Necessity is the mother of invention. Companies see automation as the absolute necessity in these testing times. That is why we see a surge in RPA robotic automation implementation across industries. However, management show a combination of interest and hesitancy.

The main reasons for hesitancy are:

• Underestimation: the practical difficulties during deployment
• Timeline: time involved in mapping the work cycle
• Nature of automation process: flexibility to scale and upgrade

Not considering these factors have led to huge costs and delayed ROI. That is why selecting the right RPA vendor is the litmus test for every company.

Guidelines for selecting RPA automation vendor:

1. Vendor’s market reputation

• Years of experience in the RPA automation market
• Product maturity within the market?
• The geographical dimensions and work force it utilizes?
• How strong is the reference base?
• Training and support help

2. Customer support:

• 24x7 helpline with an interactive trained technical crew?
• Does it share their experience for adopting best practices in the industry?
• Can it proactively meet the changing demands of the enterprise?

3. Technology enhancement and innovations:

• How frequently does the vendor offer major or minor product releases?
• Does it conduct webinars intermittently to educate their clients or prospective clients about the new enhancement adopted in the product?
• The timeline when they can have the new product?
• Are the enhancements supporting the present software utilized by the present clients?

4. Comprehensive user training:

• Does the vendor having capabilities in providing onsite / remote / online training?
• Are the training tools sufficient for client’s staff training like tutorials, manuals etc.?

5. Flexibility in installation: with the current IT setup

• Flexibility in choice to suit the enterprise - on-location, cloud or hybrid
• Fluidity to merge with the enterprise applications and interfaces
• Ease in deployment and non-disruptive to the present operations

6. Information security

• Regulatory compliance of data and client’s data security
• Platform chosen needs automated activity log for audit purpose (e.g.,process executed, if there is human intervention, any anomalies in the process etc.)

7. Scalability:

• Offer an ecosystem where the RPA automation will be in a position to scale depending upon the fluctuations (either during day / week / year).
• There should be flexibility to adapt to the long term growth curve of the enterprise.
• The successful practice must be elastic enough to be replicated and used in various divisions or locations of the enterprise.

8. User Validity:

• Studying the user feedback regarding the product
• How they are ranked amongst their competitors in the market

9. Pricing:

• Is the pricing accommodative to our budget?
• Is RPA vendor product license inclusive of maintenance?
• Is the pricing having transparency and flexibility depending on the clients’ usage?
• Is the price charged based on on-site / cloud based / hybrid?

All this information can be used during your RPA vendor evaluation process. This would aid the management to choose the appropriate vendor to embark on their automation journey. If you are interested in to deploy accounting automation, feel free to schedule a demo to evaluate our capability, affordability of our pricing and reputation of our experience.