Our main use cases for Celonis cover finance use cases and analyzing comparable performance.
Celonis provides business process analysis and technical consulting for deployment.
The process mapping is most valuable to us. It shows the sections of the different timestamps and the statistical information on the timestamps' waiting time. So that feature helps us give feedback to businesses and identify the final root cause.
They could provide artificial intelligence where, based on data they collect from reference cases, they could give us suggestions. For example, we see a long delay between steps, and based on the context, they could provide more suggestions on where the problem could be, and that would provide a very different value proposition for the solution. Likewise, if you can't define something as account receivable or account payable, Celonis could ask a lot of questions to fix the context to provide the right recommendation. It would be relatively easy.
It has been three years since we started using Celonis, and we are using the SaaS version.
I rate the solution's stability an eight out of ten because we have not seen performance issues so far.
I rate the solution's scalability a ten out of ten, it is very scalable. We have 200 end users using Celonis globally. Developers have multiple use cases.
Their consultants are quite knowledgeable.
We have used UiPath, they also have a process analysis tool. We did a POC and saw that it's lighter and easier to adapt, but the functionality was limited. That's why we don't use it anymore.
As a German software, Celonis' initial setup is difficult, so I rate the initial setup a five out of ten. Celonis has a learning curve. It's not very easy-to-handle software. It takes one month to negotiate and deploy the solution.
When deploying the solution, not counting the data of the consulting engagement, we have the environment discussion and the setup of the AWS environment their consultants put into the system. Then we do the rough testing, run some simple cases through the system, verify, and then go ahead. After that, we announce we can provide services to external customers. Overall, those are the general steps standard for any IT application. One or two people are enough for deployment. The solution is not a big one.
I rate Celonis' pricing a ten out of ten because it is expensive.
Celonis is now becoming the corporate standard solution. That's why we have been talking to the team at the global COE to get support for any future requirements. There's no extended collaboration with external companies anymore.
Celonis has identified the product's limitation, which is that it tells me where the problem is, but it cannot fix the problem. The tool only gives the proposal to fix it. Celonis is aware of the problem and provides transparency, and they are looking for solutions and options for businesses, but that is not in its scope. For example, when you go to a hospital and use an X-ray machine to understand what's happening, you won't expect the machine to fix your problem. You still have to get a doctor to do the operation and fix the problem. Celonis uses some of its features to solve problems, but not so successfully in all areas. Businesses are dynamic, and we are aware of our problems, and more transparency is great, but fixing that problem is much more valuable to us.
We are not considering increasing the usage at this stage because the business has just completed the first wave of deployment. Also, the license is not cheap.
Two things to keep in mind before choosing Celonis: do not think the solution can be easily adopted just because it is valuable for others. The system relies highly on the availability of data. Your company or business environment should provide the data that can fit the solution, especially since the timestamps available show the value. The second thing is that though process mining is valuable, double-check with businesses as to what they do to follow the transparency to convert the investment into business value. I rate Celonis an eight out of ten.
