Process orchestration is capable of coordinating such a wide range of people, systems, and devices that it can be a challenge to understand its potential impact quickly.
This commissioned Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study, conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Camunda, aims to provide a framework to make the impact more understandable. Using a composite organization, this study found that Camunda provided $112.1 million in total net savings, amounting to a 408% ROI.
This post will explore the study in more detail as well as its key findings. Before we go on, it’s worth noting that while the data here uses a composite organization, this study also provides a dynamic calculator you can use to customize the study results based on the unique composition of your own organization, which you can try today.
How is the data compiled?
Forrester interviewed representatives from four Camunda customers for this study to learn about their pre-existing solutions for process automation, how they invested in Camunda and what the results of that investment have been. All representatives were leaders intimately familiar with their organization’s use of Camunda.
These customers operate in a range of industries, including finance, insurance, technology and real estate. To provide a collective overview of the value derived from using Camunda, Forrester combined them into one composite organization. The resulting composite had $25 billion in revenue, 55 million customers and 60,000 employees.
While these customers had some automation in place before Camunda, in general it was found to be limited in scope and proprietary in nature, and these existing solutions were not capable of handling the scale and complexity of the processes they now wanted to orchestrate. To implement Camunda as a solution, these organizations undertook a strategic effort to create teams responsible for enabling decentralized process development that empowered employees, similar to a Center of Excellence.
The result of these efforts were improved customer service and experiences, increased back-office operational efficiency, and faster overall process development. On top of that, increased automation simply reduced human error and made regulatory compliance easier, which is critical for global enterprises.
Four quantified benefits of using Camunda for process orchestration
Forrester examined a number of benefits for the composite organization over a three year period, which collectively yielded $112.1 million in net value for the company.
1. Increased customer satisfaction yielding $57.8 million in profits
Customer satisfaction was a major source of gains for the company. More efficient processes help customers get their issues resolved faster and more accurately, and produce more satisfying experiences. Ultimately, these efficiencies boosted customer retention at the company. Scaled across 55 million customers, the results had a significant overall impact on the bottom line, and the company ended up with 1.27 million more happy customers.
“The customer experience increased dramatically. You cannot measure that in euros or dollars but it has an impact that management sees.”
Head of IT Standards, Insurance
2. Improvements in operations efficiency worth $66.6 million
One of the biggest benefits of process orchestration is to employee productivity and experiences. Effective automation saves employees time and makes key parts of their work easier, so they can focus on higher-value activities. Using Camunda, the organization was able to make life easier for its 60,000 employees, saving a huge amount in overall operational costs as teams were more productive.
“If you have the happy path, and [the process] runs through, then the [reduction in time to complete] is very high — from days to hours or even minutes if everything is fine. It’s pretty impressive.”
Head of IT Standards, Insurance.
3. Process development efficiencies yielding 20,000 development hours saved
For automation to be successful, processes must not simply be created but maintained and improved. Using Camunda, the composite organization gained the flexibility to change processes about twice as quickly as they could with other solutions. The result was over 20,000 hours of development saved, and development costs actually falling over time as more processes were orchestrated with Camunda and business analysts were able to become more involved. This has a huge overall impact, with quantified process development efficiencies worth $615,000 (though the study notes that the attributed benefit here does not capture all of value, as the business impacts of process agility are not quantified by this study).
“Firstly, Camunda uses open technology so we don’t really have a bottleneck in terms of specialty [skills]. Secondly, we can let the business own the business processes.”
Senior Manager, Finance.
4. Improvements in process quality that save $15 million
Process quality matters for all organizations, but for a global company in a highly regulated industry like the composite organization, it’s critical. Automation reduces these errors, and the elimination of the manual effort involved in implementing fixes (not to mention the avoidance of regulatory fines) yielded a savings of $15 million to the company.
“Doing it this way [with Camunda] enables us to do it at scale. Whereas, before, when the process was manual, we lost out on opportunities because we just couldn’t cope with the volume.”
IT Manager, Real Estate
Unquantified benefits of Camunda
Forrester also pointed out several benefits of Camunda that notably impacted the organization, though it did not specifically quantify them in this study.
Improved collaboration between IT and business stakeholders
A common problem in many large organizations is a disconnect between IT and business leaders, which can result in inefficient silos of automation and technical debt. Camunda uses the open BPMN standard and intuitive visual modeling tools, which together improve collaboration and empower business stakeholders to contribute to process development.
“Camunda makes it very easy for engineers to collaborate with business users and [vice versa] because they are now both talking in the same language.”
Enterprise Architect, Technology.
Improved visibility into processes
For complex processes that touch a wide range of people, systems, and endpoints, many automation solutions struggle to provide a complete end-to-end view. The organization orchestrated its most complex processes with Camunda, allowing them to gain this holistic viewpoint, gather analytics about process performance, and improve them over time.
“Everyone can participate when they see visual communication methods… [With Camunda] you don’t have to describe what you want. You can show what you want and then communication from that point becomes a lot easier.”
IT Manager, Real Estate
The ROI of Camunda for You
The TEI study clearly demonstrates the value of Camunda for the composite organization, including a 408% ROI and $112.1 million in net value created. But you don’t need to rely on these numbers to gain an understanding of the potential ROI for your own company. This comprehensive study is dynamic, allowing you to fill in your own details and immediately receive customized results. Try it out for yourself.
The study also includes a wealth of information around the drivers that led the individual organizations to Camunda, quantified data of the benefits, and detailed financial metrics. Get your copy of the customizable study today for free.
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