From Big Data to Smart Data

Celonis is one of the most successful young companies in Germany. What is the basis for this success?

Bastian Nominacher: Companies today collect large amounts of data, but are increasingly asking themselves how they can use it profitably. Process mining hits exactly this nerve and brings our customers direct added value - because the new technology turns Big Data into Smart Data.

Internal processes can be visualized and thus ultimately organized even more efficiently. Celonis offers customers real-time insight into their own IT-supported business processes, complete transparency for their workflows and directly generates added value.

Customers repeatedly confirm the high ROI of our solution. In many cases, the investment pays off after just six months.

It is easy to understand why: With the transparency that process mining creates, optimization potential that was previously hidden can be lifted directly. In addition, process mining can be rolled out very quickly across different areas of the company.

The rapid implementation and ease of use of the software by the departments contribute their part to a quick return on investment.

One wonders why this hasn't been around for a long time....

Nominacher: At the very beginning, when in 2011 my co-founders Alexander Rinke, Martin Klenk and I reviewed the available analysis methods such as data mining or business intelligence for their "process capability" as part of our studies, we ourselves were somewhat surprised.

We believe the time was simply ripe for process mining - with the founding of Celonis, we filled this gap. Against the backdrop of digitalization, companies are increasingly dependent on IT-supported processes - only these are usually highly complex.

You need automated end-to-end analysis to uncover hidden costs and weaknesses in these processes.

It's probably like many successful solutions: As soon as their potential opens up in daily use, it is difficult to imagine how the processes worked at all before they were introduced.

What role does SAP play in this?

Nominacher: SAP systems are used by many of our customers and contain valuable data for important business processes. Therefore, it was obvious for us to think of SAP first and foremost.

Our process mining technology visualizes and evaluates in real time - we benefit considerably from the performance of the Hana platform. Hana's high-performance data integration methods are also of great importance to us, especially for the development of process mining platforms.

Because of this strategic importance, Celonis was accepted into the SAP Startups Focus program at an early stage. This has given us access to all the tools and valuable resources to build and grow our successful SAP business.

The cooperation was continuously intensified on a technical and sales level - in 2015, we entered into a very successful global reseller partnership with SAP. SAP has since been selling our process mining technology worldwide under the product name SAP Process Mining by Celonis.

Where is the journey heading?

Nominacher: In the further development of Process Mining, we benefit from the close and constructive exchange with our customers. Users and managers at Siemens, ABB, Bayer, RWE, Edeka, KPMG or Vodafone know very well what they need to achieve more efficiency in their processes.

Many of the new features in Celonis Pi - from machine learning to automated recommended actions - are based on feedback and real-world experience from users of our software.

The high degree of innovation of our technology is due to our customers and the highly qualified development team at Celonis. And the potential for process mining in the market is enormous - we have only tapped a small part here.

For Celonis, that means growth.

Apart from research and development, we invest in the expansion of our sales and service infrastructure and in the further development of our technology.

And we're thinking big: our headcount is rising continuously and is set to exceed the thousand mark by 2020. We are also on an expansion course, have two offices in the USA in addition to our headquarters in the Netherlands, and are also considering Asia.