Budapest, June 22, 2022 - The first software robot implemented at Egis Pharmaceuticals has been working for almost two years now, and today a total of four robots help the employees, working in the economic and administrative fields of the company and perform a total of eighteen tasks. Although the timing meant a special difficulty - the beginning of the development coincided with the outbreak of the covid pandemic in Hungary - the results so far are promising: the costs of the implemented improvements paid for themselves within a year.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has lived up to expectations and is counted upon at Egis Pharmaceuticals. The company launched its first software robots nearly two years ago to help those working in the business fields: aggregating financial data from subsidiaries monthly and downloading bank statements before the working day to keep up-to-date financial data in SAP. Today, four software robots support a total of eighteen tasks at the company. As a result of the developments, now robots prepare the contracts of employment and the related attachments of almost three hundred new employees each year at the company.

How long it takes to implement a process from the original idea of automation depends on the complexity of the task. Egis had a software robot launch that took a month to complete, but there were also examples of implementations taking half a year or more. Using RPA can relieve employees from having to perform monotonous, repetitive, simple processes, allowing them to engage in other, higher value-added tasks.

Egis expects a software robot to pay for the investment in up to two years, but experience to date has shown much faster results: completed robots usually have a ROI in less than a year. According to a survey of impacted employees, 85 percent of those surveyed considered that the planned time saving goal has been fully achieved, and the average willingness to recommend RPA on a ten-point scale was 9.5.

“For now, we typically use software robots for well-defined, simple tasks, but we’re constantly looking for ways to expand their range of operation and ways to entrust them with shorter processes. We see a good opportunity to deploy robots even if a more massive interface development needs to be temporarily replaced. This is the case, for example, in the field of market research, where you typically have to work with subscription databases that the software robot can access in the same way as a human employee with the right IDs, so instead a machine can review and process a lot of information. After the “classic” administrative areas, in the near future we will search for opportunities to further expand the range of areas supported by robots: in the fields of manufacturing and pharmaceutical registration, ”said László Pintér, process management consultant at Egis and head of the company's RPA program.

“One of the biggest challenges during the implementation was that we started the actual development during the COVID pandemic, when it was no longer possible to have face-to-face meetings, so we could only communicate on digital platforms. In addition to building the first robots, we also supported Egis in the efficient design of the internal processes, organization, framework, and governance related to automation, helping them to achieve the best possible results with RPA projects. We encountered a very high degree of flexibility and helpfulness on the part of Egis employees, which facilitated the introduction of the software robots,” summed up István Takács, senior consultant and partner of BCA Hungary Kft., supporting the pharmaceutical company in the RPA project.

According to an analysis by IDC – commissioned by UIPath –, software robots could already take over the monotonous, repetitive tasks of more than 350 million workers worldwide, mostly in the administrative fields, that could enable them to carry out higher value-added activities. In addition, according to a study by the research company, nearly 200 million of them work for companies that already have the technological conditions to implement such solutions. In comparison, however, IDC estimates that only 14 million currently work in jobs where a software robot also helps with the tasks.