Business transformations are brought about by consistently working on and improving inhouse processes. This is possible only when the organizations are well aware of the shortcomings of the existing processes. Only when they know what is happening can they work on the improvement areas.
However, for improving the processes there has to be some measure or technique that can let them get a comprehensive view of the internal operations. Process mining is a technique that works with the records stored in various systems of the organization. The teams may then take this mined data forward for evaluation and improvement.
We walk through this concept of process mining and the advantages it shares, in this post.
Process Mining: An Overview
Businesses aspiring to bring about a transformation or an overhaul are increasingly relying on process mining. Initially, process mining was deployed only for certain specific processes which the businesses doubted for hurdles and bottlenecks.
However, now it is a holistic platform that allows monitoring and execution of the operations extensively. As a result, the process mining sector has been expanding rapidly and is utilized on a wide scale across industries to improve their processes.
The financial industry relies heavily on process mining as there is a lot of raw data that needs to be worked upon. Process mining facilitates the industry with significant details that help them improve customer service and satisfaction. Financial processes like order-to-cash, accounts payable, and purchase-to-pay become easy.
The manufacturing industry has also benefitted from process mining. From reducing waste to identifying bottlenecks, process mining helps manufacturing companies cut down operational costs considerably. Additionally, manufacturing businesses can optimize their resources which in turn enhances productivity across departments with the help of process mining services.
Benefits of Process Mining
As we have seen, process mining utilizes recorded raw data to provide insightful and accurate process sequences. This helps close the gaps in the processes. Let’s look at some of the prime advantages process mining offers:
Informed decisions
When raw data is refined to make actionable insights, this helps the decision-making ability of the organizations. They can view how their processes are functioning end-to-end and figure out if there are any changes or modifications required.
Enhanced Transparency
When businesses get to visualize the actual process flow, there is a sense of increased transparency. This transparency lets them have better visibility into their processes. They can view every stage of the process and see if there are any inefficiencies.
Furthermore, better transparency leads to enhanced responsibility among the team members. The technique of process mining reveals the impact of every team member’s action on the process. Overall, this process encourages the team to perform better and be more productive.
Improve Process Efficiency
With clear visibility into the processes, businesses are more adept at streamlining processes. Additionally, they can eliminate waste which eventually leads to cost savings and paves the way for higher profitability. Unsurprisingly, process mining helps businesses optimize resources for better productivity.
Better Compliance
Process mining, as a technique, lets organizations comply with loads of internal and external regulations. This is due to the fact that process mining unveils all the processes with conciseness and clarity. Teams can thus, know about any deviations from the regulatory regime. Undertaking measures to correct any disruptions or deviations also becomes simple. Process mining acts as a means of providing evidence of compliance. It showcases the ways in which compliance is followed.
Better Customer Experience
Customer experience hugely depends on how streamlined your methods and processes are. Real-time process management makes the services simpler. This greatly benefits customer engagement and experience.
Process mining tools immensely facilitate knowing the issues and planning a control method faster.
Aids Resource Allocation
When all the tasks are known in the business process, allocating resources to these tasks becomes easier. Effective resource allocation not only helps save costs but also improves productivity. Moreover, it proves to be time-efficient. Furthermore, automation tools can help eliminate human involvement and thereby, reduce errors.
Standardize Processes
Complex processes need thorough and standardized ways and techniques. Process mining tools can get into the depth of the and highlight some processes that are not consistent. Thus, leading to standardized processes.
Process Mining Tools
Process mining and process analytics tools are the software or applications that help organizations to extract and analyze their data, and visualize the processes.
Some of the tools that are commonly used across industries are:
Celonis: It is one of the most promising and most utilized process mining software. With a host of features to offer, Celonis is one of the most popular tools. It offers process discovery, conformance checking, and efficiency improvement, among others.
IBM process mining: This is a cloud-based process mining software from the house of IBM. It prioritizes automation and improves processes. It finds a wide acceptance and application across domains such as IT, sales and marketing, finance, supply chain management, and so on.
Process Mining Case Studies
Manufacturing: Production times are an important metric for manufacturers. Process mining is an effective tool to let the manufacturers understand their production times and allocate resources accordingly. They are better able to designate personnel to specific tasks to improve production. Process improvement consulting services are instrumental in shaping things up for the manufacturing industry in the context of process mining.
Case study: Coca-Cola bottling company faced order issues which they were able to fix with RPA with Microsoft Power Automate. Through the use of RPA, the company could accomplish better standards of order fulfillment.
Healthcare: Time taken for treatment is crucial in the healthcare industry. The industry strives to reduce the time taken for each patient so that medical professionals can cater to more patients. Process mining makes this possible. Business process reengineering consultants with expertise ably guide and support businesses to make things possible and help businesses grow.
Software Development: Developing software is a lengthy process and requires meticulous planning and strategizing. For such a detailed process, the software developers need to visualize their operations and actions in a clear format.
Process mining simplifies things for IT professionals by providing them with a clear format of insights. This helps them know if there are any hurdles or obstacles that they are facing in their development process. They can also treat any bottlenecks that obstruct the development.
In other words, process mining provides a way to audit the operations. This allows them to compare their as-is and to-be designs.
IT communications: From public works companies to IT and communications, process mining has become a thriving technology that implements improvements. It can streamline invoice processes for clients and ease work for the internal staff to focus on more productive activities. Consulting with a business process consulting firm can let businesses in this industry obtain a direction to fruitfully deploy process mining tools.
Case study: By enabling access for all its employees, Vodafone streamlined its operations in with Microsoft Power Platform. This led to the employees having over 1,000 solutions for automating a lot of routine and tedious tasks.
E-commerce: This is one area of business that has been one of the fastest expanding. Therefore, the need to introduce technology and new-age applications becomes imminent in E-commerce. From marketing to understanding the voice of the customer, process mining places itself as a significant tool.
Here are some areas where process mining can be extremely beneficial:
- Know about customer purchasing pattern
- Learn about their persona
- Find new strategies for maximizing ROI from the insights shared by process mining tools
When all the processes in a firm operate optimally, businesses are better aligned with the newer technologies without affecting their ROI and profits. Furthermore, they can use the new advancements to encourage innovations and improve customer services and relationships. In such scenarios where businesses may need help with process mining, business process management consulting firms can pitch in to guide.
About BPX
We’re a process consulting & BPM company with 12+ years of experience, serving 500+ clients in 12 countries across 21 industries. We specialize in process mining and process automation (utilizing top-tier IT Solutions like: SAP, Signavio, Celonis, and other process digitization tools). Embark on a journey of transformation with us.
FAQs
Author Bio
Nikhil Agarwal
Chief Growth Officer
Nikhil is a calm and composed individual who has a master’s degree in international business and finance from the United Kingdom. Nikhil Agarwal has worked with 300+ companies from various sectors, since 2012, to custom-build SOPs and achieve operational excellence. Nikhil & his team have remarkable success stories of helping companies scale 10X with business process standardization.