Author: Erin Shea, Patrick Law Group, LLC
While statistics regarding the increase in the use of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) vary, it is clear that the use of RPA is on the rise. Companies are rolling out RPA in an effort to increase productivity, cut costs and reduce errors. However, before introducing RPA into your organization you need to consider how your RPA software interacts with your existing software ecosystem, if your existing software license agreements allow for use by robots, and whether your robots will increase your existing software licensing costs.
Robotic Process Automation commonly is defined as the use of software to automate high-volume, routine tasks that previously required humans to perform. These tasks are rules-based, structured and repetitive tasks which can be either partially or fully automated. An everyday example of a RPA robot – more commonly known as a bot – is the customer service chatbot we encounter on countless websites. You ask the chatbot how to change your password and the chatbot – not a human customer service agent – responds with a set of instructions for changing your password.