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The State of Process Discovery in 2021

2 min read
Sep 21, 2021 12:16:47 PM

In pursuit of ways to accelerate digital transformation, more and more companies are turning to process discovery to drive any number of transformative activities, from process improvement and outsourcing to automation.

As rates of adoption increase, we wanted to understand the impact that process discovery – and task mining in particular – have had on those who have adopted process discovery tools, the benefits they’ve realized, and any challenges they’re experiencing with this powerful but relatively new technology. So, in conjunction with Sapio Research, Blueprint recently executed a thorough study to understand process discovery’s level of adoption, where it’s being applied with tangible ROI, and if there have been any pain points with the implementation of these tools.

We know you’re excited to learn more, so we’ve prepared this small preview of what you can expect to find in advance of the report’s official release on Wednesday, September 29th.

Process Discovery Adoption

According to Blueprint’s research, process discovery adoption is considerably high. Of those surveyed, 56% are currently using process discovery tools. Out of the companies that have yet to implement this technology, 38% are in the process of adopting one.

56% of companies are currently using Process Discovery tools.

Even though adoption rates are quite high, the results indicated that the benefits adopters expected didn’t necessarily line up with the benefits they realized—which we expand upon in the full report.

When categorizing process discovery adopters according to industry, Financial Services and Retail have the highest adoption rates. This is a natural result when you consider their biggest challenges, priorities, and how process discovery can address them. For example, the Financial Services industry intends to improve application, invoice, billing processing, and enhance the overall customer experience to compete against digital disruptors as part of their digital transformation.

Along the same lines, Retail is using process discovery and task mining tools to provide better digital experiences to their customers while improving their supply chain operations.

Where Process Discovery Is Applied the Most

Finance & Accounting and IT are the runaways when looking at the departments where process discovery has been most applied. Considering the nature of these two departments and the number of processes and tasks that govern them, using process discovery and task mining tools to document all those flows to drive cost reductions, operational efficiency, and better quality is a good fit.

Process Discovery Challenges and Pain Points

Despite the rate of adoption and realized benefits, process discovery has its share of pain points and obstacles. Consent and privacy remain significant barriers to entry, and this can be attributed to the technology that task mining is based on.

Task mining tools use agents installed on employees’ computers. They sit at the desktop level, recording the interactions a user performs (like mouse clicks and keyboard inputs), taking screenshots for every interaction. Consequently, they can be pretty invasive, negatively impacting the employee experience. They then use artificial intelligence like computer vision to infer what the user is doing and document that task.

These same privacy and security concerns are driving companies to adopt task capture solutions instead, which are human-driven, cost less to implement and operate, and are proving to deliver even greater value to discovering processes for transformative outputs like automation.

On Wednesday, September 29th, Blueprint released the State of Process Discovery report. This report includes expanded insights on the mismatch of expectations, in addition to further observations on:

  • All the benefits process discovery adopters have realized
  • How process discovery is being managed
  • The functionality gaps users have experienced with task mining tools
  • What adopters plan to do with process discovery next, including growing or reducing their process discovery operations and which departments they’d like to apply it to next.

Don’t miss all the great insight the report has to offer. Download your very own copy here.

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