By Anne Wright, Lead Process Analytics Advisor
Founded in 2011, Celonis has rapidly emerged as a leader in the process mining software market. But what exactly is process mining, and why has this once-niche technology gained so much momentum in recent years?
In this comprehensive 3,000+ word guide, we’ll explore how Celonis works, demo its capabilities, and reveal why its unique approach to improving business execution has attracted over 2,000 global customers. We’ll also analyze the competitive landscape and where Celonis is headed next.
Whether you’re considering process mining for the first time or looking to enhance existing initiatives, this guide will equip you with deep insight on:
- The origins and exponential growth of Celonis
- Celonis’ complete product portfolio
- How the patented Execution Management System works
- Compelling customer success across industries
- How Celonis stacks up to competitors like UiPath
- Emerging innovations on the Celonis roadmap
So let’s dive in and unlock the transformative potential of next-gen business execution.
From Scrappy Startup to Process Mining Leader
Celonis’ founding story stems from a college project focused on improving processes and has blossomed into a global powerhouse valued at over $11 billion.
Humble Beginnings
As students at the Technical University of Munich in 2011, Alexander Rinke, Martin Klenk, and Bastian Nominacher sought to optimize small business operations for a friend’s pizza shop. They quickly realized manually mapping processes didn’t scale.
Seeking a better approach, they pioneered automated process mining technology to unlock data insights. The result? An on-time delivery rate over 98% for the shop.
Recognizing the immense potential, the trio founded Celonis the same year to commercialize process mining software.
Rapid Global Expansion
In nearly a decade, Celonis has evolved from a scrappy German startup to a global leader. With 16 international offices and over 1,400 employees worldwide, Celonis’ exponential growth mirrors the booming process mining market.
Key milestones include:
- Raised $1 billion in funding by 2021, including investments from renowned firms like Arena Holdings and Ryan Smith
- Achieved coveted ‘decacorn’ status in 2022 with valuation exceeding $10 billion
- Expanded worldwide footprint across North America, South America, Europe, and Asia Pacific
- Developed strategic partnerships with tech giants like Google Cloud, AWS, and Microsoft Azure
- Acquired multiple niche players to absorb complementary IP
- Continues averaging over 100% in annual recurring revenue (ARR) growth
Underpinning this success is a fanatical focus on product-led growth. And central to the platform is the renowned Execution Management System.
Inside Celonis’ Execution Management System
The cloud-native Execution Management System (EMS) serves as the command center for activating process intelligence across organizations.
Unlocking the Power of Process Mining
While concepts like Big Data and AI are now commonplace, process mining remains largely unfamiliar for many.
In simple terms, process mining utilizes data logged by modern IT systems to shine a light on how operational processes truly unfold. Going far beyond old-school flowcharts, process mining reveals bottlenecks, waste, variations, and risks dynamically based on real interactions.
Celonis’ describes its approach as X-ray for business processes – enabling continuous improvement cycles based on facts.
patented Matching Engine
So how does the Celonis EMS analyze processes across complex, disconnected enterprise systems?
The secret lies in Celonis’ patented matching engine. This proprietary technology connects the dots by reconstructing end-to-end processes from vast volumes of fragmented data.
Integrating over 1,200 data connectors, the EMS can extract valuable process context from sources like:
- CRM and ERP suites
- Email and collaboration systems
- Procurement and supply chain networks
- Finance and ecommerce platforms
With machine learning capabilities under the hood, the matching engine builds a digital twin mirroring organization-wide processes so issues can be spotted and addressed faster.
Modular Applications and Accelerators
Built atop the robust process mining core, the Celonis EMS provides turnkey apps for common use cases:
- Supply Chain Management – Map purchasing and fulfillment processes then simulate ideas
- Accounts Payable – Discover invoice processing waste and automate approvals
- IT Service Management – Align tech support processes with incident best practices
- Customer Onboarding – Analyze bottlenecks in client acquisition workflows
With hundreds of out-of-box dashboards, KPIs, and pre-built connectors, the EMS allows both business and IT teams to hit the ground running instead of starting from scratch. Low-code configuration enables adapting the platform to evolving needs.
Let’s see a demo…
Celonis EMS Demo Walkthrough
While numbers showcase Celonis’ business impact, seeing the software in action is far more compelling.
Check out this demo showcasing how the EMS transforms customer support processes for a fictitious bank:
Observe how the agent seamlessly:
- Logs into the ServiceNow portal and pulls up case data
- Opens the integrated Celonis EMS tab to instantly visualize related processes
- Spots delays and variations between regions impacting resolution time
- Drills down to identify the root causes behind backlogs
- Gets guidance on addressing gaps with standard operating procedures
With real-time insights, what once took months of interviews and manual analysis now takes minutes. This enables continually optimizing processes vs periodic projects.
