How RPA Is Driving Retail Industry Transformation?

In recent years, retail has been one of the industries with the highest prominence and growth potential particularly in emerging markets. The companies in the retail business have been utilizing latest technology like Robotic Process Automation (RPA) for retail automation to streamline their operations and acquire a growth momentum to address a variety of challenges. The retail business involves a number of procedures where time consumption and the extent of human error are serious concerns.

When it comes to the operational processes, there is a lot that happens before a final product reaches the retail shelf and is ready for sale. Until a few years ago, retail business chain involves several processes which have been carried out manually from supply chain management to sales analytics. Now retail enterprises are going beyond human skills to handle these operations more precisely and effectively with the advent of cutting-edge technology called RPA.

How RPA brings Value to the Retail Industry?

Retail represents the final stage of a complex supply chain, where additional expenses keep adding at each level. The profit margins of the retailers can be improved by Robotic process automation which can reduce these expenses or optimize the cost of a product in between these transitions. Inventory, supply chain, returns processing, invoicing and contract management, and store planning management are just a few of the operations supported by RPA in the retail industry. The less well-known reality, however, is that RPA also supports a variety of office operations, including hiring, employee selection, payroll, training, health and safety, and compliance. The cash flow management, incentive claims, payables, and receivables processes can also be optimized by the finance department.

RPA Use Cases In The Retail Sector:

Sales Analytics: RPA Bots can assist in the analysis of factors that influence a product's sale, such as the volume of sales in different locations, cultural preferences, gender or age preferences, etc. With help of bot, retailers can decide on business strategies that can boost product sales by giving real-time analytics.

Processing of Returns: Tasks like product returns are added to the various retail processes as a result of the growing use of customer-oriented retail practices, particularly in e-commerce. It might take a long time to manually process returns. Product returns are a cost to the business, and if they are processed manually, the expenses may go up even more. RPA efficiently handles returns and makes the necessary alterations to the inventory database and customer billing.

Processing Invoices: It takes a lot of time and is quite repetitive to process invoices. Accountants are surrounded by heaps of paperwork all the time and waste hours on pointless tasks. As a result, human intervention makes these tasks prone to error. Therefore, to prevent these errors, it is crucial to automate this part of retail. RPA in retail makes data collection, data separation, and bill processing significantly faster and error-free.

ERP Management: Accounting reports for accounts payable and receivable must be produced, thus it's crucial to maintain track of billing, pricing adjustments, staff vacancies, and other similar events. These time-consuming back-office tasks can be automated. RPA significantly reduces human effort and improves inventory management, which leads to faster payment processing, more efficient debt collection, and quicker product shipment.

Management of the supply chain and logistics: Successful retail businesses are built on effective management of the supply chain and logistics. Delivering goods to clients involves a number of procedures, including shipment tracking, inventory control, customer service, and product returns. Automation of procedures and communication enhances coordination between distributors, suppliers, and clients while also reducing the need for manual effort.

The most typical processes that can be automated with RPA for retail are those that are already described above, but there are other additional tasks that can be automated through RPA in an organization to reduce human efforts and mistakes while utilizing their skills in more value added work.

Robotic Process Automation can help retailers automate these complicated tasks and deliver benefits such as:

• Improved efficiency
• Reduced operational costs
• Decreased delivery risks
• Increased customer satisfaction
• Improved compliance
• Better inventory management
• Improved application integration
• Enhanced user support
• Multi-tasking support
• Better auditing

Wrap up!

In order to provide end-to-end robotic process automation services with a high business value effect, ESS handles both functional and technological elements. To know more send us a message here to get connected with our RPA experts.