In order to properly scale your workforce, you need dedication, consistency, and oversight. Those are some big-ticket requirements, but a Robotic Operations Center (ROC) can actually help provide this level of care. Like any new system though, you need groundwork. And that’s exactly what we’re covering today with the 7 ways to effectively set up a ROC.

We don’t want to take up any more of your time, you’re probably very busy. For that reason, we’re getting right into it and delivering the info you need immediately.

What is ROC?

Once automation is up and running, a ROC helps ensure that the required ROI is achieved. The primary job of a ROC is to spot issues with automated processes and fix them, ensuring the smooth performance of robotically controlled processes and in turn make further adoption of new robotic processes easier . A successful ROC plays a key role in the continuous improvement of your existing automation. 

A Robotic Operations Center (ROC) is a support and maintenance facility that operates day and night. Automation deployment management is made possible by ROC teams using a variety of tools and programs. With the aid of ROC, automation teams may promote and build broader RPA usage inside their company.

7 Ways to Start your Operations Center Setup

Senior leadership buy-in
It is key that your senior leadership team understand the value and benefits of a Robotic Operations Center (ROC). Only then can you expect to receive the support and resources needed to make it a success. Senior leaders in your business will help you with something you definitely can’t do on your own and that gives the ROC visibility throughout the business to encourage wider buy-in.

Set clear objectives
A ROC needs clear, measurable objectives that align with the organization’s overall business goals – otherwise, it won’t have any direction. These objectives should be specific, achievable, relevant, and time-bound – the classic SMART targets you’ve inevitably run into. Objectives could include improving automation uptime, reducing incident resolution time, or increasing automation ROI.

Choose the right technology
The technology used by the ROC should be able to integrate with the organization’s existing IT infrastructure so that it can scale effectively. It also needs to have features that support automation monitoring, reporting, and alerting, to give your team the best chance of getting the most from it.

Build the right team
While you might be putting bots to work in your automation endeavors, people are still driving the initiative, managing its ongoing work, and assessing its effectiveness. To do that well, you need great people. If you already have some A-listers, motivate them by outlining the project’s potential to them.. If you need more technical experts to get involved, start the process now as hiring in tech can take a lot of time.

Select a framework
The ROC should follow a structured framework for managing automation operations. This could include frameworks such as ITIL, COBIT, or Agile. The framework should, at the very least, provide guidelines for incident management, change management, and problem management. At PAteam we use ITIL and swear by it: based on our own results.

Be data-driven
No longer can you accept someone saying “I’m going with my gut”. The ROC should rely on data to make decisions and improve its performance – not how people feel about things. The team responsible for the ROC needs to make decisions based on the data it gathers and let everyone in the wider business who is impacted by the ROC, know how it is helping the business.

Process your backlog
First, you certainly don’t need a ROC if you don’t have enough processes to manage. That might sound a bit obvious but like any technology, businesses can get excited by buzzwords over actual value. But, if you do have a bunch of processes that need dealing with, your ROC should prioritize the backlog based on their impact on your business goals.

Bring it all together
We’ve barely scratched the surface of what you have to do within this list and it certainly isn’t going to be an overnight effort. But, it is a place to get started. Maybe you already have a brilliant team and a great tech stack, now you know where to focus your efforts next.

Wherever you are in your Operation Center journey, PAteam can help. We work with businesses just like yours to deliver projects just like this.