Establishing Functional Centers of Excellence with Diederick Badon Ghijben, Celonis

Hey, it's Patrick from the mining your business podcast and Jakob. What do we do? What do we do here? We are recording a process mining focused podcast. Mm-hmm sounds interesting and I think our next guest will also agree joining us on the podcast today is Deedric Gabon Hibern and We are going to talk about how to establish a functional center of excellence. Let's get into it Let's talk about business transformation. After a series of episodes where Patrick and I were talking about change management in today's episode We will be hosting a guest who arguably knows more about organizational change more than Patrick and I combined Please welcome Deedric Adon Hibern customer transformer advisor at Salonis and former global process analytics manager and supply chain integration manager at Shell Deedric. Welcome to our show Hi how are you? Thank you very much for inviting me for the show. So glad to be here and looking forward to To talk into our to our listeners for the next for the next portal for the coming podcast. Yeah, Deedric the pleasure is all ours and I'll be honest I mean I've been a part of many workshops But only a few workshops got my attention as much as the one where I actually had the opportunity to get to know you And at that workshop you are talking mainly about organizational setup best practices and what struck me the most where your example and Generally experienced that you have accumulated over the years while implementing process mining with your previous employer It was also the moment where I thought wow, let's just get this guy on our podcast because he has a lot to say and here you are So once again, thank you for accepting the invite and my first question would be have you already recovered from the corona? We all got that workshop I fully recovered I must say that wine doesn't taste as good, but it's slowly coming back It's I'm actually back on the block and and working again. So yeah, thank you very much Yeah, so we just do a bit of an introduction 100% I mean my first question would be we always like to start with the career of our listener or not listeners Well, hopefully listeners, but our guests who are in the podcast and Since you spent your a big chunk of your career with one employer shell where I assume you are also first introduced to Process mining as a discipline. Please tell us a bit more about where you came from. Yeah, so thank you very much Indeed, as you say, I've been spending all my pretty much all my working life in oil and gas and in in liquid distribution or distribution of liquids and At one point in in 2012 I until 2012 have been working on implementations of SAP systems, JDR, what systems, what have you But I was always quite attracted to to the data side of it But when it comes to hitting the people so the implementation piece that that's that's where I got the Passion from in 2012 My line manager called me and say yeah, now we've got this this tool and I have no clue what we do again with it But it looks it looks quite promising But can you talk a can you can you can you do something with it and yeah, well Yeah, let's give it a try and that turned out to be a A process mining tool. It was back then Nobody heard about process mining. It was completely completely unknown by anyone but yeah, she'll purchase the license of this and We kicked off with it. We were basically fools with the tool And then you're still a fool. So we tried to develop it. We basically needed to do Evangelizing speaking with with our counterparts in the business. Sometimes we hit a A really positive sponsor who wanted it embraced it and sometimes we Well, didn't So that from 2012 to 2016 I led the the central excellence in shell at last I didn't know I was leading a central excellence but at twenty twenty sixteen twenty seventeen It turned out indeed to be a central excellence with regards to process mining and we rolled it out to the various business components in shell so That were offered to cash procure to pay the trading and supply business and we tried it. We tried a little a couple of little things running it into into into master data management At the end after four years, this is typical in this company You move to a different role and instead of being the creator and the producer of process mining insights I moved to the other side basically where I worked on procurement excellence and it was consumer of the insights so I'll by moving out the By moving out of this team. We created a fan base in the in the business So I knew what questions to ask this team. I knew how to engage and when to engage them and In a couple of in a couple of years in the end it turned out to be that that soloness was pretty much 80% Providing 80% of the the information and insights. I needed for my rope map to intervene and to develop a To develop a touchless procurement supply chain So that's a bit of the journey that I did while doing that I got of course in touch with with offer to cash requisition to play it pay supply chain maintenance But also finance pieces accounts payable counts receivable and there was plenty of time to to explore Different parts that were not yet developed and and would be potentials and and actually that's what we're doing right now in soloness So um, I think our customers can can can can can benefit from from our front running and and and the research in development. We're doing Outside of work if you want to talk to me over a beer in the weekend Just ask me about sports and basically sports sports education training educating kids And making sure that especially kids get more movement to get get more movements and more more more More agile more busy. I like this journey actually. So you are a trainer of Hockey right? Yeah, correct correct. Yeah, so So I've been for years. I've been not only the trainer, but also develop the training program and making sure that the kids are Educated and then yeah in a structural way Nice. Nice. Um getting back