Selecting the Right Team to Implement RPA

Assembling the right team to execute on automation implementation is critical to success. Without a rock-solid center of excellence, your organization’s RPA initiatives are likely to stall, and executives will be disillusioned to the benefits of automation.

The People You Need for Your RPA Team

To combat this issue, here is a guide to selecting the four categories of people you need on your team to lead your business into the future:

The Champion

According to a study by Ernst and Young, one of the top 10 reasons why RPA projects fail is that many organizations consider automation as an IT-led initiative. When assembling your internal team, it is important to remember that automation is a business-led program with support from IT. The fundamental principle of RPA is efficiency in business processes.

Select your RPA champion wisely. They will be the driving force behind successful RPA implementation. This person should have a thorough understanding of your company’s processes and a strong drive to make them better. Look in your operations team. Find a project or program manager that would be dedicated to building out a roadmap for large-scale automation across multiple departments. Automation is rarely worth it as a one-and-done kind of project. You’ll want your RPA champion brainstorming limitless opportunities to implement RPA and save your organization time, money, and sanity.

The Sponsor

Once RPA is out of the brainstorming and planning phase, you’ll need an RPA sponsor to execute the action items of implementation. IT will need to deliver infrastructure and software support to ensure there is minimal RPA downtime. They will work closely with your RPA expert to deliver a smooth roll-out of your new digital workforce.

Another role to consider adding to your center of excellence as RPA support is someone from finance and accounting. They’ll be able to keep a strict eye on the important metrics and make sure that the financial goals for automation are being met. You’ll want someone recording and compiling the hard data for measuring return on investment and efficiency.  

The Arbiter

It is critical to have a high-level decision maker who is a part of the day-to-day with the RPA internal team. Consider having a C-level executive as a member of the team who can make decisions for implementation and help everything run smoothly. The last thing you want is a management bottleneck that will stall RPA initiatives. With an executive on the team, they’ll be in tune with the issues that IT may be facing and make a quick decision, versus the RPA team needing to schedule yet another meeting or presentation.

The Expert

The last role you will need to fill on your RPA team is an RPA expert. Remember that IT should be supporting the process, not necessarily designing and developing the automations as "overworked IT departments rarely have the bandwidth to pile the demands of automation on top of everything else on their plates."  It is possible to hire or train a full-time RPA developer, but that can be a challenge considering the scarcity of knowledgeable RPA developers. Hiring in-house can also be costly as RPA developers have an extremely high turn-over rate if there is not a steady and substantial pipeline of projects.

This is where hiring an automation partner can be your key to a successful RPA implementation. With a partner, your organization would feel like they have an in-house RPA developer, without the worry of needing to rehire for key positions. Your RPA expert will work with your champion, sponsor, and arbiter to analyze, design, build, implement, and support efficient automations. This person should have a wide range of knowledge on the business innovation side of RPA and the technical requirements of RPA. 

See our guide on How to Select the Ideal Automation Partner.

How EnterBridge Can Help

Here at EnterBridge, our team of RPA experts are managers-turned-developers. We can consult and offer valuable insights in the road mapping of your organization’s RPA journey. Then, we will design state-of-the-art automations that leverage the latest RPA technology to ensure a smooth delivery. We are committed to a long-term relationship of supporting and troubleshooting your digital workforce until your organization can emerge on its own as a digitally transformed powerhouse of efficient business.