Driving Business Integration of RPA

Implementing any new technology into an organisation means providing some level of education to established teams and business areas in order to drive cultural adoption.

Some teams will be more resistant to change than others. Getting buy-in across an organisation as a whole is a challenge and overcoming resistance is therefore critical to ensuring the success of any RPA program.

Transparency is critical in getting the business to accept the Digital Workforce as part of the culture and business integration should, therefore, be an ongoing focus of your RPA program.

In order to do this effectively you should look to:

  • Gain business buy-in by keeping all members of the organization involved in RPA activities and not 'force' RPA upon them
  • Be transparent about the RPA program to remove any fear of the unknown
  • Build relationships with business areas by asking what you can do for them
  • Create a strong relationship with IT right from the outset. This should be business owned and governed and supported by IT
  • Ensure that your RPA vision, culture and brand support that of your organization's vision, culture and branding.

Critical Success Factors

There are three critical success factors to help you overcome resistance and enhance cultural adoption across the organization. These are: Strategy and Alignment, Sponsorship and Organizational Culture and Employee Engagement.

The Four pillars of RPA Business Integration

There are many tools, tips and creative ways to help the business culturally adopt RPA as part of the organisation.

We have categorized these methods into four pillars which provide guidance on how you can achieve or improve your business buy-in.

Top Tips for RPA Business Integration

  • Communicate why you are deploying RPA in your organization, for example "to maintain a competitive advantage in market" 
  • Engage early with your communication team
  • Engage with senior management to communicate the message. The message for RPA should be cascaded from the top
  • Use common ways of communication: Team briefs, videos with senior sponsors, posters, workshops
  • Be consistent with your messaging and the frequency of your communication.
  • Create quick wins and communicate the benefits
  • Acknowledge and publicly recognize the effort of employees embracing RPA within the organization
  • Create the space for employees to be more innovative. Examples include: organising workshops, using ideation and continuous improvement tools and techniques, and enabling them to build time into their schedules to consider automation opportunities
  • Place RPA targets in the performance management plan of employees to enforce and reward participation. (Please note: Although this might be successful in a mature organisation that has an established RPA organization, this approach may not be ideal for organizations that have just started their RPA journey and have not educated employees about the benefits of RPA and strategic alignment.)
  • Educate all members of the organization about what RPA is and it's benefits for them 
  • Consistently communicate to the organisation,  showcasing new automations and demonstrating the benefits of RPA
  • Recruit internal advocates or champions to evangelize about RPA across the organization
  • Engage early with those who are keen to be involved in RPA. These advocates may be part of the Centre of Excellence team, or may be business users keen to utilize RPA. Have them join workshops to discuss RPA initiatives with other areas. 
  • Increase participation and involvement of employees through encouraging submission of processes for automation, providing timely feedback and offering RPA training 
  • Enable people who may be affected by automation to have their say and express concerns and ideas through constructive dialogue. Resistance is not always negative as people may raise challenges which do need to be addressed
  • Celebrate success: Recognition of employees that are participating in the change and that champion RPA will encourage more employees to get involved. 
Success Accelerator

Blue Prism’s Success Accelerator program combines various levels of mentorship and access to our Expert Services, Technology Ecosystem and Certified Partners based on the size and maturity of your digital workforce operations.