Robotic Process Automation (RPA) pipelines are crucial for modern enterprises because they automate repetitive tasks, increasing operational efficiency by making these processes as much as 100 times faster.
Yet, many RPA processes fail. The number one stumbling block for enterprises working to transform operations with RPA is encountered almost immediately: Poor task selection.
Whether Centers of Excellence (CoEs) fail to source good suggestions for automation, or attempt to automate processes that are too complex, unstable, or frequently changing, poor selection inevitably leads to high-maintenance RPA processes and ultimately, failure.
It is a deceptively difficult part of the automation process, which begs the question: How can automation opportunity identification be improved? We’re breaking down how RPA opportunity pipelines typically work, strategies to make them more efficient, and how Shibumi’s RPA Accelerator produces ROI for CoEs focused on leveling up their RPA systems.
Why Pipeline Management Is One of the Hardest Parts of Running an RPA Program
Executives consistently cite pipeline management as one of the hardest parts of running an RPA program. Why? Because it requires balancing a number of different elements:
- An automation idea intake process that continually demands new material
- Rigorous RPA opportunity scoring and process prioritization
- And the maintenance of a delicate, high-volume ecosystem
Once the most obvious “low-hanging fruit” processes are automated, many programs stall out. Quick wins can get teams excited about the possibilities, but without a sustainable, well-vetted pipeline of viable automation candidates, that enthusiasm dwindles as new projects languish in “pilot purgatory.”
There’s a lot of hidden complexity in running an RPA program because most processes in an enterprise have undocumented exceptions and cognitive judgements made by humans that might differ from the programming of rule-based RPA systems.
Simultaneously, misalignments between business units and the overall strategic aims of the enterprise—a common hurdle in the modern business—can make ROI from the RPA automation opportunity pipeline stall out
In the race to optimize, many enterprises become mired in automation candidates that are too complex, while other less visible candidates that are well-defined, stable, and can produce ROI are overlooked.
Two Ways Automation Opportunities Enter the Pipeline
Finding automation candidates usually comes down to two distinct, but equally important strategies: strategic identification and operational discovery. In order to ensure both high-level business goals and daily tasks are prioritized in the RPA automation opportunity pipeline, having both means in place is important.
Strategic Identification
In this top-down method of automation opportunity identification, management and leadership identify high-volume, rules-based, or repetitive processes that they think can deliver significant efficiency gains across the organization.
This approach is often driven by CoE teams, IT, or management in finance, HR, or procurement.
Operational Discovery
This method is a more bottom-up approach to the automation idea intake process which empowers employees on the front lines to submit ideas for automating tasks in their daily workflows. Workers closer to the tasks are often best positioned to identify processes that are tedious, repetitive, and error-prone, which can lead to very viable automations with high ROI.
The Business Idea Submission Form: Making It Work in Practice
Address how to promote the form, what makes a good submission, and how to keep participation high. This section builds practical credibility.
An ideal RPA business idea submission form is designed to gather technical and financial data that helps the CoE determine if a process is a good candidate for automation. While many enterprises have a submission form to support the automation idea intake process, frequently, their staff don’t know that the form exists, or it is not robust enough to be truly useful.
The essential components of a business idea submission form include:
- General Information: This section includes the process name, a brief description, which business unit owns the process, and contact information for an individual who owns the process.
- Feasibility Data: Feasibility data includes what the process involves (i.e., screen navigation), if it uses standardized inputs (i.e., Excel spreadsheets), the degree to which human involvement is required, and the number of total applications involved in the process (such as Excel, Salesforce, etc.).
- Average Volume Data: In this section, the person submitting the form should estimate approximately how many times per period (whether that is a day, week, or month) that the process is performed, as well as how long it takes a person to complete, and if there is a high likelihood of errors.
How to Promote RPA Idea Submission Forms and Keep Participation High
The business idea submission form is a key RPA Center of Excellence tool—but not if it isn’t well-utilized. That’s why it is important for leadership to promote the submission form and encourage continued participation in improving RPA processes.
Promote the Form
The idea of “automation opportunities” can be abstract. CoEs should instead promote these forms with campaigns via various channels, like email and internal Slack communications, that ask employees which tasks they dislike and consider those as potential automations.
Demo Automations
Showcase comparisons of “bot vs. human” processes to build excitement and trust in the technology, while clearly articulating the benefits—like time savings—with your teams.
Showcase Success Stories
Highly successful submissions to the RPA program in newsletters, webinars, and internal communications.
Offer Incentives
Provide rewards (like gift cards or a new gadget) for submitted ideas that are implemented. This reinforces that employee input is valued and the CoE takes it seriously.
Centralizing Opportunities for Better Prioritization
Centralizing the RPA automation opportunity pipeline is a critical move that allows businesses to move from fragmented, tactical automation opportunity capture to a more strategic approach. The benefits of centralization are many, including:
✔ Better RPA opportunity scoring and comparison: When all potential automations are centralized in one platform, it is easy to identify tasks with high ROI potential, low complexity, and are suitable for automation.
✔ Better resource management: When automation opportunity identification plays out in a single hub, it is easier to understand the resources every process demands—including technology and human resources—and plan accordingly. It also helps CoE leaders anticipate challenges during the transformation process.
