Top Robotic Process Automation Use Cases in 2022

Whether you want to automate your system or minimize costs, Robotic Process Automation is the way to go. Also known as RPA, Robotic Process Automation allows you to automate repetitive, time consuming processes and tasks done by the workers, thereby freeing up their time to focus on more important things.

Besides working across different applications, platforms, and departments, RPA integrates well with most existing IT systems without any additional installations. Since there are several ways to use RPA effectively, your business can end up saving a considerable amount of money and time. In this article, we discuss the top use cases of RPA in retail and other recommendations for businesses.

Invoice Processing

Invoice processing is a repetitive manual task that may lead to delayed tasks and slowed processes. But with automated processing, you can deliver goods and services from vendors and make payments on time. Since invoice processing requires a lot of consolidation, RPA can help process the invoices automatically once they are received. They can also be used to automatically populate the data inputs, reconcile errors, and even process certain decision-making required for invoice processing, thus minimizing human intervention and saving time and effort.

Return Processing

Processing customer returns requires several data inputs from platforms such as CRM, ERP, and inventory.  Instead of manually processing the returns, RPA can initiate these processes and perform the repetitive tasks such as:

●       Updating relevant databases

●       Collecting customer data for refund purposes

●       Sending notifications to both employees and customers

Sales Orders
Ensuring data consistency can be a tedious task, as one needs to spend time entering data to the CRM system as well as the ERP system. This means you have to replicate data and enter it in another system, thus increasing the chances of human error that can result in inaccuracy and misalignment. Thankfully, RPA can help automate tasks such as sales order entry, invoicing, and maintaining a database by removing duplicate data and thereby improving customer experience. By helping remove time-consuming tasks like data entry and time spent ensuring alignment, the workforce has more time to focus on tasks that develop and grow the business.

Price Comparison

Since businesses often have to make purchases in bulk, they need to have a system that automates all the processes. With RPA, you can automate all these processes that could otherwise be time consuming and complicated. Robotic Process Automation can help you compare product attributes and quality so you can buy the best resources at the best prices possible.

ERP Automation

Retail ERP solutions are usually linked to several databases, such as for example sales or supply chain DBs that require repetitive data entry, updates, and maintenance. Since these processes can be time consuming, RPA will help you collect data from various business platforms, standardise them, update existing databases, and detect any duplicates and mismatches - without any human intervention necessary.

Conclusion

While most companies are still determined to use manual processes, these have a higher likelihood of resulting in mistakes and leading to customer dissatisfaction. Thankfully,  you can save costs and reduce the time it takes to complete some tasks by over 80%. While the above use cases are just some examples of the many ways RPA can be applied, your business can start with one activity and see where it can be used.