SAP Signavio Process Manager Reviews

I utilize it to relook at our ITSM processes to readdress and rebalance them because we've realized we have different processes for different customers we support.

Therefore, Signavio is a great place to start to identify those processes. And then, try and figure out things from these different variants. 

Many processes might have the same initial steps, but later on might have different steps. Signavio helps us identify the differences and figure out - even though the process name and first five steps might be the same, steps six, seven, and eight could be different variants.

We use it for our support process, ITSM stack. It includes chain incidents and so on. The most complex process we discovered is how T-Systems manages change requests for different customers. We have about 550 customers, almost all with different change processes, which is understandable because sometimes you need to tie into the customer's system. 

However, having 550 different variations of the same change process doesn't make sense. We're trying to rationalize it so that 80% of the process is harmonized, and the remaining 20% is unique to each customer. That's something we can live with; 550 completely different processes are not. So, that's something we recently discovered.

It has definitely reduced the time we take to do analytics or business processes. It's a great product to use.

Moreover, the collaboration hub in SAP enhances stakeholder engagement in our processes. 

We've also used another product, a third-party product called ARIS. ARIS, and in one point of time, used to be commended by SAP until they decided to build their own capability in their own product suite.

So having that visual representation of the process being able to let the stakeholders look at what that process does, how it could impact something, and also model a change and see the impact of that change is invaluable.

It's not just SAP. But if you have a tool like ARIS, then it could be JDE, it could be EBS, it could be Dynamics, it could be anything. The target system doesn't matter then.

But to be able to collaborate and make decisions. Because the faster you can close down a business process, the faster that value chain can go live for a company.

We build up process management in the company. We started with the process landscape and are now doing a transformation.

I like the Collaboration Hub functions and the Process Manager's adjustability. It's easy and specific.

For the collaboration functions, we use the commenting and quick model functions for process owners who don't have specific knowledge about Process Manager. It's easy for them to do revisions with the quick model, and we also use the comment function on the diagrams.

The primary use case of this solution is to raise process maturity in this UK government agency. The organisation is a 'trading fund' which has both publicly funded and commercial produces and services.

We began, in 2016, with a very low level of process maturity. Some inconsistent and non-standard policies and procedures had been published on the corporate intranet. There were no BPMN 2.0 workflow models or process architecture to any industry-standard; mainly models produced in Microsoft Visio or PowerPoint.

We needed to raise awareness of the value of effective business process management, document processes consistently and promote process performance management across the process governance roles prior to moving into process improvement and automation.

One if the biggest drivers for this was our ISO 9001:2015 certification which is a contractual requirement for some of our biggest customers.

So we are looking for the solution to help raise our process maturity from a zero base through: awareness of the value of process management, understanding what we do and proactive performance management of cross-functional processes - to help break the silos and shine a light on the pockets of activity that are not aligned with business strategy.

We didn't want a solution that produced a static diagram such as is produced by Visio, we didn't want process models to be something that sat on a shelf and were never looked at. With this solution, the models are living: stakeholders can go to them for reference or comment. The whole process architecture can be navigated by drilling-down or following lateral links. Documentation and custom fields can be linked with and displayed in the models.

We are still on a journey with the adoption, but we have some users outside of the core team in functional areas that we have trained to be modelers and they are happily using it.

Signavio has also awoken the organization to the reality of cloud adoption and the deployment of managed SaaS solutions.

An example of how this solution has improved our organization is the modeling of baseline and target processes and architecture for our HR department.  HR are implementing a new IT application (Ciphr). We approached the project with the recommendation to model their baseline processes prior to looking for an IT solution. This enabled them to do 3 key things:

1. Have a legitimate cost and resource baseline for benefits tracking

2. Enable the identification of 'change impacts' on functions, roles, processes, and other process model elements.

3. Provide a basis for 'what if' simulation of target models prior to deployment. 

When the IT vendor arrived to run configuration workshops, HR had the majority of the information they required at their fingertips. This made it easier than it would have been otherwise and now HR recognizes the benefits of using this approach.

Although it was difficult to convince them upfront of the benefits,  HR are advocates for this approach and the Signavio solution.

I would say that this solution gives everyone in our organization everything that they need to effectively manage their processes.

It has helped us introduce process thinking and most people have embraced it. I think that it will help the careers of managers because they can now visualize and understand their processes and how they link upstream and downstream. 

We are using it in a mixture, actually. We have got our business-as-usual business analysis activities and we are getting our business analyst to model the processes that they would normally draw up in their day-to-day activity. Instead of doing it in Visio, we are asking them to do it in Signavio to get the depth of the information that we actually need for the process plans.

Things like attributes, the full details of the task descriptions, the full roles and all that is recorded and then filed centrally. What we are also doing is we are trying to expand our scope. This has been a project for us and what we are trying to do is develop it into a product so that we have got backing. We can then go out to different business areas and ask them about some of their processes. We will help them with the challenging parts of the processes. Like we will draw out the plans for them, show them what it looks like and what we can do for them. During that, we would identify pain points and again it is all kept centrally. Then we can feed that back to them. So those are our two main use cases.

For me, one of the main improvements in our organization has been the removal of duplication. We have business analysts across the organization and the business areas that are the ones that are generating the activity. So it is either in a product environment or it is an enterprise technology environment. What we have been able to do through the tool is to identify where business analysts are working on two different things and potentially they can link up efforts. So deduplication for us is one of the main areas things have improved.

