In France, Celonis is gaining ground among large groups
From three to sixty clients in four years. Around 60% of CAC40 members. This is the assessment defended by Fadi Naffah, vice-president and general manager France and MEA at Celonis.
When in 2021 it claimed 2,000 customers, in 2024, the German-American publisher mentions “more than 1,500” with whom it has carried out 5,000 deployments, compared to 3,000 in 2022. “Celonis has the largest customer base on this market and we estimate its market share at around 50%,” write Gartner analysts in the 2024 Magic Quadrant dedicated to process mining platforms published in April 2024.
It now has 24 offices around the world. The specialist in process mining and process intelligence has also been able to convince large French companies. It must be said that he puts the means into it. “I recruited around a hundred people in the French subsidiary while there were less than ten of us when the office opened,” says Fadi Naffah.
French companies agreeing to testify at the annual conference, Celosphere 2024, are nevertheless few in number. The manager has six clients, including Danone, Engie and GRT Gaz (the others did not wish to be named) having agreed to testify at the Munich event on October 22 and 24. “Last year, there were two,” notes the manager. However, French customers came to listen to their peers. “During Celosphere 2024, we received a French delegation of more than 70 people who represent 26 customers.” For comparison, the conference brought together around 3,000 participants.
The exercise is not easy in terms of brand image. It highlights inefficiencies or deviations in processes within companies before they are corrected. Feedback generally requires discussing a culturally sensitive subject in France: financial gains. Especially since companies familiar with process mining report savings or gains in the tens of millions of euros, or even hundreds of millions of euros/dollars for the most advanced.
Celonis wants its platform to become “critical” for businesses
The results are enviable. And Celonis plays it. The publisher’s objective? May its solution gain esteem among company management.
“We are starting to have discussions with the COMEXes because what we are proposing affects the future of their activities,” says Fadi Naffah. “Our solution is no longer classified in the “nice to have” category, but it is not yet 100% considered a “must have”,” he assesses. “Our Holy Grail is to be “mission critical” for our clients, as ERP or CRM publishers can be. We’re not there yet.”
“Our Holy Grail is to be “mission critical” for our clients, as ERP or CRM publishers can be. We’re not there yet.”
Say NaffahVice President, General Manager France and MEA, Celonis
To achieve this, Celonis not only sells a software platform, but also the methodology that goes with it. He intends to do two complex things: change the processes and the way the professions work.
“I asked my teams not to “pitch” process mining. We are agents of transformation,” says Fadi Naffah. “We look at the problems of the leaders and we offer them a solution to partially resolve them.”
The front door? Accounting and finance. Historically, Celonis has focused on processes related to the management of accounts payable, accounts receivable and financial processing and reporting processes. The objective, according to Fadi Naffah? Maximize the income statement and cash flow. “The first use cases therefore focused on purchasing, with an emphasis on improving cash flow, P&L, and reducing non-compliant purchases (maverick buying). This represents the easiest gains to obtain.” The platform would make it possible to detect duplicate payments, late payment deadlines, unapplied credits, etc. “upon connection”.
Most of the French customers who testified at Celosphere 2024 are still in this first phase – the treatment of which is not as simple as it seems – but they understand where the publisher wants to take them.
All the major groups encountered during the event have deployed or are deploying centers of excellence.
Turn more towards the professions
“Today, we are making a change of direction: beyond financial processes, we are investing in the core business of our customers, particularly within the supply chain and production,” declares Fadi Naffah. “This development is decisive, because the application of our solutions to the supply chain marks a strategic turning point.”
Major French accounts rely on the Celonis platform to monitor and improve inventory management and other industrial processes. The publisher especially highlights its most advanced client in this area: the Munich automobile manufacturer, BMW. “The CEO of BMW says there is no car coming out of BMW factories that is not affected by Celonis. We have more than 89 use cases at BMW,” says Fadi Naffah.
And to ensure its sustainability within companies, Celonis focuses on trades. “They are the accountants, those responsible for operations in the warehouses. We are developing a set of applications to simplify the management of compatibility, inventories, production, etc. »
Machine learning and generative AI – two big themes at the annual conference – should help them get recommendations and get this work done faster.
However, Celonis’ other starting point, the migration of systems, including SAP ECC to S/4HANA, remains essential for the publisher. “We can help our customers and integrators to understand the processes “as is”, then to verify whether the new process is better or not than the previous one with our means of verifying conformity and comparison between entities”, mentions the manager of the French subsidiary.
The companies that testified at Celosphere 2024 are moving forward cautiously. They started with experimental phases and POCs and are starting to use process mining and process intelligence on a daily basis. They have not necessarily automated this monitoring or they are not yet using Celonis’ BPM and AI technologies. The publisher has been developing its automation capabilities for around five years, with the successive acquisitions of Banyas, Integromat (Make), Lenses.io, PAF, Sailfin and Symbioworld between 2019 and 2023. According to Fadi Naffah, Symbioworld adds the BPM layer which Celonis missed. “With process mining, BPM, operational excellence, we obtain a global approach and understanding,” he boasts.
A complex and expensive platform, but one that has proven itself, according to Gartner
However, Gartner analysts observe among its interlocutors a “steep learning curve to make the most of the breadth of functionality and flexibility of the platform”. Hence the reason for the existence of centers of excellence and pre-wired applications, but also the existence of 400 partnerships with third-party publishers and integrators.
Because connecting and processing data from dozens of source systems remains complex work. Also, a year ago, Celonis introduced the Object-Centric Process Mining (OCPM) approach, which would make it possible to obtain a more global vision of processes and their interconnections. Around a hundred customers have adopted it.
This data model comes with slightly different pricing positioning, according to Gartner’s observations in its 2024 Magic Quadrant. “Large customers have told us that the new pricing model can be complex at first or when transitioning to the object-centric process data. In particular, they discussed how an organization’s revenue is factored into final pricing and the process-by-process approach.
Despite these two aspects, the opinions listed on Gartner Peer Insights and the feedback monitored by LeMagIT demonstrate a high level of satisfaction from customers.