to process mining. Um, what uh, you know just by listening to you right now What is very interesting is that you've been on both sides Also within an organization so not only building up the tool and building up the structure around it, but also then consuming it and Well, I guess that when you are consuming it you can also see what everything you probably did wrong at some point You know, you just see your mistakes and thinking oh, why didn't I do it the other way or also when you're building up the tool You are also seeing what other people are struggling with which actually brings you to a very interesting Position where you can advise others and that actually lets you also now to to salon is where you are Advising other companies and before actually I move into the best practices that you would recommend to others that come from experience I would like to actually ask you a very specific questions and that would be um, what were the top three lessons you actually learned with your previous Employer where you were both on the sides of creating the center of excellence and maybe then consuming the report Good point good point actually the number one lesson. I would I would go for is It's of course go for the money go for opportunistic. So originally really focus on the areas that you find money But in combination of a good sponsor and over I would actually select The direction I would deter the selection is more Directed by the by the support of the sponsor rather than the money I'd rather just really read and it sounds like a cliche But really focus on the area where you are meeting the allies of to it the allies the friendly allies or the coalition of the willing Rather than then the immediately the big money. So it will work like a flywheel So deliver something small but deliver it well and actually You don't need to blow up the money and you don't need to blow the benefits but Do communicated widely and shared with people because communicating widely and that's a second lesson lesson communicating widely Doesn't mean that you're pounding yourself on the chest and showing look what I delivered because in the end is success as many fathers and mothers but You give others to pick on to pick up that That success and replicated so you're not just pounding yourself on the chest and say look what I delivered together with my team But you're enabling others to actually pick it up and reduce all the barriers that you were hitting in the pilot face and that's the third that's the the next one What we found is that we did also research on on project delivery And in one of the one of the project one of the researchers we found that we looked at the timeline of each project And we found that when a new project lead or a new black belt or a new green belt the project manager was picking up a pilot project It took typically eight months The next one that the same person would pick up would be cut in half by four months The next one the third project that that person would deliver took two months So that is your so replicate the hell out of anything replicate out of education So educate people and let them make sure that they run rerun projects Replicate your opportunities because each time you deliver a new opportunity it will go it well A rule of thumb. This was about two and a half thousand projects that we yeah that we yeah that we research The rule of thumb was each time it's cut in half So I think that's a good one. So in short replicate replicate communicate and go with the right sponsor. So feed the Eagles and starve the pigeons Maybe one last question about shell specifically. I will wear you actually the most proud of coming out of the company What was I most proud of? Wow That's a tough one. Yeah, that's there's actually a lot of things that are most proud of But there's one little thing that happened at the last and actually it's it's people. It's more about people We did an engagement survey and the engagement survey Was quite positive. My team was quite happy. I was happy People were happy. So it was quite and that was noted um and In the end pretty much in the last week when I was or actually already one step outside People invited me for a for for the people development week And that and we spoke about that engagement and that that survey and how we did it We were my team a few people in Manila in Kuala Lumpur were connected with the with the professor on organizational change on psychological safety and Actually, that was one of the Best things I've experienced where my team was actually my people In Manila and in Kuala Lumpur were connected with The authority on on organizational change psychological safety. Oh nice. Uh, that's a yeah, Patrick go on Can I ask what do you mean by psychological safety? Psychological safety is is a concept where And it's again, it's easy where people feel free to speak up and actually share where you don't need to be No, don't need to be worried that somebody will punish you by sharing an observation or by sharing feedback and And I understand that if you if people get feedback um, they may be They may be or originally there may be taken aback by by by that feedback um and people say yeah, I don't I find it really difficult to give feedback said okay Would you feel more comfortable if you ask for feedback and that yeah, yeah, okay I feel better if they ask for feedback. So I thought the team please always ask for feedback and I work with Um and and and it's uh, I really don't want to be culturally Indiverse and not really inclusive But there are sculptures where speaking up is is it's perceived as more difficult than other cultures so and and that typically relate also to to Asian cultures So I encourage them to speak up because and to ask and to give feedback because if I don't know I end up living in a vacuum as a leader and that's That and and then well, you're basically going nowhere Yeah um Didrick uh one of the main Forkers of this episode is actually um creating establishing a functional Central of excellence and this