In an enlightening presentation (available on-demand) at CamundaCon Berlin, 2024, Rob Parker, head of architecture and engineering at Australian asset finance company Angle Finance, spoke about their process orchestration story. He discussed the reasons behind their automation squad creation, their transformative journey, the power of embracing a low-code approach, and the significant return on investment they experienced through adopting Camunda.
The emergence of low-code and Angle Finance’s leap into automation
Parker opened his presentation with a highly compelling fact:
“Gartner predicts by 2025, 70% of enterprise application development will be done on low-code platforms.”
Gartner’s prediction is a testament to the growing trend toward simplifying the development process and enabling faster time-to-market for business solutions. Angle Finance recognized the potential in this trend and decided to leverage low-code to reduce delivery time, improve operations, and maintain investments in existing applications.
Who is Angle Finance?
Angle Finance specializes in asset finance, distributing products through a broker network to their business customers. The company operates with a business-to-business-to-customer model and manages nearly $2 billion in loans.
Their commitment to innovation and efficiency has led them to explore how automation and orchestration can be leveraged to modernize and revolutionize their business operations.
A quantifiable success
Angle Finance achieved remarkable results in the first quarter of its process orchestration journey, processing thousands of customer service requests, notifications, marketing campaigns, and partner reports.
Parker highlighted the impact: “Thousands of notifications, thousands of email notifications, thousands of SMSs, 4,000 customer service requests, processed via automation.” This shows the high volume of orchestrated tasks, plus highlights a fourfold increase expected over the year.
The low-code platform: Camunda SaaS
The company’s choice of technology was pivotal. They chose Camunda SaaS for its low-code, out-of-the-box capability. Parker explained, “We did it with low code, we did it with SaaS, we did it with out-of-the-box Camunda.”
This approach allowed Angle Finance to use Camunda’s Tasklist, Modeler, Operate, and Zeebe engine as-is, without custom modifications, which significantly expedited their process orchestration implementation.
Parker talks more about his experience with Camunda in his behind-the-scenes interview from CamundaCon, Berlin.
Why orchestration, and what were the benefits?
Before automation, tasks at Angle Finance were performed manually, involving repetitive and time-consuming swivel chair integration—constantly switching between applications.
Automation uses software to perform a single task without human intervention and across multiple systems. Automation needs orchestration to ensure multiple automated tasks work together to create a dynamic workflow.
The need for more timely notifications and the labor-intensive processes posed barriers to scaling the business. Automation and orchestration provided tangible savings in staff labor, with one regular customer service activity’s processing time reduced from 20 minutes to just 1-2 minutes.
Beyond labor savings, Angle Finance experienced other benefits, such as increased agility and improved analytics. “We got a lot more agility,” Parker noted, going on to explain how the business could now adjust the frequency of notifications and capitalize on insights from Camunda process analytics, such as duration and frequency of tasks.
Surviving SaaS in a low-code environment
According to Parker, there were three key elements to Angle Finance’s successful navigation in a low-code SaaS environment:
- Establishing conventions and standards
- Effectively using Connectors
- Having a composable architecture
This approach ensured good governance, facilitated the integration of process models with existing applications, and allowed for orchestration across rich sets of APIs.
Standards and conventions: The backbone of governance
Parker emphasizes the importance of establishing standards for process models, variables, and version control to compensate for the need for more sophisticated tooling.
“Conventions and standards enabled good governance,” he stated, which became crucial for maintaining control over the development and deployment processes. For instance, Angle Finance introduced naming conventions for processes to differentiate between interactive, batch, and subprocesses, significantly improving staff experience and reducing confusion.
Connectors: The heroes of low-code
Connectors played a pivotal role in Angle Finance’s automation strategy. As proxy task workers, they mediated between the process models and the existing applications, handling the bulk of the workload and facilitating integration with other systems.
“Connectors are your key to low code,” Parker explained, as they enabled the automation of tasks without requiring extensive code.
However, he also discussed a small challenge with Connectors regarding environment management, as they required careful handling to prevent test data from leaking into the production environment.
Composable architecture: The pathway to orchestration
A composable architecture with a rich set of APIs was essential for Angle Finance’s success. The ability to orchestrate across these services allowed for the creation of more flexible and scalable solutions. Parker goes on to discuss how Angle Finance wrapped existing APIs and created environment-specific utility subprocesses that separated test and production environments.
With the expansion of automation, operational errors inevitably increased due to the higher volume of business activity. Angle Finance implemented a feature request to add HMAC authentication to webhooks, improving the management of operational errors and incidents.
This proactive approach to error management ensured that incidents could be handled more efficiently and securely.
The Angle Finance story
Angle Finance’s journey with Camunda’s low-code approach demonstrates the significant return on investment that orchestration can provide. The reduction in manual processing time, increased agility, and improved analytics are just a few examples of the tangible benefits that the company experienced.
Angle Finance could scale its operations and achieve a robust automated system that catered to its growing business needs through careful planning, adherence to standards, and the effective use of connectors and composable architecture.
Parker’s experience with Angle Finance offers valuable insights for companies considering automation and low-code platforms.
“To be successful with SaaS low-code, you need to keep that engineering mindset,” he advises, highlighting that governance and right-sized business services are critical components for a successful transition to a properly orchestrated, low-code environment.
Angle Finance’s automation squad, with the help of Camunda, has set a precedent for how businesses can leverage low-code solutions to drive efficiency and scalability. As more enterprises follow suit, the landscape of business process management and automation will continue to evolve, paving the way for a more dynamic and responsive business environment.
Well worth watching, Angle Finance’s story is a testament to the power of low-code automation and the strategic advantages it can bring to businesses ready to embrace change and innovation.
With careful planning, a focus on standards, and the right tools, companies can unlock the potential of automation to streamline operations and achieve new levels of efficiency and growth.
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