What is SAP Signavio?

Companies need to continuously design, evaluate, improve and transform business processes to survive in dynamic markets. SAP Signavio helps them with this task. What's behind it?

What is behind SAP Signavio?

SAP Signavio is a software suite to design, analyze and improve business processes and to manage process changes. In addition, the solution makes it possible to monitor the success of process adjustments in the long term.

Signavio has been part of the SAP portfolio since 2021. SAP acquired the Potsdam-based software manufacturer of the same name Signavio in March 2021. The background to the transaction was SAP's goal of providing companies with even better support for the holistic transformation of their business processes.

To this end, Signavio now complements SAP's Business Process Intelligence business unit and the RISE with SAP transformation solution. The result is a holistic suite of flexible solutions that enable companies to achieve end-to-end process transformation.

What is SAP Signavio used for?

At its core, SAP Signavio is used to generate deep insights into all of a company's business processes. With this knowledge, it is then possible to understand processes in detail, to examine them, to present them clearly and to improve them. The idea behind this is that only those who know exactly how their processes work can optimize them.

Accordingly, SAP Signavio provides investigative dashboards, benchmarks, process KPIs and several other analytics to analyze processes in their details and monitor them continuously. The integrated process mining approach (a method for process analysis and visualization) also helps companies track the progress of their current business processes and share the results with the team.

Specifically, SAP Signavio is used for the following use cases, for example:

  • Continuous process optimization and operational excellence
  • ERP Transformation
  • Business Transformation
  • Risk and control management
  • Process compliance and governance
  • Organization-wide process management
  • Process analysis
  • Process modeling
  • Customer journey analysis and optimization

For whom is SAP Signavio suitable?

SAP Signavio is suitable for all companies that use an SAP ERP system such as SAP ECC or SAP S/4HANA and want to modernize their Business Process Management (BPM). The goal of this modernization is usually to make business processes more flexible, resilient, efficient, transparent and cost-saving.

To achieve this, it is necessary to identify and eliminate incomplete processes, divergent procedures, data silos and communication gaps. The SAP Signavio Business Transformation Suite provides all the tools required for this. These tools enable business process management to be data-driven, holistic and collaborative.

Furthermore, SAP Signavio addresses companies that need support for a transformation project. This is because there are some helpful functions available in the portfolio that simplify, for example, an SAP S/4HANA conversion or cloud transformation (with RISE with SAP).

How does SAP Signavio work?

In großen SAP-ERP-Lösungen wie SAP S/4HANA bilden Unternehmen unzählige Prozesse ab. Da sich Geschäftsanforderungen jedoch laufend ändern, müssen die Unternehmen ihre Prozesse stetig überprüfen und anpassen.

Das Signavio-Process-Mining durchsucht alle prozessrelevanten Systeme im Unternehmen. Dabei erkennt es, welche Geschäftsprozesse veraltet, ineffizient oder gar obsolet sind. Die Ergebnisse stellt Signavio in Echtzeit bereit.

Anschauliche Visualisierungen verdeutlichen dabei, in welchen Varianten Prozesse derzeit auftreten und worin sich diese Prozessvarianten unterscheiden. Zudem erfolgt ein automatischer Abgleich zwischen dem Ist- und Soll-Zustand der Abläufe. Somit ist es möglich, Abweichungen zu erkennen, genauer zu untersuchen und bei Bedarf abzustellen. Wichtig ist dies auch im Hinblick auf potenzielle Compliance-Risiken.

Which products does SAP Signavio include?

The Signavio product portfolio includes a number of powerful tools that can be flexibly combined. In sum, the solutions help to realign companies in a short time and to quickly implement changes at the process level. The most important products of the software suite are presented in more detail below:

1. SAP Signavio Process Insights

SAP Signavio Process Insights is a solution for collaborative process mining. The software enables teams to collect, manage and analyze process data in detail.

They can use data not only from the SAP system, but also (if required) from other sources. Thus, processes can be optimized across the boundaries of departments, data sources and systems.

SAP Signavio Process Insights can be connected to the existing system landscape within a few hours. Then all process data can be extracted, validated, analyzed and analyzed for improvement opportunities.

Integrated metrics help users to immediately identify more than 1,000 typical efficiency deficits and process problems. It is also possible to see where the need for optimization is particularly acute. This makes it easier to prioritize measures.

Furthermore, teams can use SAP Signavio Process Insights to investigate in great detail where possible causes for low process performance lie. This is made possible by drilling down to the level of individual documents.

The software also provides recommendations for process corrections. These can be master data corrections or configuration changes, for example.

2. SAP Signavio Process Intelligence

SAP Signavio Process Intelligence is also a process mining solution. However, it offers even more integration options than Process Insights and also has advanced process mining algorithms. The tool can be used to quickly extract and link online and offline data across different systems and system landscapes. This includes experience platforms such as e-commerce solutions.