was also uh the opportunity where I got to meet you Well, you were talking about these best practices a lot of them are actually coming from your previous experience And as I said, I really like the the your idea that you had behind all those uh, let's say formalized ideas um So first I want to also say uh, then also uh note to all our listeners that we did an episode on central excellence In a very theoretical way with uh maxa runglinga in one of our previous episodes where we were Uh, basically evaluating the importance of central excellence in the main factor So if you want to find a more just go and listen um, but now we will get very practical um So didrick from we're from your point of view what does even stand behind central excellence? What it is and uh if somebody just you know tuned in on a first episode here Here's the center of excellence for the first time. What would you answer them? What is a central excellence for process mining Wow, it can be many things and it depends on in which stage you are with a company and if i would say At the start It's it's basically a unit that that uh is curious that evangelizes that shares the uh that goes and look out for the Coalition of the willing and the friendly allies um because that's where you need to need to go and and really it's a team that will have to start Communicating at the start on what is a center of excellence in general and in this case we're talking about central excellence is in in process mining There's still a whole raft of people in in in business life who heard of process mining who know how to write it, but don't know where to go So a center of excellence in the first and foremost needs to develop themselves as as a center of excellence be one Initially one page ahead of everybody and then make sure that you're a chapter ahead of everybody and make sure that you're The whole book ahead of everybody so that you can actually show what the future looks like and it looks like and we can help Obviously, I've had my my my past my experience We can show what the future looks like and if you'll go all of it by yourself You will know you will feel but failing is the first attempt in learning meaning You will run into rabbit holes, but it's my task. It's my job to make sure that I will show you the rabbit holes and I will show you what happens if you run into them, but skip them and move on Now um we have seen this I know Jakob and I have we have seen these um we come into a process mining implementation We implement the first you know draft the second draft or whatever and then they kind of build up this excellence You know people these heroes these champions, you know take it and then run with it And then there's the question of should we do a center of excellence? Yeah, maybe let's see how it goes And then maybe half a year down the line or something they finally say okay, this has been worth it Let's go found the the center of excellence around this around this whole endeavor And that is the way that we usually see things happen I'm have you in your experience seen it differently and is one way more advantageous than the other Actually, I haven't seen it differently Typically it does start with somebody someone somebody in a business who thinks that that go that adopting this new technology Is a great thing and they needed for their operation. So it starts with a sponsor in my my place It was a sponsor that was called the the the EVP of financial operations Um, who again had in his team a champion who thought that this was a great technology and deciding to implement it so That it and and from that one person decided it usually as a natural team as a project team delivering a one place doing it as a pilot showing that they can be there there is money And then at one point when you start to scale up and scale out to go to different areas It really makes it then people you see that people start to commit to creating a center of excellence because if you if you do it immediately Honestly, you don't know whether it's going to be a success. You can do everything to make it a success But still The settings couldn't be with could be wrong or the time isn't right So I would say start start off off with a natural team with a project manager Who is by the way dedicated? Because if people do this on the side, it's not something that you can do on the side So do it as a project manager and then later on decide whether you want to make it make it a Make it a real a real organization Because if you commit to creating vacancies roles and new organizations People will want to have some some certainty that this will take them for another two years for another three years And this will make them this will give them the opportunity to be successful and move on to the next job So actually I don't see I don't see it happening differently in any organization. I don't see and I don't see I don't see companies that are creating a huge central excellence And then see where the pilots end up. That's that's expensive. It may have the frustration Now we have also from our previous conversation with Max Luglinger also discovered that I mean based on the data that He saw that vast majority of companies see a center of excellence as and very important and vital and contributing to the success of the process mining initiative Now we also come to this question a lot where we you know ask is are you guys planning a center of excellence blah blah And sometimes they say well, we're not really sure yet. We're not really sure if we need it. Now um question to you is Is a center of excellence always necessary and in what is like the differentiation between Definitely necessary and yeah, maybe just don't touch it well I think it's it's definitely necessary for for two reasons um a couple of couple of months ago We ran with an industry with a with an scientific institute run a survey with our customers and 94% of the customers said That's the center of excellence is is really needed you need to focus on it You need to set time apart to