✔ Defensible decision-making: By providing a transparent view of the process of automation opportunity identification and selection, a centralized platform ensures that process selection is based on objective data regarding ROI, technical feasibility, and risk, rather than intuition or “who asked first.”
Pipeline Health as a Program Management Signal
Rather than viewing the RPA CoE pipeline’s volume and quality simply as “inputs” for tracking lead generation, they should be treated as vital diagnostic “indicators of program health.”
These metrics provide a holistic evaluation of operational efficiency, future revenue prospects, and overall RPA automation opportunity pipeline effectiveness. While volume accounts for quantity, assessing true pipeline health requires looking at the quality, velocity, and momentum of opportunities to gauge their conversion likelihood.
How Shibumi’s RPA Accelerator Supports Pipeline Management
Shibumi’s RPA Accelerator helps CoEs make their automation idea intake process more efficient, while supporting the entire RPA pipeline with a centralized, cloud-based platform to manage everything—from ideation to value realization.
Shibumi’s RPA Accelerator makes it possible for CoEs to scale their pipeline, prioritize opportunities based on ROI, and track performance against business goals. Here are a few of Shibumi’s features that allow enterprises to get more ROI from their RPA programs:
Centralized Ideation and Capture
Crowdsourcing Opportunities: Allows organizations to capture RPA ideas from employees across the enterprise in one central location. Employees feel heard and no good ideas fall through the cracks.
Standardized Submission: Shibumi features user-friendly forms to capture crucial data, including manual hours spent and process complexity, ensuring consistent RPA opportunity scoring.
Prioritization and Assessment
Strategic Alignment: Our RPA Accelerator identifies opportunities based on defined ROI, time savings, and strategic impact to prioritize high-value initiatives, so CoEs don’t waste valuable time on things that don’t work.
Stage-Gate Governance: Shibumi moves opportunities through defined stages (e.g., idea, assessment, development, production), ensuring governance best practices.
Complexity Scoring: The RPA Accelerator automates the assessment process to provide a consistent scoring methodology for potential projects, ensuring the RPA automation opportunity pipeline runs smoothly from the very beginning.
Execution and Lifecycle Management
“Single Source of Truth”: Shibumi easily integrates with RPA platforms like UiPath, Blue Prism, and Automation Anywhere to provide a 360-degree view of pipeline status—no clicking around a dozen different platforms.
Tracking Delivery: We monitor the progress of bot development and deployment so your IT staff doesn’t have to, mapping it all back to the original business case and expected ROI.
Value Realization: The RPA Accelerator tracks and verifies actual cost and time savings after deployment, enabling the identification of “quick wins” as well as underperforming initiatives.
Reporting and Monitoring
Real-Time Dashboards: We provide executives and CoE leaders with robust, real-time visibility into the health and performance of the pipeline, so leadership always has the latest data at their fingertips.
Automated Reporting: Shibumi generates automatic reports and presentations, reducing the manual effort required for stakeholder updates by many hours.
Shibumi’s RPA Accelerator: Building Automation Pipelines with Next Level ROI
Our goal is to help your CoE scale to “hyperautomation.” Our platform has been purpose-built to meet the needs of the modern enterprise. We consult real CoE leaders, fine-tuning our systems to help businesses achieve tangible value realization.
In the first 12 months of use, Shibumi RPA Accelerator customers achieve an average:
✔ 7.5x total pipeline growth
✔ 200,000 of hours of potential savings identified
✔ 90,000 actual hours saved
✔ + $10M of potential financial impact identified
Shibumi is trusted by top-performing enterprises across the globe and across industries because we have a reputation for accelerating enterprise-wide progress. Want to find out how Shibumi can help your CoE level up the RPA automation opportunity pipeline? Get a free, no obligation demo here.
RPA Automation Opportunity Pipeline FAQ
What is an RPA automation pipeline?
RPA stands for “robotic process automation,” and an RPA automation pipeline is a software-based workflow that automates repetitive, rule-based tasks, such as data entry, file handling, and system navigation.
How do CoEs find automation candidates?
Centers of Excellence (CoEs) identify, prioritize, and manage automation opportunities through a combination of top-down strategic alignment initiatives, bottom-up employee input, and technology-driven analysis. This is why it is so crucial for enterprises to have an RPA pipeline management platform that captures all of this input and data in a single place.
What makes a good automation opportunity?
A good automation opportunity is a process that is high-volume, rules-based, and requires repetitive actions. These tend to be the automations that deliver the maximum ROI when it comes to RPA automations.
How should automation ideas be prioritized?
RPA opportunity scoring and prioritization frameworks are important when it comes to prioritizing potential automations. These methods should be able to balance potential business value against implementation complexity and consider how the effort might deliver measurable ROI. Enterprises should focus on “complexity versus value,” focusing on tasks with the lowest complexity and highest value first, while still aligning those with broader business goals.
What is an idea intake form in RPA?
An idea intake form is a crucial part of the automation idea intake process. It is a structured document—often in digital form—used by businesses to collect, standardize, and evaluate proposals for potential automation projects.
Have More Questions? Reach Out to a Shibumi RPA Automation Expert