Robotic Robotic Process Process Automation Automation Total Cost of Automation
Total Cost of Automation
Table of Contents 3
Introduction
4
What Is the RPA Lifecycle, and Where Does a Center of Excellence Fit in?
5
Components of Total Cost of Automation
6
How Kryon Optimizes TCA
7
Optimizing the Costs of Choosing Processes to Automate
8
Optimizing the Costs of Developing and Deploying RPA Technology
9
Optimizing the Organizational Costs of RPA
10
How Do the One-Time Costs of Using Kryon Compare with Other Solutions?
11
How Do the Ongoing Costs of Using Kryon Compare with Other Solutions?
12
Top-down Approach to Automation Opportunity Assessment
13
Bottom-up Approach to Automation Opportunity Assessment
Introduction When evaluating an RPA solution, it is common for business analysts to consider its total cost of ownership (TCO). This measure generally includes not only the costs of RPA technology, but also those of developing automations and managing projects on an ongoing basis. Total Cost of Automation
But to get a clear picture of the impact an RPA solution has on a real business, we need to take an even more holistic view and instead examine its total cost of automation (TCA). Calculating TCA involves taking an integrated businesstechnology approach and factoring in all the costs of business transformation – including those of technology, automation development,
Cost of technology
and ongoing control and maintenance. One major factor in TCA (and a critical step affecting RPA success) is the establishment of an in-house center of excellence (CoE). The key goals of a successful CoE should include maintaining a central RPA program, cooperating with all of a company’s business units on specific RPA projects, and providing automation support company-wide.
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• • •
• • •
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RPA license Virtual machine Hardware
Development Configuration Integrations
Center of excellence Process analysis and optimization Monitoring
What Is the RPA Lifecycle, and Where Does a Center of Excellence Fit in? Far from a one-time project, robotic process automation is an ongoing process involving continuous improvement of existing automations, as well as the initiation and development of new automations.
model will enable consistent execution and delivery as RPA scales enterprise-wide. It is recommended to start with a centralized CoE within one of your company’s business units, making it easy for your automation experts to build localized RPA capabilities. As your company expands its use of RPA, you may prefer to leave your CoE within this business unit – but to assign some of its members to work with other business units, helping them automate
A mature automation lifecycle is a loop of standardized activities including process identification, process prioritization, automation development and deployment, and ongoing maintenance and control. That lifecycle is the basis of the RPA operating model – starting with the building of a center of excellence (CoE) that will act as the owner of a company’s RPA implementation, working with core business units to automate their tasks. Employing this
their work processes. The total cost of automation covers all the costs related to the RPA lifecycle, including the deployment of the CoE operating model.
An End-to-End View of RPA Execution Build
Plan
Process identification
Process prioritization
Automation development
4
Automation deployment
Run
Operations and optimization
Components of Total Cost of Automation also include the technology’s impact on the organization itself, such as the development of new skills, measurements, and controls – as well as changing processes, roles, and responsibilities.
To calculate the total cost of automation, we must examine both the costs of technology and those of organizational transformation – including both one-time and ongoing expenses. When people think of the steps involved in implementing a new technology, they tend to think of infrastructure preparation, a proof of concept, licensing, and development and configuration. However, the full picture should
The table below gives an overview of the TCA, including one-time and ongoing expenses related to both technology and organizational change:
Cost of Organizational Transformation
Cost of Technology
One-time – technology deployment
One-time – CoE establishment
• Hardware/software infrastructure • Proof of concept (PoC)
• Automation development and deployment
• RPA software implementation
• Business-change management
• Third-party integrations
• Roles, responsibilities, and procedures • Skill development and training
Ongoing – technology maintenance
Ongoing – CoE operations
• System architecture and infrastructure maintenance
• Continuous process optimization
• Vendor management
• Measurement of operational and performance metrics
• IT support for RPA
• RPA license fees • Third-party integration license fees • SLAs
• Assessment and planning of new automation opportunities
• Expert network
• Knowledge management
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How Kryon Optimizes TCA
Minimal Reliance on IT Resources
Runs on any application, with no need for third-party integrations
Quick Development → Faster ROI
Optimized RPA Operations
(expected 25% shorter delivery cycles)
(expected robot utilization: 90%)
Designed for business users
Center of excellence
Reduces reliance on expensive, skilled employees or thirdparty consultants.
•
• Lower cost of labor Only 30-40% of users are programmers (60-70% are business process analysts).
One-click process recording
However, users have the option of integrating with a wide variety of platforms, such as CyberArk, Tableau, Kibana, ABBYY, and others.
Eliminates need for manual workflow design.
Patented, AI-driven computer vision technology
Smart Analytics Predictive analytics to optimize virtual workforce distribution and productivity.