deliver this and of course this may be sounding like the turkey voting for Christmas um and and it is but these were also people that were not the center of excellence themselves But were were on the more senior level the uh the CXO type of level On the second piece and and I like it that people are and and I agree that people say you need to focus on it Otherwise it it doesn't become anything However, there's one more compelling much more compelling uh compelling element Solonis and together with their partners and their center of excellence leads and their counterparts at uh and our customers We keep track of the benefit delivered Some customers choose not to report that to us that's fine. That's uh they can be that's it's their data their information Those customers who do report to us report that until now The cumulative money and the cumulative benefit delivered with solonis is worth 1.8 billion dollars Out of that 1.8 billion dollars 1.7 billion dollars is created with the set with organizations and companies that create That have a center of excellence in place Now that's what I that's what I like. I don't need people that take a box in a survey or tell it to me But actually they report money back on their P&L back in their back back in their business working capital reductions And state that 95% of that money was delivered of the benefits were delivered with center of excellence so If we look at the number of companies that have a center of excellence. It's about half. It's about 60 percent So that's 60% delivers 95% of all of the best benefit with with with process mining. So Do I well do I need to say more and that's what our customers say I think that the the data and the numbers speak for themselves um now what are the key functions of For for of centers of excellence because you already mentioned here this this value realization and monitoring Um, what are the other key roles why the center of exploit excellence actually plays such a vital and important role in process mining initiatives Yeah, a good point. Uh, so thank you They play a couple of roles and I don't think that they should be all Doing those roles themselves, but at least making sure that they organize the the roles and the activities are executed Typically what you see is that uh, very ground at table stakes is is deployment and maintenance So they coordinate and make sure that Process mining is deployed across the organization either in processes or in in in in in horizontal expansion going into different business units They are when they're doing that they're the face of process mining and they're they're establishing their name as a as a As a center of excellence which need and the the best place to be there is user enablement and support As the first time that the community in the business gets to know with process mining so that's also the best way for a center of excellence to present themselves as the center of excellence people will receive training and people will say uh great in in and that's the first connection They make so those are table stakes that need to be organized and need to be executed What I think in order to grow when in order to help the organization better and to replicate the experience because if the center of excellence does it all by themselves There they will become the limit to replication They need to work on the steering a governance and steering model governance steering making sure that the business enabling others making sure that the business will come with the wide opportunity right area of opportunities And then of course drive for realization and they don't do that by themselves because in the end The series is enabling to driving real value In the end the process owners or the line managers to get supported by their continuous improvement expertise are the ones who who deliver that in at that point The center of excellence is is in an able or either by insights Or by for instance using action flows or action boards To the business Now um Considering the the the strategy part of setting this up. I think our previous quoted someone So I'm going to quote him quoting that person who said strategies also what you do But also what you don't do and considering that there you have said that you know centers of excellence can come in all different shapes and sizes But in your experience what has been some decisions made for centers of excellence that maybe didn't really pan out or sometimes even downright fail Yeah, well, let me Bring one big failure and immediately learn the learning from it The message I received at the start was a go for this particular process area go for it deliver it go in there Problem was that the process owner and the leadership in that area was had already been leadership and process process owner for about the last 10 15 years now There's somebody coming with process mining uncovering and releasing making everything transparent in your organization but that also means that people could perceive that That performance or maybe lack of performance has all their fingerprints all over it Now What I tried to push and push and push because that was the leadership guidance said Can we go somewhere else no push and go and this is the area where you need to go to it it cost me literally a year that I could have spent much better In the end the choice was let's pull out Wait for a leadership change and the leadership change happened in six to eight months if I recall well The new person came in required due diligence of what the legacy was and actually that was the takeoff for a massive massive waste reduction program. So the learning from it is Again, what I mentioned earlier feed the Eagles starved pigeons Don't go with those sponsors that are lukewarm or maybe not interested have got bigger fish to fry And just go with the sponsorship that really wants you and is also willing to stand on top of this virtual soapbox and tell tell their Tell their line reports and the further organization Every day, but also a town knows any emails And and