Global Firms Turn To RPA To Respond To COVID-19 Pandemic

Organisations around the world are turning to Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to become faster and more agile in the face of increased demand and rapidly changing environments. From managing high volumes of testing results to supporting the increased need in call centres to preparing and enabling a remote workforce, organisations are realising the benefits of automating right now.

To support this need in a fast-changing world, UiPath, the global enterprise Robotic Process Automation (RPA) software company, is donating until the end of September 2020 free RPA software to healthcare and public sector organisations across the Middle East region to accelerate critical processes and free up strapped employees so they can more rapidly respond to issues arising as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“UiPath has been early to rally to the global efforts addressing the COVID-19 crisis, and regionally we are strongly committed to provide not only technology and technical support, but also impart the global experiences we have gained in a very short time,” said Karan Dixit, Regional Vice President Middle East and Africa at UiPath. “Our RPA platform is now available to doctors and nurses processing huge amounts of medical tests, government officials dealing with unprecedented volumes of welfare requests, and customers in vital areas such as retail or aviation that had their businesses change model from one day to the other.”

Responding to COVID-19 with RPA

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, organisations and healthcare institutions around the world are facing extreme challenges – from hospital backlogs to influx in demands to business continuity challenges. RPA is offering relief to overwhelmed organisations, and is already being used by UiPath customers to automate processes such as:

• Managing the high volume of testing requests: Automating the check-in process in the healthcare industry eliminates human error and allows digital paperwork to be processed quickly and accurately, ensuring faster service.
• Reducing wait time for testing requests: The demand for testing is exponential, and in some cases can lead to six-hour long lines. An attended robot can execute a testing transaction in 15 seconds, down from 2.5 minutes for a human, significantly reducing wait times.
• Filling orders for necessities faster: To meet the exponential increase in demand for certain items, one customer is now shipping directly from the manufacturing location to the customer. RPA robots process all orders and enter them into SAP to get the order to the manufacturing center faster.
• Supporting the increased need in call centers: Agents supported by RPA are pulling customer data faster, ensuring a faster call triage process, faster routing to the appropriate agents, and reduced average call handling time.
• Preparing and enabling a remote workforce: Automating the process of registering new equipment for remote workers, as well as associating the equipment to the worker and creating new users for the VPN.

Organisations across industries – including healthcare, insurance, government, retail, banking, and transportation – are using UiPath’s software robots to address the influx of demands brought on by COVID-19, said the company.