What is RPA? Robotic process automation (RPA) is a software technology that enables enterprises to build, deploy, and manage a virtual workforce made up of software robots (“bots”) that emulate the actions of humans in interactions with software and digital systems.
Software robots can understand what’s on a screen and do all kinds of tasks, such as completing keystrokes, logging in to programs, navigating systems, making calculations, opening and moving files, and extracting unstructured data. Software robots do all of these things faster and more consistently and reliably than they can be done by people. RPA bots are simple to set up and use, schedule, clone, customize, and share. This virtual “bot” workforce is managed just like any other team in the company.
RPAs are useful across almost all industries - from healthcare and law to banking and insurance. RPA drives business efficiency and agility, impacting business outcomes and resulting in a significant return on investment (ROI).
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.
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:
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.
| Tool | Rating | Pro | Con |
|---|---|---|---|
| UiPath | 9 | Technical support for UiPath is great | The platform that shows the reports and errors is not too transparent. |
| Automation Anywhere | 8 | I implemented AA in different environments, the AA installation is the smoothest compared to other RPA software installs. | [They] should add more Analytics and Intelligence related capabilities |
| Blue Prism | 7.6 | The web-based designer is very user-friendly and easy to use | I would like to see machine learning functionality integrated with the automation |
| Kryon RPA | 8.4 | Attended automation has diverted 34 percent of training calls to our tech support centers | It could be more reliable in spying HTML |
| Blue Prism Cloud | 8 | The most valuable feature is the ability to write custom code | Having more AI functionality would be an improvement |
| VisualCron | 9.8 | It helped us reduce manual steps. | Our suggestion to make it better and more manageable in terms of GDPR: Implement it in a very partnership way |
| Microsoft Power Automate | 7.6 | Power Automate is intuitive and easy to use | Compared to other RPA solutions, there is a little bit of a feature gap |
| BotFarm | 7.6 | The best aspect is the UI, as it is very user-friendly | The deployment could be made a little bit easier |
