What is our primary use case?
We use it for P2P, AP, O2C, AR, inventory management, finance and general ledger, and HR.
Moving forward, we see opportunities to operationalize AI within our organization for loss cash discounts, payment term mismatch, credit blocks for vendors, duplicate invoices, accounting entries, and invoicing in SAP.
How has it helped my organization?
By implementing Automation Anywhere, we wanted to achieve productivity and decrease the complexity of the processes. The key issue has been the complexity. RPA is not meant for complex processes. When a process becomes complex, we face a lot of errors. That creates slowness of processing, some interactions at critical moments, and frustration in the business because the job is not done. As an alternative, we have to work manually.
We built many complex bots, and that was not the best strategy. It is better to simplify and then automate, and not automate to avoid simplification. When you take this wrong approach, you have to deal with many technical issues, and you are not able to leverage and benefit from the other tools as part of the automation itself. In the business roadmap of an RPA project, there should be some reporting or dashboards of bots' portfolio so that you can see the percentage of successful processing, the rate of failures per bot, and the rate of exceptions. There should also be something to measure the return on investment to be able to say that this bot is meeting expectations and productivity. It was worth it to invest in this bot, and it costs less than manual work. If the bot is always facing issues, it will be better to come back to manual processing. We should not move from manual to automation without thinking about simplification. We need to simplify first and then automate.
We have a centralized infrastructure, but we have a decentralized business strategy. We gained 60% productivity, which is at a high level.
Automation Anywhere is easy to use for business users who do not have tech skills, but first, they need to be able to play the role of business analyst. You should not have many points of contact. You should have a single point of contact, which we call SPOC, and this person should be a business analyst. This single point of contact should collect all the requirements and needs and be able to communicate them in a structured way in order to enable the solution team to tackle the points. It is easy if the person who is supposed to do it follows the learning of the business analyst and is able to speak English. We have English speakers because we are in a multinational group. They should also have a minimum level of experience in IT or in general business. If the training is intensive, it takes three months to train non-technical employees on Automation Anywhere usage.
What is most valuable?
The RPA automation itself is valuable. We are not using the other components that are part of the platform much because we want to first stabilize the platform, the environment, and the infra.
What needs improvement?
It could be improved in terms of the global analysis of all the issues caused by the dependency components. For example, if bots are running on virtual machines on Microsoft Windows 2019, sometimes an issue might come from the virtual machine. Automation Anywhere should work closely with Microsoft or any other editor with which there are some issues occurring and stopping the bots from running properly. They need to collaborate together to enhance and improve the platform and the dependencies. It should not be that because the problem comes from Microsoft, Automation Anywhere does not tackle the issue. They should tackle the issue even when they are not responsible 100%. Microsoft or any other editor should work with Automation Anywhere.
I would like them to include process mining.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Automation Anywhere for three years, and I have been using UiPath for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate it a five out of ten in terms of stability because of the issue of dependency components, such as Microsoft components.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate it a seven out of ten in terms of scalability.
How are customer service and support?
Their support can be improved in terms of understanding the issue more deeply and involving enough resources based on the criticality or urgency of the issue. They should involve the right resources and the right number of resources. If we need an architect, they should bring us an architect. If we need an engineer, we should have an engineer in front of us. They should provide the right person at the right time.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have worked with UiPath. The move to Automation Anywhere was not my choice. It was a group choice.
How was the initial setup?
We have a hybrid cloud. The implementation is easy if you are business-oriented, you first tackle simple use cases, and you involve all the teams. The complexity is always there, but to have less complexity, it is important to ensure these three elements.
What about the implementation team?
We include people from development, monitoring, management of development and monitoring, central IT management, and central business management.
In terms of upgrades, it is difficult to upgrade Automation Anywhere. The upgrades of Automation Anywhere are sometimes not adapted to the clients. They sometimes choose to upgrade the platform during a critical period, such as accounting month-end closing. It is definitely not the right moment to launch the upgrade. Automation Anywhere sometimes pushes general upgrades during critical periods. The best will be to take into account the constraints of the clients in order to not make it difficult for them.
In terms of maintenance, if the bots are running 24 hours a day, you need three people or at least two people for monitoring. The upgrade of bots requires one developer.
What was our ROI?
You get a return on investment only after 18 months. You can get 50% savings.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It depends. For example, for my group, we are centralizing the infrastructure in Paris. Our contract is signed with Automation Anywhere in France. The currency and the pricing of Automation Anywhere in France can appear beneficial and interesting for Germany and Scandinavian countries, but when we share our infra and are internally charging other countries such as Poland, Brazil, or some other country with a lower currency value as compared to Euro, it becomes less beneficial. They would prefer to sign the contract directly with Automation Anywhere because they will benefit from a price that is as per their local market.
The price works well for France, but it becomes a bit complex when you centralize it for all the countries or groups. In the international context, you have to propose something a little bit tailored for some countries, such as Romania or Brazil.
What other advice do I have?
When it comes to automation and AI, I always think about being business-oriented. Always start with the needs of the business and do not automate just for automation. You have to think about relevant use cases and also scalable use cases. In a multinational group, it is important to not think individually. This way you can collaborate more and reuse more things. You can reuse the components that have already been built. It is also economical.
Each center of automation should have a governance plan. The governance plan should be very precise, and it should expand the roles. Each stakeholder should know what to do, when to do it, and how to do it at each cycle or phase. After that, you should come to the functional and technical aspects. Without a governance plan, nothing is possible.
Overall, I would rate Automation Anywhere a seven out of ten.
*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.