Best Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Tools

The benefits of RPA are vast and continue to grow as the top automation software companies continue to develop the technology to take on more complicated tasks and more deeply integrate with business systems and other automation technologies, like AI and ML. The biggest advantage to RPA are the savings that come after implementing the technology. There’s a lot to take into consideration when talking about the cost of RPA, and even more so when you’re conducting an RPA cost benefit analysis. If your business has a lot of tasks that are simple and repeatable, you should strongly consider using a bot instead of a human and repurpose your human resource to an item that takes more skill and can drive revenue for the company. Our members have provided plenty of use cases to show how they are using bots to improve their business.

However, there are limitations of RPA, although far outweighed by the benefits, if the capabilities of the technology satisfy your needs. There have been concerns raised about the security of RPA, but our members have reduced it down to implementation error. In most cases, thoughtfulness and careful consideration of the technology and how it will be used will give you all you need to decide on whether or not to move forward with RPA.

• Programmable RPA Bots. First-generation RPA tools that required a set of inputs and needed to be programmed.
• Self-Learning Bots. RPA software that learns from log data and screen capture videos and then performs the actions that humans used to.
• Intelligent Automation/Cognitive Automation Tools. RPA bots with advanced functionalities such as image recognition and natural language processing, able to understand even unstructured data.

There are a variety of different criteria that can and should be taken into consideration when selecting the best RPA tools for your business. These criteria and parameters very often depend on your specific needs, what your business and workflow require the most, and what your area of expertise demands.

Here are some of the most common and most important parameters used in the RPA tools comparison:

• Operational Scalability. Consider how well your new RPA tools will handle your business demands, respond to changes, requirements, and business operations.
• Security. Security is a vital parameter as the RPA bots will inevitably make changes to your customer data. Our members gave some of their insights on handling RPA security.
• Total Cost of Ownership. TCO includes the initial RPA tool setup cost, the ongoing vendor license fees, if there are any, as well as maintenance costs. All three should be taken into consideration when calculating your costs. For a lower cost, consider a low-maintenance RPA software.
• Ease of use and control. In order to increase efficiency and productivity, you need a user-friendly RPA tool that can be easily controlled and implemented and that your team can use without major difficulties.
• Cognitive capability. Some RPA software has cognitive capabilities that can self-learn.

Whether or not you choose to consider this parameter as well in your search for the top RPA tool will depend on what you are looking for in a certain RPA system and on what you see as vital for your own needs.