By Susan Cotter, Senior Program Manager/Analyst

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is transforming repetitive back office and customer facing processes that are critical to success for businesses in many industries, including financial services and utilities. For common processes such as standard back office data entry and period-end financial transactions, innovative applications of RPA hold the promise of breaking the “iron triangle” by lowering costs, increasing cycle time and improving the quality of workflow processes and output.

The large BPO providers have adopted RPA and have documented success stories of cost savings from labor-intensive, manual tasks.  Inbound mail processing will quickly be incorporated into these service offerings as OCR technology and advanced learned technologies advance.

In our new Research Brief, Madison Advisors delves into the potential application of RPA to inbound mail processing. Our research explores the positive impact that innovative uses of RPA can have on critical aspects of inbound mail workflows—including data capture, process integrity and return mail.

The research also explores the challenges that enterprises seeking to implement an RPA strategy for inbound mail may face and key considerations to take into account, including available technologies and the possibility that a hybrid RPA and manual workflow approach may be required.

RPA provides organizations the ability to scale as they continue to grow without burdening IT resources.  Many companies taking advantage of the cost savings associated with offshore data capture may soon be able to implement an in-house solution that provides similar or increased savings with benefits including auditability and increased transparency.

We expect the impact that RPA will have within organizations to grow as the technology matures. The time is now to explore the  window of opportunity that exist for early adopters of RPA to address repetitive workflows such as inbound mail as these organizations will be able to gain improved processes that lead to enhanced customer satisfaction and return on investment.

A Copy of Madison Advisors’ Research Brief, Utilization of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) for Inbound Mail, is available here.