To raise even more money, I donated some paintings for their summer auction. Hopefully people will be kind enough to part with their cash generously!

Speaking as an animal lover and a vegan, I was struck by how hard animals, such as donkeys, work for us. As living beings, like us, they get old, tired and need to take it easy. Happily, such considerations do not apply when deploying a Robotic Process Automation (RPA) which is designed to work 24/7 if required.

RPA is the buzz word for software that can be easily programmed to do routine, repetitive human tasks, quickly, accurately and tirelessly. Relying on structured data, RPA automates workflows or clerical processes by emulating human interaction within a graphical user interface (GUI) with great benefits. The benefits include consistently swift, accurate data management at a much lower cost than manual processing of any documents, typically sales orders and supplier invoices. Manual processes are streamlined to facilitate business security and increase scalability.

What does RPA do for your most important resource, i.e. your employees? Certainly staff are empowered to be more productive and professionally fulfilled because they are free of the mundane, repetitive and valueless tasks.

What of the other buzz word, Artificial Intelligence (AI)? AI is not to be confused with RPA. True, both deal with automation. However, a key difference is that RPA is not “self-learning” and only works with structured data. AI technologies, on the other hand, respond to changing environments and data and rewrite themselves.

What both RPA and AI have in common is that they automate manual processes and usher in great efficiency. Both technologies work 24/7 so you don’t need to. This is good news for staff, who are now able to work smarter rather than harder. Let RPA, and AI (with its machine learning and deep learning capabilities) take the strain of today’s a fast paced, IT driven environment. For me, that means more free time to serve our clients better and of course, paint more pictures and visit our adopted donkeys in their pasture lands!

Raj Sahota

As Internal Sales Manager at Esker, Raj looks after customers and prospective customers. She has been part of the Esker family since 2011.

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