Meet the Best New Celonis Alternative

With Celonis you can mine detailed process data from your ERP or CRM. But if you want end-to-end process intelligence across all your business applications without data integration hassle Workfellow is your best alternative to Celonis.

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About Celonis

Celonis is a process mining and intelligent automation platform that allows companies to improve business processes through a platform called the “Execution Management System” (EMS). It does this by giving users visibility and insights into the performance of their processes through extracting and analyzing event logs from different data sources, for example, ERP or CMS systems. Celonis EMS also allows users to identify bottlenecks, discover inefficiencies, and optimize processes. 

Celonis was one of the first commercially available process mining software solutions and is today a recognized market leader in the category. Since 2011 the company has grown rapidly and now has a market valuation over $13 billion. Celonis has over 1000 customers, mostly in North America and Europe.

Key features of Celonis

• Enterprise focus: Celonis provides a deep level of service, security and process data management for the needs of large enterprise organizations.
• Event log extraction: Celonis have a large customer base and broad experience in extracting event logs from different source systems, especially popular  ERPs such as SAP and Oracle.
• Wide partner network: Celonis has over 170 partner agencies that provide implementation consulting services.

Why look for a Celonis alternative?

Celonis is a clear market leader in process mining. In what cases would you look for an alternative?

• When you do not have access to standardized event logs across your key tasks, processes or IT systems.
• When the implementation time and cost of Celonis is significantly higher based on the complexity of your use cases.
• When you have blind-spots in process coverage, for example, in complex knowledge work such as business operations.
• When you don't have the extensive resources to scale up data science and process mining resources within your organization.
• When you are looking for a simple, GDPR-free solution for task capture and process discovery.

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About Workfellow

Workfellow is the first commercially available object-centric task mining solution combining task and process insights into one platform.

What Workfellow customers say

Workfellow has customers across different industries from logistics to consumer goods, and especially knowledge-intensive work including banking, financial services and insurance.

Key features of Workfellow

• Effortless implementation: Workfellow does not require access to event logs, instead it generates event logs automatically through a method called Work API.
• 360 degree process and task analysis: Through Work API Workfellow is able to track tasks and process flows across different business apps, allowing for end-to-end analysis of workflows across both processes and tasks.
• Automated insights: Workfellow includes ready-made dashboards and provides automated insights within it’s analytics.
• Privacy first: Workfellow is a GDPR-free solution that does not process personally identifiable data.

Celonis vs Workfellow Process Intelligence Comparison

When comparing Celonis and  Workfellow process intelligence functionality, it is important to consider the different aspects of each tool. Here we look at four key criteria: data integrations, data visualizations, automation capabilities, and pricing.

Data Integrations and Extractions

One key element of any process mining solution is the ability to extract process data from different business applications. Most process mining tools depend on extracting and loading event logs from different source systems for process analysis, but different solution providers have their own approaches to data ingestion.

Celonis Connectors

Once fully set up Celonis is able to extract large amounts of data quickly and accurately through different methods. Celonis offers automated integration solutions to widely used ERP systems, such as SAP, a configurable self-service data extractor and the ability to upload process data files, such as .xlsx or .xes. However, the major drawback of Celonis integrations is that every source system needs to be integrated separately, and overall, the management of different types of connections may require significant resources and data engineering skills to set up.

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Workfellow Connectors

Workfellow uses plug-and-play data capture functionality that can capture relevant business objects from any business application without the need to integrate and mine event logs. The major advantage of this approach is that it is up to 10x faster than conventional process mining. Most Workfellow customers are able to gather actionable insights within 30 days with effortless implementation without the need for extensive data engineering resources. 

Visualization Capabilities

Another key feature of process mining tools is the ability to visualize key processes and draw insights from actionable process analytics. In this regard, different solutions look similar on the surface but major differences come in the details.

Celonis Process Visualizations

Celonis provides a broad range of ready-made charts and views, including OLAP tables, column charts, pie charts, scatter plots and donut charts. Dashboards within Celonis can be configured using a visual editor and adjusted with a code editor. Celonis provides many of the process mining visualizations including process variations and task analysis.