further communication measures that this is the way to go and they demand the business outcome And by the way here's process mining giving you that Enabling you in delivering that business outcome I'm did you want of the main Focuses of process mining in general is to drive some change to improve your business Because at the end of the day process mining is just a technology. It gives you the picture. It gives you the insights But ultimately it's up to the people to to kind of Act upon the finding How do you set up, you know, having the center of excellence? How do you set up a functional? I would even say a circle never ending circle of this this change pushes So that once you find something you can actually act on it and are they maybe even some Prequisites that you should establish before even getting into this change management topic Oh, well, that's a big question. Yeah, big question. Let me break it down into a couple of a couple of them. So I've said enough about sponsors. So I'll leave that piece because that is a prerequisite and it's the easiest one that you can assess Because if you do value analysis, it'll easily take you a couple of weeks, a couple of months But pretty much the first or the second engagement with your sponsor You know what you're you need to qualify the sponsor whether that will be a good one We as salon is help our partners, but also our customers directly with what what is the checklist to validate that somebody is a sponsor that is a good sponsor And if somebody is willing to become even a better sponsor. So it's also a code. It's not only scoring But it's not only qualifying but also to coach somebody Secondly, and this is where Still a lot of companies talk about we want a dashboard And When they explain I ask them what do you want to do with the dashboard? Yeah, I want to know how we how things are going with my business Okay, now that means you need to do also want to act on it. Yeah, by the way, I want to act on it as well Because if you don't link it to an action you may just go as well go to your museum and look at the painting It's a great painting. Thank you very much and move on a dashboard needs to trigger for action So rather than looking back The dashboard also needs a component that that helps you looking forward On the operational level, but also on the on on on this on the executive level Salonis and process mining if you layer if you layer your dashboard Action boards in levels of seniority or align it with your with your governance It just doesn't help you it doesn't only give you the state of play But also helps you identify in your interventions and which interventions are most most most effective And it helps people on a day-to-day basis looking forward and Looking ahead. How can I make things right? Good example is on accounts pay old piece people keep on looking at late invoices That's boring that's looking at a thing that you can't improve anymore An invoices late and it will not become Good again Instead of that consider Building an action board that shows you the aging towards becoming late it to be to Of an invoice towards becoming over you you can do still do something about it You can still make it make sure it is working fine and then you'll also be a lot better informed about what the root causes are Rather than the poor conversation So what happens quite often is that the organization Start doing the process mining having the first insights, but then they are kind of struggling like where should I Head in where should they in head next or what should they focus on is there maybe also and I guess it's also coming from the center of excellence to kind of steer the way steer the discussion in order not to get overwhelmed with the possibilities that the tool brings while Very often actually also having like a resource is to implement every idea that you actually might have and to kind of as you mentioned Now with the example of the aging invoices versus late invoices Not to have the the the the or just to just to keep creating these proactive dashboards compared to okay Let's just replicate something we already have elsewhere Um Well and and again going back Making really sharp choices as somebody said as you're one of your earlier guess it's strategy is is identifying what you will do and also what you will not do So by using action boards instead of dashboards you're a much more able to go into into the intervention before things are are are wrong It gives a much more positive conversation and also recognizing that an outcome such as Um, uh, late payment will have almost if it will have a fishbone of about five six or seven Inter potential intervention or potential root causes sometimes in combination with each other sometimes individually and By clarifying by making and by showing with process process mining We can show which interventions help shoot to close the gap. Do you want to reach 95% payment on time? Well, maybe eight five percent is due to one particular cause another ten percent is due to two two two two to combination of causes and Make sure that your first prioritize the ones that free up people Because those people you can ask you can really ploy them or you can put them in a place to actually use it as a flywheel and make the rest of the steps go faster So my choice would be due to easy ones first Deliberate the people on the front line Put them on the more difficult ones later. Don't release all those people immediately keep a couple of them And make sure that they can work on the on the fixing the root cause for the future So my next question and also this is something that we uh briefly discussed at the beginning is uh, you know You have the sponsor, uh, but you still have many different people many different roles in your operating model of central excellence Um, how is the operating model even shaped and what are some of the questions you need to ask to establish Uh, your central excellence so that it actually supports you in your goals in in in what you want to achieve A lot of it