Replacing Business Outsourcing with Robotic Automation

With business process outsourcers robotic automation, these processes are now being handled by Robots that cost even less than their offshore staff. Robotic Automation software is designed to replace a human workforce performing on-screen, rules based processing work. The Robots provide more accurate and faster service than humans at a fraction of the cost.

Providing an alternative to outsourcing

Robotic process automation is forcing business process outsourcers to move toward transaction pricing and an “as-a-service” business model or risk having companies repatriate the work to have it performed by their own Robot workforce.

With the transaction type work being performed by Robots, business process outsourcers are attempting to move up the knowledge worker value chain to provide work completion that is more appropriate for humans and their innovation and subjective capabilities. Legal robotic automation represents one of these value chains.

Some researchers estimate that over 40% of currently outsourced work will be performed by Robots within the next few years. This will have the effect of changing those economies that have benefited greatly by employing millions of people in the outsourcing sector. However, research also shows that when large scale work content disruptions happened in the past, more new work, requiring new skills and knowledge resulted that employed even more people that were displaced. This phenomenon was long term, with a net reduction in jobs at the time of the disruption. There is also some question as to where the new jobs are created, with some believing that they will happen in the more developed economies, where the work was previously outsourced from.

Improving quality with suitable systems

Robots are 100% accurate. They do not make human errors. As a result, business process outsourcer robotic automation results in higher quality and higher service levels, which in turn also reduce cost.

Robots also provide a complete audit trail of their activities, which can be used for analysis and compliance purposes. Robots can also be trained to audit the work of humans performing less structured processing work.

There are a range of robotic process automation technologies to choose from. They range from simple desktop assistants that quickly retrieve information or applications for staff all the way up to full enterprise level Robot workforces that operate within a virtualized environment, eliminating the need for office space and other human infrastructure requirements.

Robotic process automation is also aligned to leverage adjacent technologies including, artificial intelligence, cognitive, vision and speech. Augmentation by these capabilities, Robots will be able to move up the knowledge worker value chain by performing more work that involves unstructured data and interfacing with humans. This also aligns with the wider field or Robotics and its advancement in several sectors like transportation and healthcare.