The breadth of industry verticals that are beginning to understand the benefits of RPA continues to grow. A recent report from Ernst & Young has detailed how colleges and universities can leverage a technology that has grown quickly in other business verticals like banking and healthcare.
While some university systems and individual schools are enormous institutions, they are often marked by a less modern way of operation that results in inefficient processes: a perfect environment for RPA to flourish.
“In an increasingly competitive higher-education environment—driven by flat enrollment in the US, changing student demographics and pressure to innovate on academics and student experience—both public and private higher-education institutions (HEIs) are seeing expenses grow faster than revenue,” the authors of the EY report wrote. “At the same time student and parent expectations for ‘service quality’ continue to rise. These cost pressures and increased service expectations are encouraging HEIs to look to technology solutions for cost savings, efficiency gains and improved service delivery. As in many other sectors, robotic process automation is increasingly being leveraged in higher education.”
The report includes an examination of the processes particular to HEIs that would benefit from an RPA solution, some best practices for them to consider as they evaluate RPA for their particular institution and several case studies looking at the results of early pilots.