There are plenty of use cases. One of the key things that we're trying to understand is related to the fact that a lot of our teams are working in different methods. Especially being in a global layer of the company, we're trying to see how similar teams from different geographies are working, in order to find a synergy or find the best way to learn from each other. That's why we've taken on Signavio to do our business process mapping.

We work a lot with offshore delivery models and Signavio has helped us bring their processes and our processes in line so that we know exactly where the hand-offs are and who is responsible for what. In some cases, we have improved the process by shifting this responsibility.

That's one of the real examples that we've done. We've been able to look at the whole picture and understand the responsibilities of each team, whether you're in the US, UK, or India. Then we can understand how to change responsibilities in order to make better use of a process. It's been done on the go, which is really good for us and it's been really valuable.

I think the entire process has improved the life cycle by being in a unified hub. We are still in our infancy of using Signavio. Already, there's been a lot of improvement with people contributing or giving input towards these processes, which means it's working already. The next step for us is to use this as a launchpad to start really managing and improving our processes in real-time. I'm hoping to get there within the next year.

The solution's functionality gives everyone in our organization, from process experts to end users, what they need. There are a lot of times that we talk to the business owner, as we have a lot of client-facing teams. Signavio has enabled us to speak to them directly. In other cases, we wouldn't really talk to them about processes, whereas here, because they can access their process with a click of a link, it makes it easier to comment and say, "Actually, we don't work this way anymore." That sort of feedback helps us to immediately look at it, take in all of its implications, and then change the way we work, so we can still be an enabler rather than an obstruction to their work as well. In the end, their work is what brings revenue to our company too, and we just have to be there to do everything for them.

Signavio improves our employees' work-based functions. It just becomes a little clearer who does what. When you can see it on a piece of paper on the wall somewhere, in a very consistent format, as the process manager allows you too, it gives everybody the sense that they know what they are responsible for. It just clears what you have to do so you can focus.

The collaborative features definitely help create a process-centered mindset in our organization. Every process that we have, there are at least six people talking about it at the same time, which is much better than just one person trying to shove something down somebody else's throat. That's a really good thing. Collaboration works towards that.

I use SAP Signavio Process Manager to model processes to the former operating model.

SAP Signavio Process Manager can be a little bit clunky. The solution’s pricing could be improved.

In my case, representing the procurement department, we use it now for process mapping of all procurement processes, such as source to contract, procure to pay, and supplier management. First, we map and analyze the current process, then we determinate situations that can be optimized or improved based on our process mapping.

We knew we needed to invest in Signavio because we are a large company with around 15,000 employees and multiple departments. It was impossible to have an overview of all the processes that we have, including processes that are linked to each other and that we might have in Excel, Word, or PowerPoint. How do you bring all of these together to identify possible redundant or contradictory processes? Putting everything into one solution gives us the efficiency of mapping everything and knowing where we might need to focus to make it easier, faster, and leaner for everyone.

In terms of how Signavio has improved our organization, take our supplier onboarding process, to name one concrete example. In the past it took around 18 steps, so we mapped them in scenarios to identify double work, reworks, and things that took much more time than they should. Today, if I look at the new process thanks to Signavio, we were able to reduce it from 18 steps to six, so you can imagine the amount of effort reduced, in terms of people touching the process and time touching the process. This is an example of how we use Signavio to reduce process cycle times.

The solution enables us to carry out the entire process improvement life cycle in a unified hub, because we have all the processes mapped so we can check at the lowest level of detail. We do not only see the process overview but even the activity or task level.

I think the solution's functionality provides everyone in our organization what they need. I am not a superuser, but more of a standard user. For the requirements we have today, at least in my team, we are covered.

I do not use the process intelligence function personally, but my team uses it. Of course, it has affected the way we approach business transformation. We use Signavio to map our processes and identify bottlenecks, double work, and reworks. We eliminate those and make the transformation from a bureaucratic process to a user and customer-friendly process. We don't use it on a daily basis, but we do use it on a regular basis to identify these issues.

The process intelligence has also provided insights into how our organization is actually operating. One example could be that by identifying our processes, we can identify how we organize our team. If you optimize certain processes, you might need fewer resources and you can allocate those resources in areas of the process where you might need more support.

Signavio enabled us to identify a few processes that could be improved. We removed a bottleneck by mapping the process and using the intelligence module, in order to identify where it was redundant. We then removed parts of the process to make it leaner. Another example is on the compliance side, where Signavio helped us identify that we did not check all checkpoints in the process so we could be leaner and even more compliant.

The solution has improved employees' workday functions. By reducing bottlenecks, reworks, mistakes, and unnecessary activities, employees can focus on adding more value activities and eliminating or at least reducing non-value-added activities.

The collaborative features helped our team create a process-centric mindset because there's no process in any company that is not cross-functional. Every process touches another function. Taking the same example of supplier onboarding, it enforced the collaboration between accounting and procurement, minimized the effort, and therefore made the collaboration even smoother because you don't fight about bottlenecks on the reworks. You have one lean process from both sides.

We primarily use SAP Signavio Process Manager to document processes, especially in the banking sector. Many sectors use it more heavily due to ISO and CMMI-related procedures. The processes need to be kept for collaboration, publishing, and other related activities. 

We are a partner with SAP, and I am a product manager for the process. I use the product as an end user and also sell it to customers.

The collaboration features have been very effective in eliminating a lot of wasted time between calls, sending emails, and reminders. With everything in one place, it provides transparency and accessibility to new procedures and updates.