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Process excellence: Three things that drive process mining success and innovation
The latest advances in process mining and execution management technology were on full display at Celosphere 2022, the annual Celonis user conference. And during the event, Acceleration Economy and Cloud Wars analysts Kieron Allen and Tom Smith heard from multiple industry leaders, process excellence experts and Celonis executives about how they are driving innovation and success in process mining and execution management. The pair sat down on the final day of the show to share those insights.
The following is a transcript of the interview, edited for readability.
1. Visual demonstrations key for executive and business user buy-in
Tom Smith: Kieron's going to review some highlights from a champion session that he attended with tips from Timo Peters, of Bayer, who I also had the pleasure of meeting earlier today myself, but Timo was really focused on ways to ensure success in process mining project, so maybe you could share a few of those.
Kieron Allen: Absolutely. So Timo really set out a step-by-step guide to ensuring success with process mining. And I'm not going to go through that step-by-step guide because I really want to give a rounded approach as to what he really covered. So there were 10 tips in total, but there were various stages to these, and I think you can apply some of the techniques that Timo discussed to any new technology you're onboarding.
And he started by talking about making it visual. You had to show, not just the executives in your company, but the people that might benefit from it, what the use cases are and how it's going to benefit them. And the best way to do this, it seems obvious, but through demonstration. He was talking about having in-depth demonstrations and then during those demonstrations, finding out what the business cases are, finding out what the use cases are, and then finding a champion. So ultimately, someone in however many teams you want to onboard the technology into, that's really going to take that technology and run with it.
READ: Celosphere 2022: Bayer’s Timo Peters shares CoE blueprint
2. Don’t forget about data governance
Tom Smith: The whole notion of buy-in, getting buy-in from executives, other stakeholders and so on.
Kieron Allen: Absolutely. And we talk about executive buy-in, executive sponsorship, but he was also talking in a more rounded way about, you still need your users to be there at the start because you need to develop your business case and you need to develop the use case. And then from there, he discussed how strong governance was really needed. If this initiative is going to succeed, you need governance. You can't just have anyone let loose on data. You have to have some kind of structure in place that enables this technology to integrate naturally and perfectly with your existing technology stack.
3. Collaboration key to process mining innovation and adoption
Tom Smith: Okay. Great insights from Timo. I'm glad you got to attend that. He's very, as I think, probably came across, he's been recognized by his peers for his work in this area. He's worked at Bayer. He previously worked at Nokia and built a center of excellence there. So he brings a lot of experience and knowledge to bear. And I guess I'll share maybe one additional highlight of my own from the last day or so. I've been thinking a lot about, and talking a lot in one-on-one interviews and with you and other colleagues here, about what I've seen as a pretty significant development around co-creating technology with customers.
READ: Celosphere 2022 notebook: Process wisdom from Celonis customers
In a previous video, I referenced how Celonis partnered with three customers around sustainability. And it seems to me, no better way to ensure sustainability technology, addresses a real world need, than bringing customers in on the process. And separately today, I had an opportunity to sit down with Co-CEO Alex Rinke, talked about customer involvement. And he made the observation, I don't have the exact quote, but it was essentially, we do not build products in a lab and then turn them over to customers. We get customers involved early on so we can ensure we're tapping both their knowledge and understanding their need. And I think you can see that that mindset really infuses a lot of the way this company operates from a product development perspective.
Kieron Allen: Which is a really valid point, and I think it ties into that idea of, I think we're seeing more and more collaborative tools. We're seeing technologies that make it really easy for you to collaborate with your peers. So it's an obvious jump that a technology company is going to want to partner with their customers to increase that collaboration. Because we all know the technologies that we need, not necessarily how they're going to work.
READ: 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)
Tom Smith: Exactly. And there was another really interesting development on this front today, that is a customer named ERGO, which is an insurance company here in the Munich area, customer of Celonis for a couple of years. So they've developed a lot of expertise with the technology, have a variety of use cases. Well, we met with their chief digital officer and it turns out that that company is now working with Celonis to embed its expertise and some of its technology specific to the insurance industry into the Celonis execution management system. So a bidirectional flow of expertise there, but really working with the best and the brightest and in this case, taking an industry specific perspective from a customer. So I thought that was a really great development, really encouraging to hear that, and that was a big takeaway for me from today.
So Kieron, thanks for all the time. Thanks for being here and for all the insights you've shared. We've really enjoyed being here in Munich for Celosphere, so thanks for joining us today for this wrap up from Celosphere.
More from Celosphere 2022
Celosphere 2022: Everything you need to know news, product, process mining best practices
Celosphere 2022: Celonis brings perspective to process mining
A Closer Look: Celonis' acquisition of Sailfin, Intelligent Accounts Receivable apps
Celonis announces next-generation MRI process mining technology with Process Sphere™
Celosphere 2022: You’re going to see groundbreaking progress on process mining technology
Editor’s note: This video was originally published on Acceleration Economy, How Celosphere 2022 Buyers Ensure Success in Process Mining Projects.
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