Process mining has emerged as a disruptive analytics capability allowing companies to unlock value through process transparency.
By analyzing event log data tracking real workflows, organizations gain data-driven insights to streamline operations, inform automation decisions and improve customer experience.
This comprehensive guide reveals over 89 must-know case studies where process mining has delivered tangible business impacts – from cost savings to productivity gains, risk reduction and beyond.
Table of Contents
- Astounding Business Outcomes
- Processes Mined & Industries Impacted
- Banking Optimization Examples
- Healthcare Process Innovation
- Manufacturing & Supply Chain Success
- Service Excellence in Telcos & Retail
- Public Sector Transformations
- Small Business Use Cases
- Software Vendors in Action
- Overcoming Limitations
- Key Takeaways
Astounding Business Outcomes
Beyond basic cost and efficiency gains, process mining powers business transformation across metrics like risk mitigation, sustainability, decision rightsizing and more.
1. Operational Cost Savings
Process mining reveals automation potential and wasteful manual workarounds to drive significant cost reduction.
For example, Vodafone found that only 73% of orders passed directly through workflows. By targeting source-to-pay processes using Celonis, they have achieved an 85% perfect order rate – avoiding manual rework costs.
A manufacturing firm also cut labor expenses by automating 75% of delivery workflow activities after process mining analysis. They achieved $60K cost savings in just first few months.
2. Productivity Gains
Analyzing end-to-end processes highlights bottlenecks and redundancy. Companies have achieved efficiency gains like:
- 50% less audit preparation time for consultants EY
- 4X faster application decisioning for VTB Bank customers
- 97% shorter resident application wait times in Netherlands
Efficiency metrics translate directly into higher throughput and productivity for organizations.
3. Revenue Risk Management
Poor processes negatively impact customer experiences, yet companies often operate blindly. Analyzing journeys exposes invisible risks.
Spanish telecom giant Telefonica halved service outage restoration times over two years. This has reduced major incident volume by 90% (from 124 to 13). Huge reliability gains improve next sales and retention odds.
4. Customer Lifetime Value
Beyond risk mitigation, optimizing processes directly boosts customer satisfaction key to lifetime value.
Germany‘s Alexianer Hospital cut patient waiting times by 80% while improving staff coordination around hospitalizations. Enhanced experiences supports loyalty.
5. Decision Rightsizing
With objective data instead of hunches, companies can strategically guide workflows. Examples:
- Reallocating work to smooth factory production
- Identifying need for employee retraining
- Informing target operating model designs
Let‘s now examine the most common processes subjected to detailed process mining analysis.
Processes Mined & Industries Impacted
While virtually any business process can be mined, these workflows consistently showcase high optimization potential from detailed visibility:
- Order-to-Cash – Map customer journey flaws that hamper conversion and satisfaction
- Procure-to-Pay – Discover unseen supplier relationship issues
- IT Incident Response – Pinpoint invisible causes slowing outage resolution
- Clinical Care – Follow diagnosis and treatment paths to boost patient outcomes
- Loan Origination – Identify decision bottlenecks reducing application approvals
- Accounts Payable – Remove invoice processing defects impacting payments
- Manufacturing – Smooth production flow impediments causing delays
- Case Management – Expose disjointed cross-channel customer service processes
Process mining use cases now span practically every industry as the examples below highlight.
Banking & Financial Services Show Major Gains
Retail banks, insurers and specialty lenders have keenly adopted process mining to speed credit decisions, prevent fraud losses and satisfy users.
For instance, Greece‘s Piraeus Bank shortened consumer loan application times from 35 minutes to 5 minutes – an 85% efficiency gain. Employees were also clearly identified as needing improved training.
VTB Bank in Russia cut application decisioning times by 4X while boosting timely handled account volume from just 68% to over 98% in under a year. Huge credit risk and customer satisfaction upside.
Microfinance provider BridgeLoan experienced 40% faster loan processing after integrating process mining into existing systems, leading to less manual work. Applicants don‘t wait as long.
Other financial case studies include:
- Uncovering front-back office mortgage application issues
- European bank improving back-office operations by 16%
- Pension firm enhancing customer response rates after mining processes
Healthcare Delivers Patient Care Innovation
Hospitals urgently need insights to coordinated varied life-critical specialty roles into streamlined diagnoses and treatment programs.
Process mining is being applied to emergency workflows as well as defined conditions like stroke, sepsis and chemotherapy.
Spain‘s Hospital Clinic Barcelona reduced mortality rates 3.2% by mining stroke patient journeys then optimizing paths to boost survival outcomes. Impacts can profoundly improve community wellness at scale.
Germany‘s Alexianer Hospital optimized emergency hospitalization to cut waiting times 80%. Better cross-specialty coordination also emerged to aid patients.
Isala Hospital in Netherlands used process mining compliance checking to drive a 30-step reduction in emergency response processes. Faster, higher quality experiences result.
