Part 1: Process Mining
How does your organisation perform fundamental operational finance processes such as Procure-to-Pay, Order-to-Cash etc.? Do you want to uncover insights on organisational goals such as cost, efficiency, working capital metrics? Are you able to accurately and consistently know how these processes are run, and obtaining the best information on the best optimisation action?
In part 1 of this post, we look into how 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 aims to help finance departments tackle some of the biggest pain points by identifying and removing operational friction. It provides visibility into how your operational processes look like, not what people guess they look like or what the standard operating procedure documents states.
Here are some of the goals and challenges faced by most Finance departments, which can be managed with process mining:
𝐆𝐨𝐚𝐥: Optimising Working Capital
𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐬:
▪︎ Paying too early
▪︎ Getting paid too late
▪︎ Optimising payment terms
𝐆𝐨𝐚𝐥: Increasing productivity
𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐬:
▪︎ Manual changes
▪︎ Invoice & order rework
▪︎ Low automation rates
𝐆𝐨𝐚𝐥: Managing Risk & Compliance
𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐬:
▪︎ Maverick buying
▪︎ Segregation of duties violations
▪︎ Limited visibility & growing complexity
Part 2: Task Mining
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐓𝐚𝐬𝐤 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 & 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 – 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐢𝐞𝐬
While Process Mining is a powerful tool for gaining insight into enterprise level processes, Task Mining operates at a desktop level to discover and analyse the tasks that users perform in between taking part in enterprise level processes. This is achieved via the installation of a local agent on each desktop which records user interactions (keystrokes, mouse clicks, etc) and combines this with context recognition to understand how tasks are executed and the variations that exist across teams.
Process Mining focuses on the end-to-end process to identify steps where a company is losing time and resources, Task Mining focuses on those particular steps (eg. filling in the PO, checking the amounts are correct, matching receipts to invoices etc), and reconstructs how work is really getting done by connecting employee interaction data with your application portfolio, so you understand the root causes of those inefficiencies.
𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐡𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐬 𝐭𝐨:
◉ Have a factual end-to-end view of what is done in the field in order to base decisions on actual operations: The discovery and analysis phases of what is done in the field allows for a better understanding of the performance of the execution in the company
◉ Measure the efficiency of the flows and the productivity of the operators in the company. This allows for better allocation of the resources and the ability to identify the possible gaps of these two components
◉ Objectively identify the various possible areas of optimization and therefore conduct Robotic Process Automation (RPA) or automation projects with an immediate and measurable ROI