SAP Signavio Process Intelligence provides companies with a complete view of process reality - including any existing problems and process variants. In addition, the solution is able to automatically transform existing variants into new process models. This way, best practices and changes can be quickly implemented into the process landscape.

Furthermore, SAP Signavio Process Intelligence offers the following features:

  • Verify process acceptance
  • Identify process conformance violations
  • Analyze process and experience reality in an integrated way
  • Generate descriptive process visualizations

3. SAP Signavio Process Manager

The SAP Signavio Process Manager is a tool for classical process design, process management and process visualization. On the one hand, the solution offers comprehensive possibilities for process modeling, on the other hand, it can be operated intuitively. This makes it equally suitable for process experts and business users without specific BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation) knowledge.

Various notations are available for modeling, including the industry standard BPMN (including BPMN 2.0). Modelers are supported in their work by a number of helpful functions and automatisms:

  • Simple drag-and-drop approach
  • Automatic positioning of elementsSuggestion list for improved modeling syntax
  • Suggestions for improving the usability and quality of process models
  • Real-time alerts for modeling violations
  • Industry best practices and standards
  • Automatic reporting on potential process risks and appropriate control options
  • Simulation of changes and their effects

4. SAP Signavio Pocess Collaboration Hub

The SAP Signavio Process Collaboration Hub secures the entire process knowledge of all employees (process landscape, documentation, analyses, key figures, etc.) in one central location.This central place also enables collaborative management of c

ompany processes. For example, diagrams can be published to inform about important process changes. This simplifies the coordination between process owners and other stakeholders.

  • The SAP Signavio Process Collaboration Hub also offers the following helpful features:
  • Visualize and share process-related information and key figures using a "navigation map
  • Share process landscape in overall view (presentation mode)
  • Create instructions for complex business processes
  • Define content for specific target groups (e.g. individual initial diagrams for different departments)
  • Search process information from the entire Signavio Suite intuitively
  • Display changes, feedback and comments

5. SAP Signavio Journey Modeler

The SAP Signavio Journey Modeler specifically targets customer-related processes. It provides companies with real-time insight along the entire customer journey. It combines customer experience and process mining in a unique way. This enables a change of perspective: the view of a company's interactions from the customer's point of view.

The resulting understanding of customer wishes and certain behavioral patterns can in turn be used by companies to improve or redesign customer-related business processes and thus continuously improve the customer experience. Incidentally, this can also be transferred to the "journey" of employees and suppliers.

What are the advantages of using SAP Signavio?

SAP Signavio offers a whole range of benefits. First and foremost, the software suite creates full information transparency on all important process-related issues. Thus, companies are able to improve their processes on the basis of well-founded data.

Furthermore, Signavio makes business process management much more agile. In this way, companies can adapt more quickly to changing conditions and accelerate their digital transformation.

The advantages of the SAP Signavio platform at a glance:

  • Rapid identification of optimization needs in the processes
  • Immediate problem solving
  • Significant improvement in process performance
  • Fact-based insights
  • Sound risk identification (reduction of compliance risks)
  • Connectivity between processes and data
  • Improved customer experience
  • Process transparency for employees ("single source of truth")
  • Optimized collaboration through collaboration features and standards
  • Industry best practices
  • Intuitive user interfaces
  • Mobile access thanks to cloud implementation

What are the differences between ARIS and Celonis?

In the area of business process management and process mining, SAP user companies have several solution alternatives. Two of SAP's main competitors in this area are ARIS and Celonis.

All three products function like a kind of "X-ray machine" for business processes and automatically uncover optimization potential. They also all have SAP integrations.

However, there are differences in some details: ARIS, for example, focuses more on classic management and the modeling of business processes. Celonis, on the other hand, is the market leader in process mining and has played a key role in shaping this approach. Unlike SAP, the provider also emphasizes its "Execution Management System" (EMS), which continuously analyzes end-to-end processes and uses artificial intelligence (AI) to check for weaknesses.

As far as user surveys are concerned, in direct comparisons between SAP Signavio and Celonis/ARIS, the following Signavio features are rated particularly positively:

  • Uncomplicated setup, fast introduction
  • Intuitive operation (even without specific IT and BPM knowledge)
  • High flexibility
  • Good collaboration features
  • Good price-performance ratio

What is offered in the SAP Signavio Community?

The (still young) SAP Signavio Community aims to connect Signavio users so that they can share their best practices, successes and also failures. This applies, for example, to the change management of process changes. Another big advantage of the SAP Signavio Community are the templates available there. They contain a uniform approach for business process transformation.

Furthermore, various learning contents are offered in the community. This includes, for example, a guideline with which users can assess where they currently stand in their transformation. There are also blog posts and know-how articles on topics such as change management and business process management (BPM).