Celonis’ Process Intelligence Graph strives to drive OneOffice from thought to reality

HFS OneOffice is a mindset that sees enterprises break down silos to align their front, middle, and back offices to create a seamless end-to-end digital environment (see Exhibit 1). Despite process intelligence holding great promise to power OneOffice, the technology is yet to make it a reality for many enterprises.

One of Celonis’ latest innovations, the Process Intelligence (PI) Graph, could change that. Its fresh approach may finally allow organizations to visualize breaking down silos between their front, middle, and back offices.

HFS analysts connected with Celonis’ leadership to learn more about the PI Graph and how they can help enterprises drive OneOffice from thought to reality—unlocking new efficiencies across the organization in the process.

Exhibit 1: The HFS OneOffice highlights the customer experience value benefits of enabling improved employee experience

Source: HFS Research, 2024

Process mining tools such as Celonis reported success in the back office but are yet to dive deep into front-office processes

Traditionally, process intelligence players build a single data model for each business function and develop them from the ground up for each system such as SAP. The processes are then mapped end-to-end using event logs for analysis to generate insights and identify opportunities, introducing new ways to optimize and drive efficiencies. However, this can be time-consuming as it must be done for each new process, client, and system. Also, using event logs may hinder the technology’s ability to generate insights across multiple departments, regions, and systems. This is why Celonis is focused on driving back-office efficiencies for processes such as accounts payable and receivable, inventory management, and procurement–enabling their end-to-end management in a single system.

In contrast, front offices typically have a fragmented technology landscape—the processes span multiple systems. For example, an organization might use ServiceNow in the back office while leveraging other client-side applications in the front office. Also, traditional process intelligence tools can’t follow a process as it flows through all the frequently disparate systems. This is why only 10% of Celonis’ existing clients leverage process intelligence to drive front-office efficiencies. Interestingly, Celonis expects that number to increase exponentially with the release of its new PI Graph.

Celonis PI Graph aspires to enable new efficiencies across the front, middle, and back office

Celonis expects the PI Graph to become the connecting tissue of the front, middle, and back offices—helping enterprises drive a OneOffice mindset across their organization. Its recent pivot to an object-centric process mining model is key to enabling this ability effectively. HFS has discussed this previously here. An object-centric approach means the PI Graph is system-agnostic and can be deployed and scaled quickly across multiple departments, regions, and systems.

Celonis’ PI Graph has two main components:

• Process Data: The core layer that pulls all of an enterprise’s data into a single source through object-centric process mining. The data can then be leveraged to provide end-to-end process insights.
• Process Knowledge: Layered above Process Data, it taps into the client’s internal data as well as external data from multiple sources, including insights from other Celonis’ implementations, to deliver deep insights and accelerate clients’ time-to-value.

In this way, enterprises can analyze processes as they move through the front, middle, and back offices—making their OneOffice dreams a reality. For example, a call center utilizing Salesforce, Siebel, or another customer relationship management (CRM) system in the front office and ServiceNow in the back office can identify an approaching customer renewal date in Salesforce and highlight any unresolved tickets in ServiceNow, enabling quick ticket resolution and improving the likelihood of renewals.

Celonis advises that approximately 80% of new processes should leverage the PI Graph, despite only 10% of clients using the technology for front-office improvements. This highlights the scope for improvement within enterprises and its potential as a growth catalyst for the process intelligence vendor.

Moving forward, Celonis PI Graph could enable faster front-office innovation

Celonis’ PI Graph effectively allows organizations to adopt a new approach to enterprise architecture, creating a process intelligence layer that can easily surface data interwoven disparate processes across the organization. This will accelerate the transformation efforts, eliminating the need to tackle legacy technology estates and complex integration efforts between front and back-office applications, particularly for firms that have already embedded Celonis in their back office.

For example, we all know GenAI is only as effective as the data fed—but preparing a proper data foundation is a task that many enterprises are still battling. In some cases, leveraging Celonis as a process intelligence layer will allow organizations to fuel the model with data from front, middle, and back offices without complex transformation efforts—enabling faster time to value and improved outcomes. Celonis expects this to be a reality over the next three years.

The Bottom Line: Celonis’ PI Graph can be a key ingredient in the OneOffice transformation through better visibility of interconnected processes across the enterprise.

Celonis’ PI Graph shows potential to become a key component of OneOffice—turning it from thought to reality for some enterprises. Its ability to act as a connecting tissue between front, middle, and back offices can be key to driving innovation, new efficiencies, and fresh value across organizations.

The reality is that only 10% of organizations are doing it today, indicating there’s still a long way to go before reaching its full potential. Moreover, by tackling the front office, Celonis will be selling to an entirely new audience—which rarely goes smoothly.

Enterprises should take Celonis’s latest announcement seriously, but they should be prepared for a slightly less polished version of the process intelligence powerhouse.