What is our primary use case?
We have several use cases starting from modeling. So we looked at our process, and we also updated the price architecture and the architecture of the organization. Majorly, we are on the modeling of the process now, and we need to start the mining process where we are trying to enhance some of the processes. From a modeling perspective, the product is so good. It was worth each penny we paid for the solution.
How has it helped my organization?
The solution increased our maturity level within the understanding of how we operate, and it eliminates the gap between the business and IT users. So both of the teams are working on the process for documentation. It also increases our governance capabilities on top of our processes. Overall, this is what we are doing, so we wanted to start our understanding and transformation of the project, and we think this tool has been doing so well with us.
What is most valuable?
They have their own design patterns, which give us a 360-degree view of all of our processes and how it's linked together. So far, their modeling capabilities and viewing capabilities are what we like the most. We also like the solution's change management capabilities. So, we have a limited workflow as well on top of our processes for any change. People who own the process are changing it, and also whoever is using this process or interacting with it as a user is being notified. So we have actually been able to create good change management practices within our organization.
What needs improvement?
I guess we have many unnecessary steps within our processes. There is room for automation and room for enhancement within our application portfolio management. This is what we will be trying to evaluate within our next step with the maturity level of our operational excellence center. Majorly Software AG ARIS Process Mining is the tool used in our operational excellence center. In short, I would like to eliminate unnecessary steps in some processes in this solution.
Any other data generated out of the process mining will be valuable also to making more decisions. But, majorly, we want a shorter life cycle or steps for a process.
So far, from the modeling and designing angles, things are great since they bought some execution capabilities. RBA or maybe process discovery-related things would be great. I know that now they have the product discovery or the process discovery feature. This is something we are trying to implement in our users' VC. But I guess if we can have more related to the execution part of the process, then it is going to be very good. In short, execution features and RBA features are really good add-ons, I guess.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have experience with Software AG ARIS Process Mining for almost a year now. Regarding the version, I am using it on the SaaS cloud. I am a user of the solution.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
To someone who is just considering this solution for themselves, I would say that the tool is perfect once you know what you want to do with it. Majorly you need to have a proper understanding of your current business before even getting the tool. But from the perspective of the tool, it's easy to learn and easy to use. Also, the solution's dashboards and the capabilities of data process mining are very good.
Taking into consideration the engagement, the training materials, the ease of use, and the customization capabilities, you can always add how many you can keep adding new variables for your processes as long as you want. This is something that gives us flexibility. I rate the overall product a ten out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
I rate the technical support a ten out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
How was the initial setup?
On a scale of one to ten, where one is difficult, and ten is easy, I rate the setup a nine. We are completely dependent on the videos and training materials that we got in Software AG ARIS Process Mining, and I think our team was able to handle the rest.
From a deployment perspective, it didn't take any time. We were talking about configuration. So with some of our expertise already designed, it takes us time. But of our processes and the rest of the processes, we build it from scratch. We model it from scratch. As I mentioned, for almost 150 processes, it took us about three to five months to get them all on board.
Once again, from a deployment perspective, ARIS was only the technology in which its framework is more about the working, and the analysis was set for the users and the business departments so that they could start to analyze the process while the documents weren't added. From a deployment perspective was the hard part. Having an understanding of how the current organization is or how the organization is currently operating. So most of the deployment efforts were related to business questions and understanding the process other than reflecting it to the tool because it's not a big issue. They have quite nice onboarding capabilities, like they have forums, or they can upload the CSV file and then do onboarding directly for us.
Speaking of the number of people required for deployment, our operational excellence itself has five people. All five of us are users of ARIS. Five people are more than enough for an organization with 3,500 employees.
Those involved in the deployment are more like business analysts and business-related people. We are not using ARIS in our IT department. We are using it in our operational excellence department. I'm talking from the user's perspective, not from the IT perspective. As I told you, we are using the SaaS version, so there is no IT involved in using the product. It's majorly a business kind of product. So we have five different users or different people within our operational excellence team, and they come from majorly business backgrounds, the process background, and the automation background, but none of them are from IT.
Speaking of maintenance, we are not the people who do implementation because we are using the SaaS version. The problem is that we need to maintain the solution. We are five people operating on this product. I don't think it is relevant to explain how many people work on the tool's maintenance since we are all working on the SaaS version. They actually don't maintain the product.
What about the implementation team?
We used a consultant to do the main related activities for the framework, nothing related to the tool, since we, ourselves, the internal team, have been operating on the tool. The consultant has been hired just to understand and give us the framework and maybe some business analytic environment to process analysis-related outputs, but we are the only users. We didn't hire anyone else.
What was our ROI?
I would rate it a ten on a scale of one to ten, where one is no return on investment, and ten is a hundred percent return on investment.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We are getting what we are paying for, so on a scale of one to ten, or one is low, and ten is a high price, I rate the pricing a nine out of ten. It's highly-priced, so it's not exactly a cheap product, but we get what we are paying for in the solution.
Also, we didn't find any other additional costs. They have modules, but they describe to us what module we are using.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
In our company, we have been evaluating SAP Signavio and Abacus. Eventually, we went with Software AG ARIS Process Mining. We chose the solution since its prices were good. The vision of the product is good, and during the initial phases, they have been helping us during the sales cycle, which was very good. They understood what we required, and they provided us with exactly what we needed. So I guess the level of engagement was high from Software AG ARIS Process Mining, and this is how we chose it.
What other advice do I have?
To someone who is just considering this solution for themselves, I would say that the tool is perfect once you know what you want to do with it. Majorly you need to have a proper understanding of your current business before even getting the tool. But from the perspective of the tool, it's easy to learn and easy to use. Also, the solution's dashboards and the capabilities of data process mining are very good.
Taking into consideration the engagement, the training materials, the ease of use, and the customization capabilities, you can always add how many you can keep adding new variables for your processes as long as you want. This is something that gives us flexibility. I rate the overall product a ten out of ten.
