RPA and the Utilities Industry: 7 Reasons Why They Make a Good Match
Robotic process automation is easily adaptable to a large number of industries; it is the right glove for finance, healthcare, banking, accounting and more. RPA and the utilities industry is also one of these well matched technology — industry mixes.
This industry sector provides us with the basics of the civilized world. Water, gas, or electricity supplies are some of the things that we can hardly conceive our lives without. Robotic process automation is not there yet.
Nevertheless, we wish to argue that utilities and RPA go great together. Why? In the first place, it is worth mentioning the case of an energy company in the UK, presented in a paper from The Outsourcing Unit Working Research Paper Series. Back office robots have processed over 1 million transactions per month, which led to a 200% ROI the year after implementation. So confidence in the feasibility and thus the goodness of the match is justified by past experience. What’s next?
Let us now list 7 aspects that further justify, even call for, your future choice to implement RPA in your utilities company.
- Many vital processes in the utilities industry are amenable to automation
The damages of human error interfering in capacity metering, for instance, could be higher than you are willing to pay, because customer satisfaction is more important than ever in these times of transformation that we experience in Australia. This is why it is wise to be open to automation.
Metering, billing and settlements, consumption management, customer records management, complaints resolution, or customer transfer are some just a few examples of the repetitive processes that could be better, faster and more efficiently performed by software robots. But of course, not everything goes! The intrinsic need for creativity and divergent thinking would keep processes such as strategy advancement and control outside the scope of automation (for now at least).
2. RPA can offer the utilities industry shelter from ‘the demographic earthquake’
Electricity, water or gas are services that require a significant amount of highly specialized staff members. According to the Australian Utility Magazine, they must be able to deliver adaptable choices to present consumers who would never let go of modern comfort, while also protecting the environment, or to handle the Australian network enlargement.
But many of the staff are approaching retirement! In fact, utilities is among the sectors most heavily affected by the change in the global labour market due to the aging population. As we’ve argued before, RPA is one of the key options to respond to it. Therefore RPA and the utilities industry make a good match.
3. RPA provides an upgrade opportunity to the utilities industry
“So what?!”, you might say. “There are plenty of other upgrade options, why choose RPA?”. Robotic process automation fares better than other options for two very simple reasons: time and money. The societal impact of utilities is very broad, hence innovative structural changes require an extensive approval agenda. Which, of course, takes a lot of time.
Such upgrades are also quite complex and costly, so innovation within the current infrastructure appears to be a superior option. But this is precisely the kind of upgrade represented by RPA. Moreover, a benefit of RPA applicable across the industries, namely, the possibility to perform the activities of multiple FTEs, contributes to its cost savviness.
