Lean Consulting

Right off the bat, Brian was personable and friendly, really cheerful (which honestly isn’t a given where cabbies are concerned), and his car was immaculate (again, not a given). Brian dropped us off and that was that.

Fast forward to Monday when we were returning to Dublin, we land, book a car, and who should turn up to collect us… Brian. We had a good chuckle at the coincidence and explained that we’re making the same journeys week in week out – he gave us his number and agreed to collect us for the return leg at the end of the week.

We’ve travelled with Brian many times since then, and it’s always a pleasure. He makes a point to remember when we are coming in and going out and texts us to see if we need him. He remembers the things we talk about and makes a point to ask about stuff we mention. Brian has great chat and he even goes out of his way to check on how Lee’s football team are doing so that they can talk about it in the car (trust me he goes out of his way, Lee supports Chorley!!). It’s honestly difficult to articulate just how ace Brian is, and what a pleasure it is to be a passenger in his car, and that is why I would choose to travel with Brian ahead of anyone else, every time given the option.

Now, I absolutely get that the reason this guy does what he does is likely to maximise his earning potential. I am certain Brian is abundantly aware of how his demeanour and behaviour impacts the amount of work he gets and subsequently, the number of euro’s he is banking at the end of the week. Brian is a businessman when all said and done, so it makes sense that he would take steps to improve and grow his business.

The point here is that I would happily change my insurer, my energy provider, my broadband provider, the hotels I stay in and the places I go to eat at the drop of a hat, if it means I get better and easier customer experience (all else being equal)…. but Brian is and will remain my first choice in Dublin for getting from A to B.

Many businesses overlook the importance of Customer Experience and focus only on the core service provision. This is especially true in my experience of taxi and car services; most of these guys focus solely on getting you from point A to point B and do not consider that your experience between those two points could impact their future revenue. I expect that they will continue to get business just because of the nature of the industry, but I wonder if they will ever catch up to Brian…

It’s well documented that Donald Trump is a classic narcissist (among other things). But let’s looks at some of the things he said in the interview:

“It’s something that I find very interesting.”

“I actually have studied it very hard. I know the different players.”

“But I think Boris would do a very good job. I think he would be excellent.”

“I like him. I have always liked him.”

“He has been very positive about me and our country.”

“I have been asked for endorsements”.

“I could help anybody if I endorse them. I mean, we’ve had endorsement where they have gone up for forty, fifty points at a shot.”

“I don’t imagine any other US president was closer to your great land.”

I haven’t really cherry-picked here. Donald Trump was asked about the Leadership contest but what follows is a series of statements about him and about how awesome he is.

He does this a lot.

It’s no difference in Business. If you find a leader who talks about themselves and their performance constantly, you’ve might have a narcissistic leader. Narcissistic Leaders are completely self-absorbed and believe themselves to be superior to others. They don’t take criticism well and tend to surround themselves with people who tell them what they want to hear.

This is dangerous for a business’s success – and dangerous too for anyone who finds themselves working for one as they won’t hesitate to throw you under the bus when things go wrong.

If you’re unlucky enough to have a narcissist as a manager, you’ll need to consider a few things. Where am I going to get some effective mentoring and development? How am I going to manage my manager? Is this the right role or even an organisation for me?

In this article, we will cover what some of the key characteristics are for a Robot (or ‘Bot’), and the reasons why is it important to select the right process to apply RPA:

The Characteristics of a ‘Bot’…

It is not an ‘off-the-shelf’ solution’. There will be preparation and work definition required prior to the Bot being built.

A Bot needs to be designed to conduct tasks just as how a human was trained to execute the job. The Bot will then have to run through testing to ensure that it’s doing what it should be doing

Although a Bot doesn’t need toilet or lunch breaks, a Bot doesn’t have an infinite capacity to carry out work. There is only so much work 1 Bot can carry out (although, a Bot can do the work of between 3-8 Full-time employee, and sometimes much more)

Why is it important to select the most appropriate process for RPA?

The groundwork, set-up and test of a Bot cost money. A chunk of this can be wasted if a Bot is deployed to a process that is not suitable to deliver what the organisation wants.

The selected process is the main contributor to the success and benefits of applying a Bot.

Complex process + low frequency + low volume + low business value = Less Effective

Simple + high volume + high frequency + high value process = More Effective

Clients that invest in the preparation, development, testing and implementation of a Bot want to see a high return on that investment. Therefore, it is important that the right processes are selected for the Bot, and that the Bot is loaded with value-add processes that keep the Bot 100% productive.

What type of processes should we look out for as candidates for RPA?

Repetitive processes that are highly manual

Mature stabled process

Processes that have a high volume of activity flowing them

Processes that have a standard, reliable and electronic input type

Rule-based processes that have clear instructions

Processes which require the business case for inclusion in comprehensive system implementation

How does this look like in your business?

Picture your administration floor with five, ten or more employees doing exactly the same tasks all day every day such as structured reports, emails, CRM and other rule-based tasks. This can be costly, time-consuming, dull and prone to inaccuracy. Now imagine these everyday jobs being executed by software robots. Your processes are much faster and more accurate, leaving humans to do the more complex jobs that can benefit from the power of the human brain!

How robotic process automation works?

Robotic process automation works by developing software robots that mimic the actions as if humans were undertaking it. This is achieved through the user interface or UI of an application, website or operating system whereby the software robot can simulate user inputs such as clicking, scrolling and typing.

RPA tools also have a wide range of APIs to bypass the UI interaction that a human would have to go through to access an application function. Some common examples of this are sending Outlook emails and reading Excel Spreadsheets – these only require the bare minimum input such as recipient, subject and body, of the file path, sheet name and range. It is these APIs that make RPA such a valuable and far-reaching tool.

In the future, RPA will start to take more advantage of artificial intelligence. This means it will be able to learn from past events and use that knowledge to do things differently moving forward. This will be advantageous in processes that sometimes need to be adapted for special cases.

So how to get started with Robotic Process Automation?

Conclusion

Prime Candidates for automation are those processes that are extremely repetitive and rule-based (i.e. if this, then do that), and they can be found in almost every department in every industry.

Once a suitable process is chosen, a Process Design Document (PDD) is created to describe the process in detail. This should be in enough detail that from this document alone, anyone should be able to carry out the task.

Once the PDD is agreed upon, solution design and robotic architecture are created along with the development testing environment whereby the developers can begin to automate the desired processes, tasks and actions.

How to create the automation will depend on the RPA product you use, but the current biggest players in the space make some of the development simpler by providing a comprehensive library of readymade components which help to decrease the amount of code needed. Larger builds will require in-depth knowledge in programming, with proficiency in languages such as .NET.

After the Automation, the developer will unit test the build ensuring any bugs that may arise are handled appropriately, whilst checking that the expected results match the actual results given.

With initial monitoring to ensure reliability, the project is deployed and continued support is given by the development team to make alterations and ensure ongoing performance.