- If you've read a newspaper, a magazine,
or a book recently,
it's hard to miss that robots
seem to be popping up everywhere.
You see robots playing in our personal lives
in the form of anything from virtual assistants to vacuums
and you see an explosion of references to robots
in our professional lives.
This course will focus on a particular type of robot
that's getting a ton of coverage.
I'm referring to Robotic Process Automation
or RPA for short.
We'll go into a more detailed definition soon,
but at the highest level,
RPA is software-based robotics
that emulates work that people do.
It's also important to clarify
that it is not the same as physical, shiny, metal robots.
You'd be surprised how often I'm asked this.
While the concept of RPA
and its underlying technologies are not new,
the application in today's business environment
is relatively new and it's extremely exciting
to see how it's encouraging enterprises around the world
to assess, transform, and digitize what they're doing.
Hi, my name's Ian Barkin.
I'm co-founder and chief strategy officer
of Symphony Ventures,
a firm that enterprises apply RPA and AI
to their front, middle, and back office functions
to digitize operations.
From my experience,
one of the most important things a company can do
at any stage of their RPA adoption journey
is to educate the key stakeholders.
Creating a shared baseline of understanding is imperative.
We've designed this course specifically
to help any organization achieve this sort of alignment.
And with that in mind,
this course serves as a primer
for enterprises and individuals.
It's our hope that you'll share this widely
amongst your transformation teams before you get started
and revisit it often as you go.
I guarantee that the investment in time
will be well worth it.
In this course,
I'll be speaking to a broad set of stakeholders
including executives, operational leadership,
delivery, IT, and other teams that find themselves involved
in your RPA initiatives including information security,
human resources, risk offices and more.
We'll go into detail on many topics
including the definition and benefits of RPA,
what makes for a well-designed
enterprise-grade RPA solution,
and the important strategic elements
the business must consider when adopting RPA.
We'll also explore lessons learned and best practices
that I've gathered over the years
helping enterprises succeed at digital transformation.
I'll provide examples from global companies implementing RPA
across numerous industries and business functions.
Thank you for joining me.
I hope you'll take away from this course
a set of unique perspectives, tips, and skills
that you can apply in your next RPA project and beyond.