Learn from the SaaS choices of OneOffice™ leaders: Part six—process intelligence

The Situation: Enterprises valuing OneOffice™ outcomes are most likely to create business value through their software choices. They want their SaaS (software as a service) to deliver improved customer and employee experience, and they want to see how it makes outsourcing business processes easier. As part of our SaaS XXV research, we identified the SaaS choices made by these OneOffice enterprise leaders and compared them with those made by less mature tactical laggards. In this sixth in a series of seven on the SaaS choices of OneOffice leaders, we focus on process intelligence.

How we identified the leaders and the laggards

We asked enterprise decision makers how SaaS is changing their business. We identified OneOffice leaders as those who agree or strongly agree with survey statements indicating SaaS improves employee experience, improves customer experience, and makes outsourcing business processes easier. These responses indicate the realization of outcomes indicative of greater maturity in the adoption and use of SaaS, thus a tighter alignment to the HFS OneOffice mindset.

In contrast, tactical laggards agree or strongly agree SaaS is changing how their business operates by improving the flow of information across the business, improving data and information access, improving security, encouraging the business to bypass IT, and making it harder to budget. These responses we identify as indicative of an enterprise that has not yet moved beyond the technical functionality of SaaS solutions and is missing how SaaS creates real-time “connections” between the company and its customers. We analyzed 411 responses and compared the strength of preference for the use of particular technologies by either leaders or laggards.

OneOffice leaders are most likely to use Celonis for process intelligence SaaS, but laggards match its use with Automation Anywhere’s Discovery Bot

Our data—an enterprise customer subset of the overall SaaS XXV responses—shows the gap between leaders and laggards is at its greatest for Celonis, with 17% of OneOffice leaders opting for the former HFS Hot Vendor. Automation Anywhere (AAI) is close behind; this result is based on data returned ahead of AAI’s acquisition of process intelligence specialists FortressIQ. We conclude that many regard AAI’s Discovery Bot as providing process intelligence that was “enough for now.” For our laggards group, it was as popular as Celonis.

Exhibit 1: OneOffice leaders are most likely to be using Celonis and Automation Anywhere for their process intelligence needs

Sample: N=411 responses from enterprise leaders, January 2022 SaaS XXV survey; the total may not equal 100% because some enterprises use multiple process intelligence technologies, some none at all.
Source: HFS Research, 2022

OneOffice leaders in Exhibit 2 reserve their highest NPS (net promoter score) for Kofax, ABBYY, and Automation Anywhere (AAI). In our graphics, net promoter scores range from -1.00 to +1.00, where 1.00 = 100%. Anything higher than 0.70 (70%) is usually regarded as outstanding, .50 to .69 (50%–69%) as strong, and .49 or lower as needing improvement. The average NPS across the process intelligence category in our survey was 0.07, the lowest of our seven SaaS categories.

So, even Kofax, ABBYY, and Automation Anywhere (AAI) cannot afford to rest on their laurels here. Both leaders and laggards are looking for much more from their process intelligence partners. Despite its popularity, Celonis is an also-ran for NPS in a low-performing category. This may suggest enterprises are less than satisfied with the outcomes they have been getting as they start their journeys with Celonis. Laggards are less likely to complain—so far. Minit averaged zero across both groups, and NICE scored zero with our sample of OneOffice leaders. Fujitsu did well with leaders, but laggards are less than happy with their outcomes.

The low scores may point to process intelligence being in the uncomfortable place of being the year’s hot ticket, while maturity in both its use and understanding is lagging.

Exhibit 2: Process intelligence vendors should target scores higher than 0.7; they average 0.07

Sample: 411 responses from enterprise leaders, January 2022, SaaS XXV survey
Source: HFS Research, 2022

OneOffice leaders plan to increase their spending for process intelligence SaaS across the board, but not as many of them intend to do so versus other SaaS categories. While 12% of Celonis users intend to invest more in Celonis in the near future, 17% of leaders will increase their automation spending with Microsoft, 19% of Salesforce users will increase spending with it for business operations, and 25% of MS Azure users are ready to spend more with Microsoft in the next 12 months.

Relatively low NPS are bound to impact further investment.

Exhibit 3: Celonis is dominant with both leaders and laggards; OneOffice leaders are more likely to extend their investment than laggards

Sample: 411 responses from enterprise leaders, January 2022, SaaS XXV survey; only those with significant data are shown.
Source: HFS Research, 2022

The Bottom Line: OneOffice leaders have flocked to Celonis, but only 12% of them have been inspired to increase their future spending.

Among our respondents, OneOffice leaders clearly prefer Celonis of the process intelligence contenders. They use it more now, and those that use it intend to use more of it in the near future. Growth in the whole category looks set to slow, based on intent to invest among our enterprise respondents. Enterprise leaders took on board the need for process intelligence; now, they are looking for their investments to deliver business value. Look out for solutions that integrate the raw data outputs of process intelligence tools with the design and delivery of improved end-to-end processes.

Read the results of our broader SaaS XXV survey here.