Future of Control | Process and Control Transformation: Process Mining and Streamlining

Process and Control Transformation is an important component of our vision for the Future of Control, which aims to leverage digitalized tools and technologies, such as process mining, to gain insight into existing processes and controls and assist in their transformation.

The advent of digitization has accelerated the innovation of information technology in enterprises, with more and more enterprises implementing intelligent digital tools as part of their transformation. Due to the assistance of new technology, process mining and streamlining can help to improve corporate governance and resource allocation, and solve the following pain points:

• Difficulty in having an objective, fair, and comprehensive understanding of the vast amount of business data stored in information systems
• Poor data quality and limited real-time monitoring of the control environment
• Lack of root cause analysis and difficulty in identifying potential risks
  
• Lack of process updates, inability to restructure redundant and inefficient processes and to adjust enterprise resource allocation in time

This article will provide a quick overview of Deloitte's Process Mining and Streamlining services to help you understand our services and the value we can bring to your organization.

1. Service Profile

Process Mining & Streamlining to facilitate enterprise process and control transformation

Deloitte Process Mining and Streamlining Service is a set of business-oriented solutions that focus on risk monitoring, process analysis and control transformation.

• Process mining: Leverage system data to demonstrate the nature of business process and provide visual presentation
• Root cause analysis: Conduct root cause analysis of issues based on methodology and practical experience of Deloitte to identify control gaps and process redundancy
• Streamlining: Assist enterprises to identify the starting point of control automation and process standardization, to reasonably restructure ineffective and redundant processes, and to improve enterprise resource allocation
  
  

Deloitte's process and control transformation service is more than just a snapshot of how business processes are executed. It shows enterprises how to optimize processes, improve system security and enhance internal controls. The digital transformation of processes and controls reveal the essence of system-based processes, enabling enterprises to trace problems in business management and take actions based on facts. The three core goals of the process and control transformation are: increased transparency, smarter insights, and enabling process optimization.

• Process Mining

Deloitte Process Mining utilizes system data to achieve end-to-end transparency of key business processes, to drive quantification of complex issues, to provide visual presentation of business processes, and to help business analysts and internal control teams identify potential business risks. The service of process mining is based on the rich theoretical research and practice of Deloitte in the areas of governance, risk and compliance, and the service adopts industry-leading data analysis model and technology to monitor business operations in real time. The main contents include business risk identification, risk early warning, root cause tracing, and simulation analysis. Incorporation with the built-in concept of zero-trust security, sensitive data assets are continuously monitored, analyzed and perceived to achieve security automation and choreography. As shown in the use case below, process mining can effectively identify risks in the Procure to Pay (P2P) process.

• Root Cause Analysis

For each potential business risk identified, Deloitte Process Mining can apply big data and artificial intelligence technology to carry out multi-dimensional drilling analysis, find out the root causes of risk and put forward optimization suggestions. For example, process mining can focus on analyzing the corresponding invoice information, suppliers, business departments and users that may lead to the occurrence of prepayment risk, and explore the business risk events such as poor process design or fraud.

• Streamlining

Deloitte assists enterprises to identify the redundant controls in existing processes, analyze the volume of automated control activities, and look for the starting point of control automation and process standardization on the premise of fully understanding the allocation of enterprise resources, so that enterprises can further reasonably adjust the control process and allocate resources. Deloitte Streamlining methodology aims to improve efficiency, reduce cost and control risks as the ultimate goal. It aims to meet service expectations with appropriate business control, to help enterprises reduce resource consumption and gain cost advantages by shortening business processing time, and finally to reduce operational risks through appropriate control design.

2. Use Case

Taking a procurement process and control transformation project as an example, during the implementation of this project, we relied on Deloitte's process mining and streamlining solutions to provide the client with the following core services:

1. First of all, through the extraction of key information, we provided the client with a visualization of the P2P process.

2. Locating and tracing the root causes of abnormal transactions

Through combining the analysis of procurement requisition, procurement contracting, payment requisition and other process data, we identified several business process risks including contract risks:

• Procurement needed too many operational buyers due to the lack of automation and high effort for manual rework in the process
• Internal clients were unsatisfied with the service levels for purchase order management – leading to procurement receiving low acceptance as a business partner
• Process disruptions caused by late deliveries and high effort to fire fight new issues
• Payments were too late which lowered purchasing market position and did not attract suppliers to compete for contracts

3. Process re-engineering and control optimization design

By identifying the root cause of the risks, we put forward effective suggestions, including improving control automation, strengthening preventative control and process monitoring, and improving process transparency.

The following diagram provides a visual representation of the procurement process that was analyzed:

Overall

Through process and control transformation, enterprises can effectively improve the level of continuous risk monitoring and automated control of the organization, and continuously monitor the related processes of accounting and financial reporting, risk assessment and internal control system, to achieve full life cycle management of enterprise risks.