Robotic Process Automation (RPA) technologies have recently become the natural common choice of many organisations. The benefits of RPA implementations are undisputed, but practical experience shows that they also involve certain challenges and limitations. One of the most frequent “problems” encountered by RPA implementation projects is the need to use structured data; such data is very often unavailable, which reduces the possibility, scope and scale of the expected automation.
To address this problem, certain RPA solutions have been provided with integrated basic Content Intelligence (Smart OCR) functions to acquire simple, basic data. However, such options can be effective only in a limited number of simple projects. In most cases, e.g. in the process of obtaining data from invoices, the correct approach is to combine two different technologies in the projects: RPA and a dedicated Content Intelligence platform. A high-quality smart OCR platform works in the background to digitise, classify, extract and validate data from unstructured documents and then sends the data in the correct format for further processing by a software robot. This approach, which consists of both RPA and Content Intelligence, enables organisations to reap maximum benefits from investing in IT technologies designed to automate activities and processes.
Benefits resulting from the combination of RPA with a dedicated Content Intelligence platform
Key complementary Content Intelligence functions for software robots