". Laiye delivers the deepest, most advanced AI/RPA/NLP solutions to help businesses become more efficient, effective, agile, and successful. And it frees people to focus on meaningful, innovative, mission-critical initiatives.

Core technologies include robotic process automation (RPA), process mining, natural language processing (NLP), conversational intelligence, text recognition, and image recognition.