Creating an RPA function in Financial Services
CASE STUDY
Establishing RPA and building the first 5 processes
Getting started with RPA
As part of our work continuous improvement work with the Link Group, we identified some opportunities to use RPA to improve processes. The Link Group engaged Lean Consulting to design, install, scope, build, test and run their RPA function.
Getting the infrastructure & software in place
We helped Link select a vendor that was right for them in this case Blue Prism). We provided the technical architecture expertise required for their IT to provision the servers, databases, interactive desktops, runtime machines and the configuration of the network for both the Development and Production environments. We also supervised the install of the application and tested that it was running and connecting to applications correctly.
Building the first process
Once we had a Development environment in place, we set about creating the 1st RPA process. This was a process where a team spent half their time running and printing reports so that they could complete a manual reconciliation of share holdings.
Automating the reconciliation was not an option due to the complexity of the current systems and process. However, we determined we could automate the running and saving of reports so that when the team started their day, all their reports were waiting for them in the right customer folder. Due to the system constraints, the running and saving of reports takes up half the time to do the process.
By automating we therefore reduce the time taken to reconcile an account by half.
Expanding the service
Over the next 6 months, we expanded the service offering to include a further 4 RPA processes. These were processes like enabling a straight-through (no human touch) process for fulfilling a stock maturity or appending documentation to a CRM where the documentation is produced in another system.
For each of these processes we:
- Identified the opportunity
- Created the Process Definition Documentation (PDD)
- Created the System Definition Documentation (SDD)
- Developed the robot
- Tested the robot
- Launched the robot
- Ongoing operation and monitoring of the robot
- Validation of benefits
Achieving results RPA
Link group has been able to reduce the cost of processing and improving customer service outcomes by providing their staff with a all customer documentation in a single place. Critically, they haven’t had to worry about any of the service as it’s all been delivered by Lean Consulting in an ‘on premises’ solution approach.