is is dependent on uh, of course on budget availability If you've got all budget available, you can immediately scale up and and create a huge Uh, a huge central excellence with all the With all the expertise is i've never seen that happening um Uh, because that that's just not how it works um The roles that are are important here uh, the way the the question need to ask is How much work will will will particular activities cost at the start um Try to find a hybrid people so a data analyst together with a business value architect Preferably somebody coming from a business environment who brings in subject matter expertise Because in a central excellence we will be fed a central excellence will be will be fed by uh, by information by uh from from the partners from Solonist themselves so they will have first seat on gathering information on process mining So that's the thing that a central excellence can do by themselves, but Learning the business from a central excellence almost standing on the sideline of a procurement team or an offer to cash team is super difficult So i would say try to find um expertise from operations people that have shown um appetite for data appetite for processes Put them in a business-facing role and in in in in solonist we call some we call that type of role A customer value architect put them in front of the fit the the business because the back office Mainly the ITPs the the building the dashboards building the the the screens That's something we will be able to source either from the partners or from from an IT IT team, but i would Focus on first hiring those people um who will have a face to the business initially So um looking forward as in we have just identified our in our problematic areas and we like to improve them now involving change management and the center of excellence together in a some sort of holistic Type of approach where the changes that you know are identified actually get done is the center of excellence somewhat in In involved in the change management process or is it completely separate things more like okay? We have provided out you see the the problems you see the the things that are going wrong Now your change management go go do your thing and go change things is is dude is there some interplay or how are these connected? There's of course there's definitely an interplay so where uh change management know all about making sure that people are starting to the right thing guiding the sponsors Making the future more fun than making the past so what if you want people to move or if you want to do people to do the right thing in the future Reward that recognize people for doing the right thing or at least trying the right thing and and make the doing the old thing More annoying more difficult each time um the central of excellence Will will work together with those change management teams either they of course the center of excellence We'll need to have themselves a good understanding of change management Um, but we need to identify what is the specific bay behavior that you want to reduce and the specific behavior that you want to improve So that's how that's and how the center of excellence can help Pointing at the right thing rather than that a change management team or the change management effort the change management role focus on on everything It can be almost set with surgical precision Focus on this activity that you want to avoid and focus on this activity that you want to encourage also and We need to be careful with privacy laws and then also we need to identify that we can identify those people who are picking the new way of working quickly How are picking it up in in a quick way and showing it's not always the people who talk a lot about it But it's the people it's all it's quite often the people just do and with process mining We can also identify those people who have picked up the new way of working quickly and we can reward them We could put them in the spotlight and give them give them recognition and recognition doesn't always become with reward but can be um can be can be supporting so Of course it's an interplay You can define the roles in in a more or less in a in a general way, but in the end You do need to play as a team pick up pick up the pieces that other leave behind and vice versa Now you have mentioned these these champions that pick up the pieces and you know pick these things up more easily than others And there seems to always be some and we've mentioned this in previous episodes about the the resistance to change to new ways of working and new ways of doing Your process because of this tool that you've implemented You know all of a sudden somebody is saying yeah, we're identifying problems. You need to now change the way you're working um Do you find that this is somewhat um somewhat of indicative of the company culture or is it more a specific behavior that the center of excellence can influence to better account for this resistance to change and help These particular departments more readily get along get on board with them with um the change Yeah, and of course it needs to be embedded The central excellence can can provide the um can provide the the the the the the the the background and the background of it and the data behind it What I've used the uh what I've used the the the data and the information behind it from from from sensor of excellence is People find it difficult don't find it difficult to learn new things actually I've always seen people that want to learn things and they want to to grow and do different things What I found is that people find it difficult to let things go And that feels scary now with and and and mostly if people don't let things go Because they're fixed in another way They won't free uptime to do the right thing. So with process mining with with the deep analysis that the CE we can do Together with the business of course they can identify that actually letting things go is not very risky They can either show the example of a particular business