Celonis is proving to be a very effective tool, which the company has decided to adopt at the corporate level on different business functions, not only as a process analysis tool but as an effective toolbox of integrated features, such as automation and AI, to improve the daily activities of users and improve some peculiarities of processes that are difficult to address with different tools
Pros
Discovery of inefficiencies in the process
Harmonization of procedures
Effective visibility into processes
Cons
Integrate data segregation not only at the dashboard level but at the level of specific values contained in the data
Managing N:M relationships in the data model, even with OCPM it is difficult when building dashboards to integrate information contained in objects that are “distant” in perspective
Also provide for customers some useful documentation that is instead made exclusive only to partners
Likelihood to Recommend
Celonis is the perfect tool when you are analyzing and trying to improve a process. Certainly at the dashboard level it has less functionality than other tools that are created exclusively for this
VU
Verified User
Technician in Information Technology (Construction company, 10,001+ employees)
O2C/AR/P2P/AP processes are adressed Goals: Detect unefficiencies / Create report / warning message / Action flow & Action engine used
Pros
End to End process analysis
Ease of use
Task automation
Improvement checker
detect inefficiencies
Cons
E-learning seems to be less easy to use than 1 year ago
More documentation and example on PQL langage would be an improvement
Likelihood to Recommend
Good: Detecting a problem in a process and sending an alert message to remedy it. Comparison with a perfect process model & detection of violations. Easy to create tables, reports, and analyses. Easy to create RPA & any message to help users in their daily tasks
We use Celonis for process mining on core SAP transactional processes e.g. O2C, AR, AP. We use it to evaluate opportunities and understand what needs changing to realize the value. We use the Celonis action engine to help realize value when appropriate.
Pros
Quick, real time transparency of data
Data presented in a meaningful way
Smart action suggestions
Cons
Better support and infrastructure
Likelihood to Recommend
Celonis can do many things so it's important to be clear how and for what purpose you will use it that's relevant for your business and where it's at.
VU
Verified User
Manager in Corporate (Building Materials company, 5001-10,000 employees)
We use Celonis to support continuous improvement in the order-to-cash process. We have a huge variety of processes in this area. Celonis helps us to identify weak points and optimization potentials. Also, measures the optimization we can realize in collaboration with our key users from business and IT.
Pros
X-Ray on processes.
Provide KPIs.
Nice and fast loading dashboards.
Apps out of the box.
Optimization with action flows and robotics.
Cons
Integrate business warehouse analytics from SAP BW.
Integrate COPA reporting criteria's into Celonis Dashboards.
Separate tables to maintain own grouping criteria.
Likelihood to Recommend
Good:
Manual changes in the order flow.
Process analytics incl. waiting and throughput times.
Process consulting on optimization potentials.
Comparison of as-is processes to given process model (BPMN).
Less:
Turnovers, based on customer hierarchies.
A combination of sales (SD) and purchase (MM) documents: replenishment and replenishment cross-company.
We use Celonis in our GPO organizations F2C (AP/AR), P2P, and O2C and aim at a rollout to all regions and countries for all processes. We currently focus on performance KPIs.
Pros
Excellent adaption support by Celonis.
Powerful new features (such as action flows (RPA), realtime extraction / transformation).
Unique insights in business processes - Digital twin of a company.
Cons
Celonis Service Desk time to connect to the specialist in case of technical issues.
Speed of new developments is quite high - Celonis customers might lag behind or there is a slight risk to skip important steps, implement new features even faster, and thus lose focus on [their] own learning curve.
Likelihood to Recommend
Strong in optimization of key processes in a company. There may not be a use case or an added value for all departments in a company.
Currently, Celonis is used for 3 processes. We use Celonis for AP, PtP, and OtC. The main focus is to improve the overall process. We try to identify undesired manual work and try to identify automation potential. Additionally, we check if we are using all our cash discounts or if we are paying too late.
Pros
Transparency in our as-is processes.
Data-based objective results.
Supports digital transformation initiatives.
Cons
More documentation for PQL.
Low-code/no-code development.
Likelihood to Recommend
I can only comment on the ERP scenarios. Celonis is perfect for analyzing the business processes in SAP. Of course, it is necessary to have digital footprints. If ERP users are working offline, Celonis will not be able to help. If you are using an addon to your ERP it makes sense to add these to the Celonis data model.
VU
Verified User
Manager in Finance and Accounting (Building Materials company, 10,001+ employees)
In Finance we heavily use it to optimize our AP processes. We have developed unique dashboards to account for our Knauf-specific processes. Celonis especially helps to uncover hidden potentials in the processing of incoming invoices. We use a tool from FIS together with OCR software to automatically read all the data from the invoice and get rid of the manual work. In a best-case scenario, the invoice would be directly posted because the read parameters match with the approved parameters in SAP. Celonis helps to filter for companies who have low OCR automation rates and help those colleagues to improve their work. Apart from that Controlling also heavily relies on Celonis on a daily basis.
Pros
Display processes in a clear way.
Easy filtering.
Helps with automation.
Cons
More intuitive interface.
Interface could be more 'playful.'
Better training courses.
Likelihood to Recommend
Celonis works best if the company has at least the same ERP system across most of its subsidiaries. For my last employer, Celonis wouldn't have worked because the ERP landscape was incredibly heterogeneous. They had some systems running from the early 2000s. For this kind of company, it would be hard to extract value from using Celonis because the data quality simply isn't there.