Accelerated automation development.
Recently Released Solutions Process Discovery • Uses proprietary machine-learning technology to identify and prioritize business processes to be automated – all while automatically generating automation workflows.
Free trial of Kryon Studio • Gives business users and RPA developers an opportunity to explore Kryon’s RPA development studio and experience its ease of use firsthand.
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Optimizing the Costs of Choosing Processes to Automate Kryon RPA has developed tools that allow significant savings over the RPA lifecycle, driven by its end-to-end solution and its focus on users without a strong technical background.
An End-to-End View of RPA Execution
Build
Plan
Process identification
Process prioritization
Automation development
Automation deployment
Run
Operations and optimization
One of the biggest hurdles to using RPA is the challenge of process mapping. It can take several months just to target the potential processes for automation.
employees’ computers, Process Discovery robots “watch” user actions in real time, collecting data without impairing employees’ performance or consuming their valuable time.
Kryon Process Discovery is an AI-driven tool that gives an organization full visibility into all its automatable processes, analyzes and ranks them based on their suitability for automation, and generates seamlessly usable automation workflows. It drives down TCA by streamlining the steps involved in identifying, selecting, automating, and optimizing work processes.
Because Kryon’s Process Discovery robots and AI engine analyze more data and learn faster than humans, they offer quicker automation recommendations – resulting in faster business transformation and ROI. And after a process has been identified, with the click of a button a user can export an automation workflow for it to the Kryon Studio, where they can easily edit it and then deploy it to Kryon’s software robots – minimizing the need for time-consuming RPA development.
Whereas other process-discovery/mining tools are limited by their reliance on system event logs to determine user behavior, the platform-agnostic Process Discovery solution instead uses proprietary visual recognition. Running silently on
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Optimizing the Costs of Developing and Deploying RPA Technology An End-to-End View of RPA Execution
Plan
Process identification
Process prioritization
Build
Automation development
Automation deployment
Run
Operations and optimization
Cost of Deployment Using patented visual-recognition technologies, Kryon RPA can interact with any business application (desktop, web, legacy, Citrix, and others) – with no need for coding or integration with existing applications. As a result, companies can get their RPA projects up and running in days rather than weeks or months, leading to enormous cost savings and a quicker return on investment.
Cost of Automation Development Kryon's RPA platform was specifically designed with business users in mind. Because the Kryon Studio is easy to learn and does not require programming experience, 60 to 70 percent of the team members of a typical center of excellence are business/process analysts, while only 30 to 40 percent are programmers.
End-to-End Solution Kryon’s RPA solutions include built-in components such as optical character recognition (OCR), source control configuration, a credential vault, and analytics – saving customers the costs of additional integrations, configuration, and interface maintenance. As a result, Kryon’s technology can handle the entire RPA process as a standalone product, with no need to transfer data to third-party platforms.
One-Time and Ongoing Costs of Using RPA Development Tools The Kryon Studio allows for fast and simple creation of automation scenarios – using drag-and-drop workflow editing, preconfigured connectors, and application-specific scripts. Its user-friendliness allows all types of users to quickly and easily learn to create automations.
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Optimizing the Organizational Costs of RPA An End-to-End View of RPA Execution
Plan
Process identification
Process prioritization
Build
Automation development
Cost of Change
Run
Automation Operations and deployment optimization
technology, it is not even necessary for a process owner to redo the entire process recording, but only the portion that is affected by the change. Additionally, Kryon’s built-in version-management capabilities allow users to easily view edits made to an automation over time, with the option to roll them back if desired.
Kryon’s advanced visual technology allows it to handle changes or upgrades to underlying systems, applications, and other technology smoothly – with no need for complicated reworking of an automated process. In many cases, after a change in the underlying
Cost of Management Kryon makes it simple to manage RPA projects, offering a web-based console that enables real-time monitoring, remote configuration, and scheduling and management of your robotic workforce. And when the volume of work to
be performed by your automated workforce increases, Kryon’s smart analytics enable you to maximize your robots’ efficiency by automatically identifying and leveraging the ones that are underutilized.
