Process Mining: buy or lease
Just because I drink milk, I should buy a cow; this is how I read the push that the RPA (Robotic Process Automation) and PM (Process Mining) companies are doing. These tools are gaining traction and for the right reasons. These are the early days of adoption, and we are grappling for a perspective.
Let us step back and look at the ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) wave. In the early days, BPR (Business Process Re-engineering) was a recommended exercise “to be done” before implementation. BPR came up with many recommendations on people and process change, resulting in extended ERP implementation and some grand failures. BPR was not easy for smaller companies or the frail-hearted. ERP companies stepped in with “faster and easier” implementation methodologies to ease adoption.
The new approach was, understand what we did (as-is), use best practices in reaching an acceptable process (to-be), and implement it into the chosen ERP. Train people, work with partners, communicate the changes to the new way of working. This approach was far more successful and eased the ERP adoption.
The common thread from that story to this note is the business process. Key learning, finalizing business processes is tedious and time-consuming, requires time to rollout and stabilize. So don’t change them on a daily basis. Perform enhancements, not drastic changes, lest the law of the land or the market is driving it. Changes to processes may impact reports and dashboards, that are used to steer the business.
These reports enable monitoring business health but not the health of the business process that lead to these outcomes. It’s essential to monitor the health of the business process, but on a “periodic” basis. Why? To identify bottlenecks, deviations to improve/standardize the processes using automation and/or people training and/or partner discussions. Objective being, having an efficient business process. Process Mining is the tool for such an exercise.
PM tools enable identifying automation opportunities and RPA tools ease implementation and that is monumental. But once done, these tools have done their due. The PM tooling companies realize this, and now also provide execution support (links to robots and scripts for execution), monitoring, and alarms as features. Do I need another dashboard now? A point to ponder, will additional alarms smooth-en my business process? What will help is a causal analysis, but that is a topic for another day.
Interestingly, many a time, process improvement is achieved by retraining people and changing partner behavior. This is not an RPA addressable issue. So how does one get an ROI (Return On Investment) from an RPA or PM tool?
So, do I need to buy process mining tools? Do I need to, daily, check and change processes? If I may voice your thoughts, the answer is a no. We know the cost of process change, actions have a systemic impact and a project-like life cycle. What we need is the capability to understand deviations through periodic assessment(s) and perform the required correction(s). Do I buy a laboratory for a blood test? When all I want is an analysis and an identification of what plagues my business process.
What do you think — buy or lease?