Workfellow Process Visualizations

Workfellow provides advanced and configurable process and task visualization options. In addition to process and task visualizations Workfellow gives unrivalled granularity into the cost and time of complex workflows across different business applications.  

Process Automation Capabilities

A third key element of process mining solutions is to enable enterprise automation. Most process mining solutions offer process discovery functionality that highlight opportunities to automate key processes or tasks. 

Celonis Automation Capabilities

With regards to automation, Celonis offers a range of advanced automation features, claiming it can perform up to 5000 automation tasks per hour. Over 500 different automation solutions and bots can be found in the Celonis EMS store, with native integrations especially to SAP and Oracle ERPs.

Workfellow Automation Capabilities

Workfellow is the first process intelligence tool that includes automated insights on types and costs of work, including throughput time, cost of work, quality and team resourcing. It provides automated recommendations of where business processes can be automated and the estimated impact automation can bring. In addition, Workfellow can be used to track the impact of automation projects on key performance indicators.

Pricing

Most process mining solutions are offered on a Software-as-a-Service basis where pricing is depending on the complexity of needs of the client. The pricing mentioned below is only indicative and in most cases the pricing will vary depending on the level of integration, implementation and training support needed.

Celonis Pricing

Celonis offers various pricing options from a free-to-try Celonis EMS plan to enterprise-level subscriptions. For small and medium sized businesses prices start from $90,000 for a 3 year contract. Source: Amazon AWS Marketplace.

Workfellow Pricing

Workfellow is offered on a simple Software-as-a-Service basis where you only pay for the amount of workstations connected to Work API. Typically the cost of ownership for clients has been up to 3x lower than the well-known alternative. For more information on pricing, contact us.

Total Cost of Ownership Comparison

Although the initial license fees might be pretty much on par, traditional process mining tools require heavy investments, e.g., internal resources, integrations, training, maintenance & support. 

For many knowledge-intensive enterprise organizations the cost of process mining data integration can scale up significantly if decisions are made to integrate each source system. Workfellow's cost does not scale up based on integrations, so you are able to track work across most modern business applications cost-effectively.

With the Workfellow licenses you get both process and task-level transparency. The total cost of ownership over the years ends up being significantly cheaper with Workfellow.

The case for using both Celonis and Workfellow

While Workfellow is a great alternative to Celonis, is there a case for using both software solutions? Absolutely.

In the context of an intelligent automations strategy the two solutions offer complimentary features in OpEx operational excellence. Today's operations and IT leadership are increasingly taking an intelligence & automation stack perspective where both options fit into a broader enterprise data architecture.

Celonis is a market leader in data mining process data from the system layer. It offers unrivalled depth to the amount of process data mined from ERP and CRM systems and can offer valuable business insights from IT systems and logs.

Workfellow is the category leader for uncovering and using insights from the work data layer. Workfellow provides faster and broader task and process for functions such as business operations or customer services where much of the work happens across different data systems and business apps outside of the core system data foundation.

Celonis vs. Workfellow Summary

In conclusion, both Celonis and Workfellow are powerful process intelligence tools. Celonis offers enterprise-level event log mining and configurable visualization capabilities, while Workfellow offers effortless implementation and a hybrid process and task mining solution. Depending on the needs of the company, either one of these tools can be a great option.

Who should use Celonis?

Celonis can be ideal for a large enterprise with in-house data science resources with most of their workflows and processes within a single ERP system, such as SAP. Celonis is well suited for businesses with complex logistics, process or production focus, for example manufacturing or ecommerce fulfillments.

Who should use Workfellow?

Workfellow is a good option for any organization that doesn’t have extensive data science and process mining resources in-house looking for an effortless and fast way to gain process intelligence without data mining hassle. Workfellow is ideally suited for business operations, for example, in BFSI or digitalized service-based industries.

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If you’re open to new and disruptive approaches to process intelligence- consider requesting a demo of Workfellow.

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