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How Do the One-Time Costs of Using Kryon Compare with Other Solutions? Cost Category
Market
Kryon
Hardware and cloud hosting
Standard
Standard
Software (e.g., virtual machine)
Standard
Standard
Up to 1 month
Approximately 1-2 weeks
Standard
Standard
OCR configuration
Requires integration module
Built-in OCR and optional ABBYY integration
NLP configuration
Optional integration development
Optional integration development
Analytics environment configuration
Requires integration module
Built-in analytics
Requires configuration
Built-in source control and collaborative features
Credentials vault configuration
Requires integration module
Built-in credentials vault
Organizational change management – establishment of an RPA CoE
Users with technical/ programming skills
Mostly (60%-70%) business users, rather than programmers
Development of skills for a CoE (basic and advanced training)
Training designed for users with technical expertise
PoC development Automation deployment labor: RPA system setup and configuration Configuration of additional integrations:
Source control configuration
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• Intuitive learning • Developers’ community • Readymade templates and automation snippets
How Do the Ongoing Costs of Using Kryon Compare with Other Solutions? Cost Category
Market
Kryon
Hardware maintenance
Standard
Standard
Per module and based on scaling
All-inclusive – based only on scaling
Standard
Standard
OCR
Additional costÂ
Included
NLP
Additional cost
Additional cost
Analytics
Additional cost
Included
Source control configuration
Additional cost
Included
Credentials vault
Additional cost
Included
Standard
Standard
RPA developer might be needed
No additional hire needed
Internal IT
Internal IT
Internal resource or consultancy (mostly manual process)
Kryon Process Discovery (mostly automated process)
Software: RPA license subscription Virtual machine (subscription) Integration subscription fees:
Customer support and SLA Operating an RPA CoE Monitoring and control of automations (time spent by full-time employees) Technical support (IT for RPA)
Initiating and prioritizing projects
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Top-down Approach to Automation Opportunity Assessment
30-60% reduction in manual documentprocessing work
25-40% reduction in manual transactional work
Insurance: • Policy administration
Banking: • Commercial operations
• Claims operations
• Customer service
• Collections
• Trading room
60% reduction in cost to process invoices
9%-20% drop in cost of solving supply-chain problems
Finance: • Order to cash
Supply chain/P2P: • Source to pay
• Tax
• Master data management
• Record to report
• Work order management
• Vendor setup
• Returns processing
• Intercompany
80% reduction in cost to process payroll
Nearly 30% of IT worktime is spent on low-level tasks
HR: • Payroll
IT: • File transfer protocol
• Benefits administration
• Server application and monitoring
• Pay slip management
• Synchronizing data
• Time and attendance
• File and email management
• Recruiting process
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Bottom-up Approach to Automation Opportunity Assessment
We can estimate the automation potential of a given process based on the amount of time full-time employees spend on it.
etc.). The number of hours given for each Low RPA candidate refers to the number of work hours involved in the entire process, since each of these processes is expected to benefit relatively little from automation.
The hours listed for High and Medium RPA candidates below reflect the portion of each type of process that could potentially be automated (not including time spent on tasks that are already automated, judgment-based activities,
Total Automation Potential Area:
Please note that each effort estimate needs a more detailed review from an RPA perspective before being included in a final business case.
High
Medium
Low
# of # of hours # of # of hours # of # of hours # of # of hours processes per month processes per month processes per month processes per month
Procure to Pay
78
851.75
58
815.29
16
35.38
4
1.08
Source to Contract
28
455.48
20
98.75
4
323.40
4
33.33
Master Data Admin
21
221
13
216.50
5
4.50
3
0
Indirect Tax
36
n/a
9
n/a
17
n/a
10
n/a
Grand Total
165
1528.26
100
1130.54
42
363.28
21
34.41
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About Kryon A trailblazer in the world of enterprise automation, Kryon offers today’s only solution integrating business-friendly robotic process automation (RPA) with Process Discovery technology that offers organizations full visibility into all their processes. Combining a deep understanding of our customers’ needs with cutting-edge technology, Kryon empowers businesses to maximize their ROI through their choice of desktop-based attended automation, virtual-machine-based unattended automation, and a hybrid combination of attended and unattended automation. In a field that often loses sight of the importance of ease of use, Kryon
stands out for its uniquely intuitive interface, its one-touch process-recording capability, and its unmatched Kryon Process Discovery™ technology for accelerated deployment and continuous process optimization. Kryon’s globally recognized, AI-driven platform is used by a wide variety of enterprises worldwide, including AIG, Allianz, AT&T, Ernst & Young, Ferring Pharmaceuticals, HP, Microsoft, Santander Bank, Singtel Optus, Verizon and Wyndham Hotel Group. For more information about our organization, please visit kryonsystems.com.
About EY EY is a global leader in assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services. The insights and quality services we deliver help build trust and confidence in the capital markets and in economies the world over. We develop outstanding leaders who team to deliver on our promises to all of our stakeholders. In so doing, we play a critical role in building a better working world for our people, for our clients and
for our communities. EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients. For more information about our organization, please visit ey.com.
Contributors: Dor Almog — Senior Manager, EY RPA CoE Israel Yulia Bezobrazova — Manager, EY RPA CoE Israel Vita Zlotova — Business Development Lead, Kryon Gidon Kadosh — Product Research Specialist, Kryon
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