UNDERSTANDING THE OPERATIONAL OUTCOMES OFADOPTING ROBOTIC PROCESS AUTOMATION SYSTEMS INAUDIT SECTOR

Abstract

 Robotic process automation (RPA) has been widely adopted in many
industries as a tool, which does repetitive actions in rule-based business
processes. Audit companies around the world are always on the way to making
processes more efficient with help of automation and RPA is not an exception.
However, there are always two sides of the coin, and there are both benefits and
limitations of using RPA. Using RPA may be not efficient in some
circumstances, so it is important to understand in what cases using RPA will
bring more advantages than disadvantages. The main purpose of this study is to
understand the conditions under which adopting the Robotic Process
Automation Systems will influence the operational efficiency in the audit firms
in Kazakhstan. Because the main purpose of the study is to understand the
challenges and opportunities of applying RPA, a qualitative approach has been
selected. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with five
specialists in the audit sector. After transcribing the interview conversations, a
thematic analysis method resulted in 47 open-codes. In the analysis part was
discussed some tendencies, opportunities, and barriers of effective
implementation of RPA.