and business unit or a country that's already doing it in a new way and actually things haven't blown up there so letting things go and showing that the risk of letting things go and that it's covered by the new way of working Is is something that pros and minds can be really really effective in in doing so Make sure that the new thing is fun People will want to learn But also help them that letting things go and not doing things will not mean that thing that that the process will go To bits. Yeah, you know, it is that a version of loss is always bigger than the joy of new gains or something Exactly exactly and what we can soften we can soften that feeling by showing that actually the risk Is not that high because it's covered in a new way Align manager wants ask me Yeah, but if we move to that different that new way of working because we don't want to fill in time sheets anymore What do we do about that old process said don't worry about old process because you're not going to use it anymore So yeah, but still I want to I want that process to be efficient But now if you listen to me We're just going to go We're going going to ditch that whole new process. We're going to work in a completely different way and the way that the old process work will not be will is it's not a problem because It's going to go away And that was a difficult thing to understand that they actually said all right So all of the problems that we have with that old process We will not have anymore simply because we're not going to use it anymore. Yeah So that was a funny a funny recognition of a funny moment Just proving again how Important people in general play a role in adopting any kind of technology and any kind of approach. It's all about people Yeah, it's all about people We started the show as a technological and advanced data science that we can figure out that we start talking about people all the time Absolutely and people every day will come to work to do the right thing and to do the best thing every day People don't come to the to the office to mess things up These week I have another question regarding this central excellence and how it can bridge Some gaps between different departments because as we all know in every company There are kind of silos and even in processes that seemingly seem as one One chain, you know typical for example would be procurement and accounts payable, you know first part is purchasing stuff the other is then processing the invoices What one of our previous guests once said that he always knows that the organization organization has Problems with their processes if they are actually dividing it being purchasing and accounts payable teams That's because in his view. This is just one process that should be closely coordinated with and How does a center of excellence help to bridge the gap between two teams that might have different incentives on Improving different part of process because if you are in accounting It's very easy to just put the blame on the procurement and say that they are orders are coming late and deliveries and whatnot And that it's their problem while they are processing the invoices late while the procurement will actually point to their You know invoice ratio and see yeah, but you are paying 70% of well, it's probably too high But a significant number of invoices too late and it's your fault that our vendors are then delivering late because well We are paying them late so they don't really feel like they should do everything on time How does process mining and central excellence kind of um shield or A roof around this problem yeah, um so Process mining and we own people our listeners are keen on process mining Know that they that we can show the end-to-end value stream So I wouldn't call it the end-to-end process because then people say this is my piece I'd like to call it the value stream and A wise one of my wise mentors once said the deal is done when the cash is in the bank. So it means When the vendor is paid the vendor has delivered we pay This is just for procurement of course that is when when it ends um Process mining shows What impact steps five steps earlier have on the process and in the end it's And again, it's a cliche start start with the end-to-mind you want to improve your process you need to become you need to start it all the way at the start of your process And process mining can show you that can show which parts of the which where are the root causes what are the commonalities of poor process? Is it john jane or joe who is always at the start of a poor process execution? Is it one particular business? Is it a material that's is it data that's wrong? Is it um is it people that um That that that just don't know so but people also just don't know what effect it will have on the on the on the back Now process mining first of all shows you shows you that end-to-end chain and we can find but that's all data in the end We're dealing with people What the example that you typically that you mentioned is a typical example where people are only talking to each other when When when things are going wrong that means that 100% of their conversations are about things going wrong Now at one point i was tired of that and we said just whether you want it or not We're going to have a huddle between a comes payable a procurement And maintenance because they were all the way at the start of the of the process We're going to sit together and talk every week whether you like it or not and maybe we Decrease the frequency But they found out that they could actually talk 95% percent but positive things think that when what went well They could actually warn each other before things were going wrong And suddenly the element of where things went bad became was from 100% To 5% so instead of and also process mining has a capability of showing action work So instead of things showing things that have gone wrong Which gives you doesn't give you a great feeling You can talk about things that you can make right before because they haven't gone