There are many businesses that engage third party providers to deliver part of an overall service to customers. Acting as a reseller can deliver significant benefit to customers but it does give some challenges when it comes to cost allocation processes. Some examples of this type of activity are:

• Telecoms service resellers receive invoices from telecoms companies that need to allocate costs to their customers
• Digital Agencies receive invoices from hosting companies for web traffic that need to be charged onto their customers
• Fulfilment Service providers receive invoices from courier delivery organisations that need to be divided across their customers

There is so much hype about AI at present. The terms AI for Artificial Intelligence and ML for Machine Learning are getting used in many conversations to add market currency but the reality is often very different.

For many business implementations AI with or without ML is only going to be effective if combined with RPA.

In general terms AI is about applying some “Fuzzy Logic” as mathematicians call it to large quantities of data in order to develop a level of confidence about “Pattern matching”. This is sometimes  termed “ANI” – Artificial Narrow Intelligence. The logic only works on the problem defined using the data set provided for the “Training” / “Base line set”. The hype often portrays AI as being “AGI” – Artificial General Intelligence, that is intelligence which can be applied to anything. The technology is just not there ….Yet!

Investing in software robots to automate a business process delivers a good Return On Investment (ROI). Ether Solutions has a calculator that can help with the initial estimates.

When undertaking any investment there is always an element of risk on predicting the costs accurately. By using industry leading UiPath software many risks are reduced as the technology has been proven at over 5,000 companies. By engaging Ether Solutions consultants, risks are reduced by leveraging their experience when delivering your particular solution.

Ether Solutions has been discussing with TBAT Innovation the use of R&D Tax Credits to further reduce the financial risks.

Is Christmas or Q4 a challenging time of year for the workload on your team in the office?

Psychologists Leiter, Schaufeli and Maslach (2001) identified an unmanageable workload as one of the primary contributors to employee burnout. It leads to health problems and impaired performance – and can become chronic. Employees are most at risk when they have too much work and a negative or cynical mindset towards it.

With the current focus on mental health, it is generally agreed that excessive workload causes stress and potentially depression.

Trying to address workload increases but with typical budget constraints, can feel like trying to “Square the Circle”.

So what are the options?

So how much does a software robot actually cost?

There is no simple answer as it depends on a number of factors, such as the number of robots, the amount of infrastructure deployed to enable their operation.

With robots capable of working 24 x 7, they deliver a large amount of capacity which then raises the question about utilisation. If the robots were only used 8 hours a day while staff are working the costs are the same but the utilisation is very different.

In developing Ether Solutions’ Return On Investment (ROI) calculator for RPA implementations, we considered many scenarios. Looking at the spread of results, the effective costs of the software robot are typically in the range £1 to £4 per hour.