Beyond impressive technology, what matters most is real business impact…
Transforming Global Customer Operations
As the only full-stack process mining solution, the Celonis EMS delivers tangible value across functions and industries.
Let’s explore two compelling use cases:
Supply Chain: Streamlining Logistics for Global Commerce Company
For a customer managing supply chains spanning over 50 countries, inefficient warehouse processes resulted in delayed shipments, excessive overhead, and millions in wasted spend.
Leveraging over a petabyte of EDI log data, the Celonis EMS achieved:
- 8.6% increase in warehouse productivity
- 65K hours saved annually with optimized workflows
- $2.3 million in cost avoidance from process improvements
By identifying redundant work and inventory waste, the company transformed global logistics.
IT Operations: Boosting Service Delivery for Mid-Sized Bank
A regional bank struggled with slow incident resolution in key areas like credit cards and loans, resulting in a 20% customer churn rate. Website issues also impacted business.
With Celonis EMS insights, they realized:
- 360-degree view of 4.2 billion annual transactions
- 57% quicker time-to-resolution across incidents
- 22% increase in rep productivity
Connecting ITSM and web analytics data revealed critical dependencies slowing responses. By addressing these points through training and automation, customer satisfaction improved markedly.
These examples exhibit the widespread value Celonis offers organizations seeking to supercharge operational scalability, agility, and efficiency.
But in an increasingly competitive marketplace, how does Celonis stack up to alternatives?
Evaluating Leading Process Mining Platforms
While process mining remains an emerging field, new entrants have accelerated solution maturity in recent years.
Leading platforms approach the market from different angles based on core competencies:
Celonis
As a pure-play pioneer, Celonis offers the most complete standalone process mining capabilities. With patented technology, Celonis enables end-to-end process intelligence for both IT and business users.
UiPath
With strength in both process mining and RPA, UiPath focuses on discovery as an input to automation. The Celonis partnership expands UiPath’s analytics capacity.
Microsoft Power Platform
An integrated suite spanning Power BI, Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power Virtual Agents – Microsoft bundles process mining for business analysts. The addition of Minit bolsters discovery capabilities.
IBM Sterling
For B2B integration scenarios, Sterling Insights leverages IBM’s data analytics paired with MyInvenio process mining technology acquired in 2021.
SAP
As a longtime ERP leader, SAP offers process intelligence modules that plug into SAP systems using integrated data. Enablement of partners like Celonis extends functionality.
| Vendor | Process Discovery | Conformance Checking | Process Monitoring | Operationalization |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Celonis | Full | Full | Full | Full |
| UiPath | Partial | Limited | Limited | Full |
The above comparison matrix highlights strengths across a sample of leading platforms’ process mining capabilities.
While capabilities naturally overlap, these top vendors each carve out unique positioning to deliver value. The optimal solution depends on your specific process and data environment, team skills, and objectives.
As process mining becomes an imperative for digitization in coming years, Celonis remains at the forefront as both a software category creator and leader.
The Road Ahead for Celonis
Even with rising adoption among Global 2000 companies, process mining holds vast untapped potential as organizations race to digitally transform operations.
Per IDC, the worldwide process analytics software market is estimated to reach $2.9 billion by 2025, growing at a 40% 5-year CAGR.
Celonis will continue marching ahead as both a driver and beneficiary of several key trends:
- Expanding deployment of low-code automation technology
- Surging demand to optimize supply chain resiliency
- Growing IT focus on process excellence over tasks
- Embedding intelligent decisioning within business workflows
Tactically, we expect Celonis to enhance:
- Collaboration across analysts, process experts, and automation engineers
- Operationalization of process insights into sustainable workflows
- Predictive guidance based on process outcome forecasting
The EMS roadmap also calls for expanded industry solutions targeting manufacturing, banking, CPG, healthcare, and the public sector.
As Alexander Rinke, co-founder and co-CEO puts it on what’s next:
“I believe process mining and intelligence will be used in 100% of large enterprises in the next 10 years.”
If current momentum is any indicator, Celonis is certainly poised to make this vision a reality.
Are You Process Mining Ready?
By now, it should be clear that process mining delivers tremendous value via efficiency, growth, and strategic advantage.
But like any enterprise technology, success requires having the right foundations:
- Leadership mandate tying execution to positive processes
- Clean, harmonized event log data capturing systems activity
- Skills to interpret analytics into operational insights
- Platform for continuous improvement beyond one-off analysis
Once these enablers are activated, process mining graduates from theory into quantifiable competitive differentiation.
If exploring how Celonis can accelerate your process optimization journey, request a custom demo tailored to your needs.
And for guidance on finding the optimal process mining software aligned to your technical landscape and use cases connect with our experts.
Now go unlock the power of business processes!