wrong yet And that is we put them together we put them on huddle boards first we did it Without process mining simply because we had a time gap for a development gap to a time development time gap to fill But once we had it in our once we had it available in our action boards People were huddling about the same board that we're talking about the same data that had the same lay of the land And their conversations went from 100% Bad atmosphere to 5% issues 95% opportunities and that was a lot more fun to be in Yeah And so at the end of the day again the data can kind of facilitate the discussion Show them where the truth lies and kind of Stop playing the blaming game but really go a factual approach on finding the problems And it shows you that things can go right and then actually I mean our customers the people that we work with There's company they are companies that are making money most of them. So there are a couple of things that they're doing right Yeah, and only talking about the things that can be improved Yeah Because they went wrong that's that's that's not a position that you want to be in Didrick last question Let's spend a little theoretical mind game here. Let's say that you are appointed to You know an organization and you are the head of Process mining or set of center of excellence of this company and let's say that you have an unlimited budget How would you go about what would be your like first? Let's say three five steps what you would do in With your experience organizing things in order they worked the way that you want them to Um, I would first of all higher higher of business value architects Will support me and that's the second step will support me having interviews with the with the uh with the potential sponsors and the potential sponsors are Not the chief of digital or the CIO, but will be the people who are chief procurement officer chief Consumer customer officer chief production officer because they've got the process to it to improve The digital evangelists are great, but they can they only have a mandate over their own digital team The CIO has only a mandate over their owns digit own own ITT So if I talk to this to the CIO I can talk about Using process mining on on the on the IT support model not on procurement not on Maintenance so I would go about first of all talk to the to make sure That we have structured good interviews with our with our with our sponsors May and I will actually get and because I have unlimited you said I had unlimited money I would actually get support from a partner and from uh from from people like like myself or my colleagues Because simply that's what I lacked I will ask I will get expertise from people who've done it before you can prevent me from running an hundred Thousands of of rabbit holes Um, and I will make sure that my journey is a lot shorter than the two years that it took it took us to get things right So unlimited budget. I would actually get support. I would get initial people to Business-minded people subject matter experts and have those interviews with the yeah with our With the with the business counterpart who've got a problem to solve and who've got A direct mandate over the people who are called who are delivering the performs for the company Mm-hmm very well said. I think it also gives a good um foundation for our businesses We are usually also the partners. So thanks for shout out here You work um did you drink okay? I have actually two more questions. La the second to last is um what does excite you about your job currently? What excites me about my job currently is um That I'm seeing so many different people different companies same problems um and What excites me most is is that people are enjoying working with us Making sure that and and and actually giving back so that 1.8 billion dollars that our customers are reporting back Is the thing that that that keeps me going right the people that are giving the feedback great working with you and let's move on and let's do Something more for next year That's awesome and uh last where can people find you if they want to get in touch or just uh no more about you Um yeah via the usual channels of course they can they can look on Own LinkedIn and get connected to me and then easily will will get them connected to Solon as a company Um, but also just get in touch with your accounts with your account executive with your customer value manager if you're already a customer of Soloness uh and they will they will be able to find me I'm part of a team. I'm of course not doing this oh by myself. We're part of a team. We're part of a team that has uh of professionals who've done it before in the business um who've done it before in the customer side and We cover industries like chemicals manufacturing uh the hospitality market transportation market banking insurance. So there's always a uh a close match to our uh to our customer who's been in the same position as they have before Mm-hmm Kedrick um what else is to say then uh thank you very much for uh your great input on the permutics of central flexilence which i see uh personally that a lot of companies are being challenged with and i hope that uh uh you know you the listeners and also others who are in this situation um found these insights insightful enough to actually do a right action at the right time So didrick thank you very much. You're most welcome and i enjoyed being your guest Awesome awesome for you dear listeners uh thank you as usual for listening to us uh if you like us please leave us a rating apple podcast spotify anywhere where you consume your favorite podcast about process mining and the only podcast about process mining um so thank you for listening to us if you have any question you can reach us uh on LinkedIn as well where we are very active or just uh text us or write us an email on uh [email protected] um thank you for listening and i'm looking forward to hear back from you and also talking to you in the next episode of mining your business both past thank you bye bye