Robotic Process Automation and Enterprise Systems: Toward Cost Efficiency

ABSTRACT This study uses analytical modeling to compare the total costs of robotic process automation (RPA) and enterprise systems in business process automation and system integration. Specifically, the total costs of implementing and operating RPA and enterprise systems are compared with the total costs of manual processing. The results show that the optimal solution is determined by the transaction volume and business process complexity. Under different scenarios, the optimal solution can be RPA, enterprise systems, or manual processing. We also use numeric examples to demonstrate the findings of analytical modeling. This study contributes to the literature and the accounting practice by presenting optimal solutions for business process automation and system integration under different transaction volume and business process complexity scenarios.