As the COVID-19 pandemic has altered the organizational workflow, automation has acted as a savior for the industry.

Robotic Process Automation is a technology which learns and mimics human tasks and integrates the tasks across digital systems so that the business process gets automated. An RPA bot accumulates the data through the user interface and interprets responses for performing repetitive tasks. Due to its non-intrusive nature and capability to not disrupt while processing, the RPA is utilized heavily across various industries. It also increases and efficiency in performing the tasks.

Gartner defines RPA as "A productivity tool that allows a user to configure one or more scripts or bots to activate specific keystrokes in an automated fashion."

The global RPA market size is estimated to reach US$2.5 billion by 2022 at a CAGR of 30.14% between 2017-2022. A report by PwC states that automation will be the most trending technology for the coming decade. As the pandemic has altered operations in organizations, automation has acted as a savior for the industry.

RPA in Banking and Finance

In Banking and Finance, the RPA bots integrated into the software are performing redundant tasks, thus enabling humans to focus on tasks demanding their skills. With increasing COVID cases, the demand for financial assistance has also soared. As the world is already witnessing economical uncertainty, many people are reaching out to banks for financial aid which has piled the loan and insurance applications across banks and insurance companies. Since pandemic has pushed most banks to have a limited workforce, automation is assisting in relieving the workload. By embedding RPA bots across the complex business calculations in loan processing, banks can reduce the period of loan cycles and loan decisions. This means that loans that earlier used to take months to be approved can now be approved faster by analyzing the automated details of the customer.

Additionally, automation is also helping with customer services. Through KYC, the banks are now able to validate the customer's data with the previous records. This is specifically useful in tax collection, insurance claims and underwriting.

RPA in Supply Chain  

The supply chain is listed as amongst the most impacted sector due to COVID 19 outbreak. As organizations stalled their operations, a significant impact is observed across the global supply chain. By integrating the RPA robots, the supply chain companies have automated the order processing and payment. Companies like Greif and Ascension health have already deployed RPA to sustain the impact of coronavirus.

Additionally, RPA across the supply chain is also crucial in monitoring the procurement risk, scheduling transportation, managing the logistics and managing the inventory tools. Organizations are now deploying automation tools, to minimize the risk, improve product performance and eliminating procurement costliness.

RPA in Healthcare

Due to COVID, the healthcare sector has witnessed an increase in demand for a manual workforce. This means that every individual across healthcare institutes are required to contribute to strategically sailing through the crisis. At this time, maintaining and monitoring the data is observed as a task that demanded efficiency and accuracy. Henceforth, many healthcare institutes have resorted to automation for managing inventory, digitizing patients file, carrying out the billing process and scheduling appointments.