A Comprehensive Insight On The Competence OF Process Mining And Process Discovery

What is the process?

The process is an effective sequential execution of a set of actions or steps. A process begins from a defined ‘start’ and ends at a defined ‘finish’. The purpose of a process is to maintain a well-established flow of events to complete a task efficiently and accurately.

Common business process services include Purchase to Pay (P2P), Order to Cash (O2C), and customer service. Nearly every company inculcates these business process services in their business in one form or another.

Why Should a Process Be Efficient?

According to research, many companies not only lose market revenue by a huge margin but also lose potential business due to weak processes or weak process management. Various processes are carried out to complete a task or an operation.

These processes are assigned to various departments in the organization. So, we can think of these possibilities of variables. The respective departments are responsible for their assigned process and they must complete their tasks accurately and efficiently.

It is in a rare case that the entire number of processes is the responsibility of a single person or department. Hence, for an efficient outcome, efficient process design is a must.

This emphasizes the importance of business process management to make sure that these tasks are carried out with agility.

What is Process Mining?

Process mining can be defined as a set of methods that deal with process management.

It can be involved with business process analysis through subscriptions and event logs. The term process mining originates from the concept of data mining. The outcome of process mining is a detailed analysis and insights on various processes to answer questions related to these processes.

During process mining, this technique uses data mining algorithms to identify new patterns of trends and other detailed information. It helps in better understanding of the business flow. Process mining can be used across sectors and industries.

Process mining tools are largely deployed by businesses in the following cases:

1. Where process optimization is a necessity.
2. To create or provide certain specifications for an existing process.
3. Need to create harmony between individual processes.
4. Need to forecast predictions regarding various processes

What is Process Discovery?

Process discovery, also known as business process discovery, is a collection of tools and techniques used to define and analyze the existing processes of a business. 

This analysis provides a baseline for process improvements and identifies problematic areas to be addressed by business process management.

Business process discovery can be used in different cases such as:

1. Identify new Robotic Process Automation opportunities for automating repetitive or redundant processes.
2. The requirement of digital transformation.
3. Reveal previously unknown processes for in-depth process mapping.
4. Gather new information about the process.

Why And How Is Process Mining Different From Process Discovery?

Both process mining and process discovery have unique factors and capabilities. Both are valuable for their apt requirements. However, there’s a difference between process mining and process discovery. Listed are some of the differences, that set the two apart:

1. Process discovery software captures the slightest discrepancies and nuances of the user interaction with the system. Whereas, process mining ignores these.
2. Process mining can only work on logs, APIs, and databases. So, the work done by systems like Excel, or any other tool that does not produce logs, is unidentifiable and invisible to process mining tools. Whereas, process discovery does not work on logs. It uses an AI-based approach that does not require integration into the system.
3. Virtual desktop environments and legacy applications are unreachable by process mining tools, unlike process discovery. 
4. Process mining does not capture the details of interactions by the user with the system. This in turn stops the automatic creation of RPA (Robotic Process Automation) bots for this process. Whereas, business process discovery presents the user interactions as it is.
5. Business process discovery requires recorded user actions. Hence it requires an agent on the client’s side to do so. Whereas, Process mining does not require an agent.
6. Process discovery incorporates computer vision and machine intelligence. This reveals the invisible and dark processes in your digital enterprise. Process mining does not use these technologies.
7. When it comes to Robotic Process Automation, process discovery offers various advantages over process mining. Process discovery ensures real-time analysis and fast backup in case if any amendments are made.

Conclusion

Both process mining and process discovery play a crucial role in carrying out a process efficiently for any company. It is mostly dependent on business requirements to decide which of the two fits better with the organization. Both have their own set of features and functions.

There are numerous tools available nowadays. Process mining tools and process discovery tools have brought disruptive changes in the operational efficiency, created innovative ways to carry out operations. It has also removed obsolete processes and helped in revenue generation for businesses.