5 Selecting processes for RPA

Robotic process automation (RPA) is an enabler for the implementation of business process automation and is becoming increasingly important in the services sector. The use of software robots is promising because of its short project implementation time and cost efficiency, which can hardly be achieved in the context of traditional process automation. However, not all processes are equally suitable for RPA support. Consequently, the selection of suitable business processes is a decisive success factor in large-scale RPA projects. Due to the usually large number of processes, companies face the challenge of applying meaningful criteria for process selection. The aim of this chapter is to propose a method to select processes that are suitable for process automation using RPA in the services industry following a design science approach. To these ends, benefit analysis as an established selection method is extended to include relevant process indicators, which suggest suitability for an RPA implementation. These process indicators are validated by RPA experts from the finance industry for their relevance with respect to RPA, and supplemented by other process indicators that are proposed by the experts, based on their expertise and experience. The overall collection is evaluated by the experts, using a benefit analysis scheme, in order to be able to highlight the key process indicators and rank them according to their importance. The result of the presented study provides a basis for organizations to develop a company-specific variant of the method.