CeloCoE Champions League EMEA #2: The power of cross-company processes and inspiring value approaches

The second CeloCoE workshop in Munich brought together champions from Bayer, BMW, Bosch, Knauf, MANN+HUMMEL, Telia, Uniper and Zeiss to discuss cross-company processes and value approaches, two topics chosen by the participants.

In March, Celonis launched its Centers of Excellence Champions League (CeloCoE) with more than 40 companies. This select group of companies qualified for the CeloCoE by reaching milestones including value of at least €10 million, more than 10 processes deployed, more than 100 active users and an engaged executive sponsor among other criteria.

At CeloSphere 2022, there will be a dedicated CoE Champions track with expert presentations on both days. Day 2 (November 10th) will host a dedicated Champions Lounge allowing them to meet the experts, share best practices and network. Champions are invited to join for a breakfast starting the day at 9am.

Here’s a deep dive of the two core topics from the second CeloCoE workshop.

1. Cross-company processes: imagine the power of Process Mining if you could see beyond your own company, with insights to your business partners’ processes for joined process execution optimisation. But where to get started? What is the key purpose in inter-company process mining from a practitioner's perspective? Which processes to focus on? During the workshop, every expert presented priorities, with a focus on Purpose, Processes and Challenges:

Transparency crystallized as a key purpose, allowing both participating partners to drive efficiency, optimization and standardization. Transparency can help to identify inefficiencies in cross-company processes and - based on collaborative approaches - be the foundation to establish a win-win value setup. Both partners could achieve cost savings and improve e.g. supply chain resilience and customer centric processes.

Logistics and supply chain turned out to be the core processes the experts would like to focus on first. Cross-company transparency on delivery status could allow e.g. customers to reduce inventory and thus working capital, based on insight of the supplier's delivery process. Removing the current black box on the partners’ status can easily save millions of Euros and help to optimize inventory and material management. Order-to-Cash and Purchase-to-Pay were mentioned as further processes to focus on.

Also see: Why and how to scale Celonis Centers of Excellence (CoE) to grow value | Study: Accelerating Business Transformation with a Process Mining Center of Excellence (CoE)

In respect to challenges, Security and legal topics were considered most relevant. Sharing cross-company data should honor data protection and privacy requirements. But the experts also had a clear understanding, that the right mindset, engagement of the data owner and will to share the data were the key levers to overcome these challenges.

As a result of the workshop, several companies agreed to start joint pilots with real life data.

2. Value approaches: as a second topic, the experts presented and discussed their individual value approaches. Discussions touched on how to measure value, value realization methodologies, the role of the CoE as value accelerator and how to embed a powerful value approach in the respective corporate culture. The participants presented a broad range of push- versus pull-approaches, with some companies leveraging a strong executive sponsor who engages the business process owners and thus initiates a pull effect: as process owners strive to realize value, they pull-in the CoE for support instead of a CoE trying to push value into the business.

After some presentations and passionate discussions, Timo Peters, Bayer Group's Center of Expertise (CoE) lead for Process Mining, was elected by all participants as the winner of the Value Approach Award EMEA 2022.

Larry Dignan

Editor in Chief (former)

Larry Dignan is the former Editor in Chief of Celonis Media. Before joining Celonis, he was Editor in Chief of ZDNet and has covered the technology industry and transformation trends for more than two decades, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine.