We are using UiPath in our finance and accounting area but we do see it as a tool that we can use across the whole of the business.
We're really in the early days of what we're doing but even with the first robotized process, what we've seen is that it's given us the opportunity to really assess the process, understand where the waste is so that we could eradicate that, simplify the process and then really engage with the operations people to build a robust, streamlined process. And then the automation of course, has got rid of the mundane transactional work and given the people a much more fulfilling part of the process overall.
We've used a number of automation technologies previous, I mean we are a technology company so we understand automation and we've used a lot of BPMS tools in the past, but this has just given us something that we didn't have, and I think that's the advantage we're seeing from UiPath.
I think it's the relative ease of use. It's really bridging that gap between the human interface with the technology that we're using and giving us an automation advantage that you just couldn't get from any other type of solution.
I think it's a little bit early to say at the moment, I think UiPath are ahead of us in our thinking at the moment, maybe in a year's time we might have areas where we see gaps but at the moment, everything we need I think is there, out of the box.
I think like any tool, like any software technology, you have to follow the recommended framework and use proper coding standards so it's easy to use, but I think to scale up and make it robust in a scaled environment, you have to have rigor, you have to have a solid operating model in place. But we've done that and yeah, I think it's a very stable product.
Before we entered into this, we did some benchmarking and we looked at best practices and we're seeing companies that are scaling significantly using this technology. We believe we can scale to a significant level, and again, the key thing is to put that operating model in the infrastructure in place to give you that solid foundation.
I would say it's excellent to be honest with you, getting our first robot up and running we had some pitfalls as you would expect in the early days, but we picked up the phone, we got hold of UiPath, they sent people both in physical and remote support forms. And it was second to none, it was really effective and we got up and running very quickly as a result.
I think setting up the software is very easy to do. It is really about spending the time up front to think about your operating model and think about how you're going look at the processes, how you're going to simplify them and then how you're going to robotize them. So you could get up and running with a robotized process very quickly, but if you want to do it on scale, you do need to take some time to think about how you're going to scale that.
we did use a partner, I won't name who that was. We worked with them. It was good to have that experience to bring somebody in who'd seen it in other companies and could help to give us that kickstart. We do want to be self-sufficient, we do want to build our own competence but I think everybody needs that boost in the beginning.
I think the first thing is that I always see these things a starting point, it isn't cost, per se, it's really about the improvement to the process, the quality, the service and overall value that you can deliver to the customer. But what's great is that coming out of that, you do get a cost advantage and obviously unattended robots give us a significant cost advantage, but even attended robots, you're seeing very much an ROI which is in the two times plus level.
If we look at ROI, if we look at our first robot, that's the only one we've got fully engaged and in production, it's probably going to give us an ROI in about one, maximum, two months.
It's been very quick to get up and running and it's saved significant amount of time. We're basically only talking about initially one FTE, when we scale it up to the rest, globally it's going to be be three FTEs. Within one to two months, it's going to giving us a return on investment and we've now got a pipeline and a backlog of robotized processes which we expect to be giving us ROI of less than three months.
It is always difficult to say exactly the percentage, but it's certainly got rid of human errors. I think one of the most important things is that we're 100% certain that the processes run right, so we know that day, that time that the processes run correctly, or if not where the errors were.
The thing with human errors, even if they're infrequent, you don't often know until much later on that the error occurred, so it's that certainly of knowing when you've got 100% accuracy and when you've not, you can very quickly rectify that. So I think that's probably the biggest impact we've seen. So far, over 80% of the lead time and process time has been reduced.