RPA has been around as a buzz word for a while. Everybody is talking about it. Low code platforms let companies build process automation themselves, from managing leave requests to bank reconciliation processes. While all these little processes surely are helpful in making workflows more efficient and letting people focus on the less repetitive higher value tasks they are like little quick fixes, here, there, and all over the place: little static silo systems.
These RPAs do not take the organisation as a whole into account. They ignore the entirety of processes. They are cementing a current status of a process, and they are political. Each business unit implementing them is proud of their own achievements further strengthening the silo character of all these little solutions.
But environments are not static. We have seen this in black swans like the financial crisis of 2008 or the pandemic of 2020 and we see this in mega trends such as sustainability where the paradigms of yesterday are not fit for tomorrow. Resilient organisations are not just adapting to their environments. They predict changes, analyse risk scenarios, and act proactively. Resilient organisations constantly adapt their processes to where they see their environment going. It's a constant evolution of processes.
A static set of silo processes are like concrete blocks keeping an organisation from getting ahead, from constantly adapting and becoming stronger. Hence it is safe to say that such RPA silo processes weaken an organisation in the long run.
That raises the question how process automation can be implemented in a dynamic way that makes those automated processes proactively adaptable to anticipated changes in the environment helping an organisation to permanently change and adapt.
The secret lies in constant process mining and rapid but holistic process implementation. Organisations need to embrace a culture of change. And organisations are not just the sum of their parts. They are like an organism where all parts need to collaborate. Processes need to be integrated along the value chain and across departments. Static RPA silo solutions belong to the past.
There is a group on LinkedIn now debating the topic of Dynamic Process Execution.