Investing in RPA during this economic crisis will serve short and long-term digital transformation goals. A strategic automation partnership with Smartbridge will eliminate the upfront software and hardware costs and deliver faster ROI.

Smartbridge today announced "RapidAutomate", a new RPA services pricing model that enables companies to eliminate the upfront investment in hardware and software, and realize the benefits of automation must faster than traditional licensing models. Smartbridge provides the full solution, including infrastructure, UiPath RPA software, implementation, and support of automation bots under a value-sharing model.

The RapidAutomate process-centric pricing enables companies to avoid upfront costs and quickly realize the benefits of automation. Companies will pay after the process is automated, and the value realized through effort savings and new opportunities gained. This is a fundamental change from the prevalent model of paying for RPA software licenses and services upfront when they are delivered independent of any ROI realized. With this pricing model, Smartbridge directly incorporates its core value of ‘Succeed Together' into its business relationship with customers. They can take advantage of this model immediately to conserve upfront investment costs in the current difficult economic climate, spend when savings are realized, and business achieves a positive outcome.

ADOPTION OF PRE-BUILT SOFTWARE ROBOTS WILL INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY IN 2020 AND BEYOND

To expedite the start-up, Smartbridge has identified a portfolio of typical automations ranging from low to high complexity that addresses common business challenges.

For finance and accounting, bots that automate accounting reconciliations, generate exception-based notifications, build reports, send A/R statements, send reminders for late payments are examples of ideal automations.

In supply chain and operations, automations focused on monitoring inventory levels, sending emails to customers, doing simple calculations, and web scraping are also well suited for this solution.

In IT, use cases such as new employee AD, apps authentication and authorization setup, systems management, QA test automation create efficiencies.

Other functional areas such as HR, sales, marketing have several business processes that can be automated.

REDUCING THE BARRIER TO ENTRY IN RPA DURING ECONOMIC TURMOIL

Smartbridge is a dedicated UiPath partner, having deployed bots for clients across the construction, healthcare, real estate, food service, and manufacturing industries to assist finance, HR, operations, sales, and supply chain functions.

"RPA is a savvy way to transform business without having to necessarily rip and replace legacy systems," says Smartbridge CEO Sri Raju. "RPA is appealing because the time it takes to start delivering value can be much shorter than other innovation investments, however the upfront cost of licensing and hardware delays ROI realization. Our RapidAutomate solution ensures much faster ROI realization, and that assurance is needed now more than ever when every capex investment must be evaluated for its ability to pull the organization out of the economic crisis quickly."

To get started, companies can expect to spend about 1-2 weeks meeting with Smartbridge and creating the RPA Model Analysis worksheet, which will expose the best automations to see the most ROI in 2020 and 2021. Details, terms, and conditions will also be discussed at that time.

"Smartbridge, a digital transformation advisory and RPA implementation specialist, has an innovation culture and is often a strategic advisor to our clients," says Raju. "This new solution embodies our thought leadership, methodologies and values, by investing in our client's future of innovation, and embracing the automation journey together. We love the idea of investing in each other, rather than incurring IT expense upfront."

Smartbridge's RapidAutomate offering anticipates the desire for the C-suite to expect any investment in 2020 to show value immediately. Working with the customer, Smartbridge identifies automation possibilities based on the manual effort, frequency, resources, complexity, development effort, cost of UiPath licenses, infrastructure, etc. Based on the manual process value that is calculated, Smartbridge and the customer share a percentage of that value over three years. The customer's time is the only upfront investment required to deploy their first automations through UiPath with this mutually beneficial model.

A LONG-TERM SOLUTION FOR THE NEXT NORMAL

RPA is essentially the process of deploying software bots that replace monotonous, repetitive tasks, and processes to free up employees for more creative activities. Enterprise-level organizations are looking to increase automation spending by 55% over the next five years, even now, during a downturned economy, to support major functions of the business. RPA is not a temporary solution to a temporary crisis; rather, it's a long-term solution to business needs that were already on the rise long before 2020.

COVID-19 and the economic crisis have re-defined digital innovation decision-making. Capital projects in 2020 must meet new business challenges to fill the gaps created by the reduction in workforce, digitize newly remote workers, and immediately address new customer expectations. Robotic process automation has been largely recognized as one such transformative digital investment that is recession-proof. A recent report shared by RPA Today details that 9 out of 10 (or 93%) of C-level executives stated that they are deploying, or actively extending automation capabilities within their company.

Smartbridge provides digital transformation and RPA services to businesses at all experience levels, from just starting to evaluate its benefits to those seeking large-scale deployments and support. Smartbridge provides training, managed services, and assistance with establishing a Center of Excellence with UiPath and Automation Anywhere. More details on the RapidAutomate solution and other services can be found at Smartbridge.com/automation.