Why data literacy is critical for process mining

Tanu Mukherjee, senior director, global process excellence at PepsiCo, shares her experience of process miningand discusses what the future holds ahead of her session at PEX Live: Process Mining 2022, which will discuss what has been achieved in process mining in recent years. In this exclusive interview, Mukherjee offers her top advice for organizations looking to optimize processes through process mining.

PEX Network: What can you tell us about your experience with transforming business processes through process mining?

Tanu Mukherjee: The technology to support process mining has been evolving over the last four-to-five years at a rapid pace, driven by robotic process automation (RPA) and the adoption of cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions.

Process mining is gaining relevance as a process diagnostics and performance analytics tool due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the fact that it will be some time before businesses can bring people back into offices for in-person brainstorming sessions to deliver process improvements.

Process mining dispels myths using in-depth data captured through time stamps on activities almost in real time, in a manner no small-to-medium enterprise (SME) can. This is an invaluable tool for process reengineering practitioners.

I have seen several examples where process mining has delivered data-based insights to help executives and decision-makers drive change with much higher conviction and significantly better outcomes. More recently, the applicability of process mining has extended beyond finance and accounting, hire to retire and even supply chain operations.

Coupled with task mining, it enables every business user to add value by democratizing process discovery and process analytics capabilities. I am truly excited about what the future has in store for all of us.

PEX Network: As you are participating in a panel on what has been achieved in process mining, in your eyes, what has been the most critical development in process mining in recent years?

TM: The integration of process mining with market-leading applications and ERP systems, automation of processes driven by RPA and our journey to the cloud. All of these have significantly improved data quality, enabling process mining due to the presence of accurate event logs.

This has also accelerated over the past two years with an increasing number of organizations and industries embracing digital transformation. Added to these advancements is the growing realization that all businesses are digital-first and technology-driven, so all talent is gravitating toward increasing its technology quotient.

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PEX Network: What is your top advice for organizations looking to optimize business processes through process mining?

TM: No one can afford to be data- or technology-illiterate any longer. Gone are the days of whiteboarding process maps. All of us have to understand our processes in real time with data that flows through the applications we use and learn to leverage process mining insights in our day-to-day operations.

In my opinion, process mining has to be a tool every team manager understands and is able to use to make business decisions.

PEX Network: What key developments do you see taking place in the process mining space over the next couple of years?

TM: I see this space growing exponentially over the next two-to-three years. Market estimates predict a 50 percent increase in CAGR to reach about US$1.5bn by 2023. Organizations are in various stages of adoption right now but I believe this capability will enable customer journey mapping, prescriptive analytics and process enhancement, including automation at phenomenal pace.

I see hundreds and thousands of business users becoming super users in this space, across both IT-enabled services and product-based organizations.

To hear Mukherjee discuss what has been achieved in process mining in more detail, register for PEX Live: Process Mining 2022.