How RPA helps in the hospitality industry?

Rpa robotic process automation is now used in many spheres. Most often, companies robotic document flow, preparation of reports. It carries out the collection and processing of information, data migration between systems. For example, automatic data transfer reduces manual labor. You do not need to work in two interfaces and transfer data from one system to another.

From experience, hotels primarily automate the processing. They carry out signing, transfer and storage of electronic documents. For this is used external integration systems. Let’s consider typical situations. Here the using the capabilities of the integration system allows you to automate up to 80% of typical business processes. They are related to electronic document flow.

Processes which RPA can handle:

Room reservations

Robotic signing of documents speeds up order processing and reduces the load on the back office. If there are many reservations, it needs to check and sign many documents. Without automation, employees manually unload documents from the accounting system. They have to upload them to the electronic document management operator’s platform. Also they need to check and sign each document separately. It takes a long time and does not exclude mistakes.

The process can be robotized. The integration system, according to a predetermined scenario, will take the document and check the correctness of its structure and the data contained. Then it will sign and send it to the necessary counterparty. It is easy for an employee to control whether a document is signed or rejected. As a result, orders are processed automatically.

Room service requests and billing

Reconciliation of mutual settlements helps to identify debt and agree with counterparties on its repayment. Accounting departments without automation have to carry out reconciliations manually. Even if the company has implemented it, the process is long. ou need to find information on acceptance for each incoming document and compare the document with the completed acceptance. Moreover, manual verification does not eliminate errors.

If a company is engaged in verifying paper documents, it will be possible to automate the process. It’s only after they are converted into electronic form for robotic automation. If a company is already using it, it is wise to use integration systems and buses. The process of automated reconciliation can look like this. The data on incoming deliveries is sent to the integration system. With the help of robotization, it verifies information on receipts, terms of delivery and updates the status of documents. Reconciliations are configured according to various scenarios. You can compare data on goods, quantity, price, empty fields that must be filled in according to the FTS format, etc.

Online booking management

The systems of booking  with rpa in hotel industry do not support strict FTS standards for electronic documents. To transfer tens of thousands of documents from one format to another, you either have to transfer data manually between interfaces. Or you modify the accounting system. And this is a big economic and time cost. Robotic document transformation simplifies the task.

People’s experience working with RPA

A regular need for manufacturers and distributors is the traffic cuts of electronic documents exchanged between counterparties. Based on this data, reports are formed on the amount and intensity of sales, the balances of goods from buyers. Regular data slices help you track the debt of counterparties or suppliers. They ship defective products and make decisions quickly.

The value of introducing robotization is sometimes not obvious to companies that are just starting to implement electronic document management. Or they can partially automate processes. Here are some examples of the robotization effect. In it which companies started small. Only part of the processes were automated. Even this approach reduced errors, staff costs, and improved work efficiency.

Advantages and disadvantages

Typically, top managers fear that IT infrastructure upgrades will be prohibitively expensive with robotic process automation in travel. They also understand that legacy systems typically store historical company data and are deeply integrated into business processes. In this regard, the potential risks of modernization seem unnecessarily high to them. That said, business leaders often forget that legacy infrastructure is not only costly to operate, but also prone to disruption. And besides that, such systems usually do not meet the needs of employees for speed and flexibility of work.

The complexity of the systems resulting from the use of RPA is increasing. And almost uncontrollably. After all, when users are involved, their initiatives are extremely difficult to control. The inclusion of robots in processes leads to a complication of the entire system. The technology must take into account the use of graphical user interfaces. It’s in a way that was not intended to be used. And this raises the requirements for the qualifications of employees. As well as the requirements for the qualifications of IT employees.

Conclusion

The peculiarity of RPA technologies is business ease, focus on individual and local business needs. RPA is easier to focus on business than other IT. They do not require such lengthy and complex coordination with the business. Same happens when automating complex processes, workflows or complex logics of activities. RPA is even called a bottom-up approach. It means that automation does not start with global processes, but with operational tasks.