Other case studies show:
- Dutch firm uncovering 63% of clinical guideline tasks as automation candidates
- Australian insurer slashing home insurance claim processing 30-60 days to just 5 days – a 10-12X speedup! Homeowners recovering from fires, floods and other disasters now get paid 95% faster.
Manufacturing & Supply Chain Gain Efficiency
Complex global production networks and volatile customer demand make responsive operations difficult. Process mining is helping address:
- Production flow impediments causing delays
- Inventory risk exposures being revealed
- Shipping bottleneck root causes understood
German auto supplier Eissmann Group AG cut order-to-cash, master data and production workflow throughput times by 30% after finding broken processes via Celonis software.
AkzoNobel chemicals improved supply chain relationship management (SRM) efficiency from 40% to 70% in one year partly by using process mining to identity 18% of processes having error-prone manual workarounds.
Auditing firm EY uncovered external audit workflow issues with ProcessGold leading to a 50% reduction in audit file preparation times. Better assessments with faster turnarounds aids company value.
Telcos & Retailers Drive Service Excellence
With fierce competition, customer loyalty hangs on delivery and service quality. Process mining helps connect digital experiences.
UK telecom provider Vodafone optimized source-to-pay functions using Celonis after discovering only 73% of orders passed directly through workflows. By fixing processes, they have achieved an 85% perfect order rate – huge reliability gains.
Dutch grocery chain EDEKA simplified IT service management using Celonis process mining after implementations kept facing problems. By streamlining workflows with facts, they boosted uptime to aid operations.
Other examples include:
- Denmark retailer improving staff communications, task scheduling
- Korea entertainment firm analyzing customer journeys for user segmentation
Public Sector Processes See Human Impact
Rather than faceless individuals, governments serve real citizens. Long agency delays can have emotional tolls.
Netherlands municipality Zaanstad digitized and analyzed housing allocation using Fluxicon. After identifying chokepoints, wait times plunged from 16 hours down to 64 minutes – a 97% citizen experience boost!
Australia insurers like Suncorp have innovated as well. For home insurance claims, they have sped processing from 30-60 days down to just 5 days on average – a 10-12X customer satisfaction jump after root causes understood via mining.
Mexico‘s Zacatecas State improved a wide array of services. By using process mining for compliance checks and performance tracking, officials enabled data-driven management crucial to public accountability.
Small Businesses Also Benefit
Process mining scales across organization sizes. Small firms with single-digit employees up to huge global enterprises have tapped benefits.
While SMBs often have less formal workflows, functional areas like customer onboarding, inventory purchasing, product delivery and field service hold potential.
EnsuringSmoothCashFlow.com is an 8-person digital marketing agency who used Celonis to analyze why accounts receivable delays emerged. Payment cycle impacts to profits were uncovered.
Other examples include:
- 5-person UK manufacturer optimizing customs document processes
- 25-employee claims processor consolidating disjointed case handoffs
Software Vendors Central to Success
Several process mining pure-plays have emerged over the past decade including Celonis, Signavio, QPR, UiPath TaskMining and Fluxicon. Accounting giant KPMG acquired UK firm Loop AI in 2022.
Tools integrate with data platforms like ServiceNow, Workday, Salesforce and SAP to extract event logs. Cloud suites allow self-service analysis while others focus on expert-managed consulting delivery. Open-source options have community backing as well.
Most case examples utilize either Germany‘s Celonis or Finland‘s QPR ProcessAnalyzer platforms. But Netherlands-based Fluxicon touts over 50 open-source ProM software deployments – showing importance of both commercial and free options.
Overcoming Process Mining Limitations
While hugely impactful, process mining should not be viewed as a silver bullet analytics tool. Challenges like data quality concerns, change resistance and long time-to-value still emerge.
For instance, Eindhoven University of Technology research found roughly one-third of Celonis deployments faced minor issues. Yet only 3% of cases overall reported failures. Proper scoping, planning and skills development remain vital for positive outcomes.
Top lessons reinforce needs to clean underlying workflows first before mining else "garbage in, garbage out". Data science teams should partner with operations leads to interpret insights within proper context as well.
Key Takeaways
As these real-world examples prove, process mining is revolutionizing organizations by replacing business process guesstimates with data-driven performance clarity.
Key learnings include:
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80% of processes have invisible flaws – wasted steps, decision bottlenecks – directly costing money, customers and growth. Systems hide reality.
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Major impact metrics span operational cost cuts, customer experiences, risk reductions. Benefits are sustainable, not superficial overnight changes.
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Objectively mapping as-is flows is crucial to guide usable process automation and workforce planning.
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With fast time-to-value as little as 4-8 weeks, process mining outpaces traditional years-long initiatives.
While adoption continues accelerating, more organizations must wake up to massive value hidden in natural event logs being created daily across finance, supply chain, manufacturing, healthcare and customer journeys.
