Cost of the automated BOT implementation

Now we all know that RPA saves money. It cuts down on employee time spent on tedious tasks. It makes business processes move along more quickly. But, what does RPA cost? This is a critical question that anyone contemplating RPA must think through as thoroughly as possible. The costs will vary greatly depending on a range of factors. It is possible to arrive at a realistic budget estimate, however, if one considers all of the cost elements that go into an RPA project. At the outset, it makes sense to separate the costs required to launch RPA from the project-by-project and BOT-by-BOT costs that come once the platform is up and running.

The cost of the automated BOT implementation depends on variety of factors like the complication of the BOT (multiple conditions, multiple checks, and multiple operations or just one streamlined process), time and efforts spent on the initial business processes analysis, initial setup and programming required and, finally, costs of all APIs and apps used inside a BOT. While some APIs and apps are free but for connecting to cloud services may bring the recurring costs that usually scales linearly with the volume of data processed. Generally, most vendors base their RPA pricing models on automation input or output pricing models. But is that all or there is more to the cost of RPA tools?  Not quite sure…

Let's split the cost of RPA into three categories and try to get a detailed cost-benefit analysis: Development costs, Maintenance costs and Infrastructure costs. 

RPA Cost of Development

1. One-Time Costs: The initial RPA costs encountered include Consulting, Planning, Opportunity assessment, Design, Development, Testing, Deployment. These costs will be incurred before and just before the RPA solution is fully operational. Other optional but related costs include consulting services, production tools, and strategic consulting services.
2. RPA Consulting costs: The cost of consulting services depend on whom we choose to hire, and how we will be communicating with them. Generally, that is between $50/h to $500/h depending on the type of firm we have chosen for the same.
3. RPA Production Tools: Often, the cost of RPA tools such as testing tools will either be included in the consulting fee, if we are working with an established RPA firm. Smaller RPA firms may have a flexible plan that gives them an option to own the production tools or pay for their usage only. 
4. Configuration Costs: Depending on the type of RPA solution we choose, there may be additional costs related to infrastructure set-up, the configuration of the BOTs to allow easy monitoring and installation of the RPA in the underlying applications.
5. Line of Business: Once the RPA solution has been installed, there will be costs associated with user testing, validation of its impact in various departments, and in some cases, a change in the management of the automation solution.
6. Training Costs: The cost of training includes capability training, training of the RPA analysts and developers, and enterprise standards and guidelines training. Any other additional training as directed by the Enterprise Technology Architecture and Shared Capabilities (ETASC) executive, will also increase training costs

RPA Maintenance Costs

1. Infrastructure Maintenance: Some vendors will charge for maintaining infrastructure, which is sometimes necessary after OEM system upgrades. For example, if we choose to upgrade our PCs, we may have to pay our vendor to update our RPA solution. There could be additional costs if our RPA has a server component.
2. RPA BOT Services and Maintenance: Since RPA BOTs reside in existing software applications, any upgrade to the software means the bot may require an upgrade as well. If we choose to upgrade our existing software, we will also incur additional development costs. We may also have to pay for incident management if our software upgrades are causing the RPA BOTs to malfunction.
3. Miscellaneous Costs: During the lifetime of the automation solution, there will be additional costs related to improving the solution on various automation levels, and integrating it to other production areas. These costs may include:
• Preventative maintenance to make sure the RPA solution is meeting production standards.
• Logging of the BOT performance to monitor its SLA compliance, and enable reporting and auditing.
• Ongoing training to keep the technical staff updated after upgrades.

RPA Cost – Infrastructure Costs

Infrastructure costs include the cost of licensing, BOT hosting, storage and monitoring. The cost is usually higher if we pay per user or choose a short-term subscription.

1. Software License: A vendor’s pricing-model and mode of deployment (cloud-based or an in-house), is what will determine the cost of the license. Cloud-based deployment may cost less if bundled, while in-house deployment can be cheaper if we choose a long-term commitment. The typical long-term commitment is about 5 years, after which the vendor may no longer offer any support.
2. BOT Hosting: The number of servers or Hosted Virtual Desktops on which the RPA software will reside can be used to determine the cost of automation. The hosting solution will determine whether the automation process will be standard or high-performance.
3. Cost of Disk Storage and Management Console: The BOT monitoring system needs disk space to store any logs and performance messages. Typically, NAS storage is needed for centralized monitoring, and it is managed and provided by the IT infrastructure. The storage cost is an important part of the RPA implementation cost. The RPA vendor usually provides the RPA management console, and it is useful for monitoring work status and BOT health. It is also useful for prioritization, orchestration, and management of automated tasks. 

Challenges in Getting a Fine RPA Pricing

1. Missing Unit of Measure: RPA does not have a standard unit of measurement because BOTs, which are the basic RPA units, are not standardized. A BOT from one vendor is different from a BOT from another vendor. A BOT is not equal to the number of lines of code, Full-Time-Equivalents (FETs), or Talent and Engagement (T&E), which are common input-pricing measures in businesses.
2. Comparison Difficulties: It is hard to compare RPA products from different companies because they have different pricing configurations. Most providers use a derivative of the “number of BOTs” or more recently, output-pricing models. None of those models is a standard yet. Therefore, we still do not have a way to compare apples-to-apples when it comes to RPA pricing.
3. Inflexible Pricing Models: Most RPA products are priced rigidly because neither buyers nor vendors are yet to put a number on automation. That leaves vendors with greater leeway in deciding how much value businesses are drawing from RPA products. While businesses may want to focus on savings made after replacing human labor, RPA vendors have to factor in other automation benefits as well.
4. Software Cost: It can be misleading to consider RPA licensing costs as the only cost of business automation. As we have discussed above, there are other costs such as implementation, training, and administration costs. Often, licensing will cost about 30% at most, during the lifetime of the RPA solution. It is therefore important to correctly factor in such costs to calculate the ROI correctly.

Estimating the Price and Cost of RPA Project

1. Standard Software: Most ready to deploy RPA solutions have been made to automate manual tasks being executed on widely used new-age solutions. These solutions cost much less and take a shorter time to implement.
2. Modified Legacy Software: On the other hand, custom-built software requires bespoke development and high-end scripting to automate. It will, therefore, cost u more to implement RPA in organizations if we are using unique or modified legacy software.
3. RPA Return of Investment (ROI): However, whether we are using standard or modified legacy software, the resulting efficiencies will help us to recoup the cost of RPA implementation. It is typical to recoup RPA investment within 12 months of implementation.
4. Costs Related to RPA Business Transformation: Once we implement RPA, there will be immediate additional costs such as giving redundant workers a severance package. We may also want to retrain and deploy them in other sections of our business. Even without giving redundant employees a severance package, paying them after giving them a dismissal notice is still an additional cost. While those costs may be indirect, they are going to have an impact on the overall cost of implementation.
5. RPA Automation Management Costs: The initial management costs of RPA will be minimal, but they will gradually increase as we deploy more BOTs. Once the RPA automation is spread out in different departments such as accounting, HR, Sales, Engineering, and others, we will need a dedicated person to oversee them. However, the cost of RPA management will still be insignificant compared to executing the automated tasks manually. 

Cost of RPA

The best RPA unit that we can recommend for RPA pricing is BOT time. BOTs do the same work that humans do, but at a much greater speed, and in an error-free manner. The main benefit of using BOTs lies in their ability to work fast and efficiently. If we can quantify that value in BOT time, then it can be easy to compare different vendors after testing their products.  

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