PROCESS DISCOVERY AND ANALYSIS
Business process discovery and analysis
A finance team is sure their invoice process takes three days. The event logs say the median is nine, and a fifth of invoices loop back for rework nobody documented. This gap, between how a process is believed to run and how it actually runs, is where automation programs waste money. Process discovery and analysis closes that gap by reconstructing how work really flows from the digital traces it leaves, so you fix and automate the real process.
- The as-is process reconstructed from event logs, not memory
- Bottlenecks and rework loops ranked by their drag on cost and time
- A ranked candidate list of what to fix, automate, and leave alone
Workshops and flowcharts capture the happy path. The exceptions are where the money goes.
A map is what people remember. Discovery is what the data proves.
Flowcharts miss the exceptions, the rework loops, the handoffs that stall over a weekend, and the informal workarounds that keep things moving. Automate that idealized map and you get a bot that breaks on the first variant, or one that speeds up a step that was never the bottleneck. Discovery grounds the decision in evidence, and feeds it straight into RPA Strategy Consulting and the wider Intelligent Automation portfolio.
Fix the process first, and the automation gets cheaper and safer.
From the question that matters to a ranked list of what to do about it.
Frame the question
We agree which processes and outcomes matter: cycle time, cost, rework, compliance, or throughput, so analysis targets a decision, not a data dump.
Gather the evidence
We pull event logs from the systems that run the process, ERP, CRM, ticketing, workflow, and where logs are thin, add task capture or structured interviews.
Reconstruct the real flow
Mining rebuilds the as-is process from the logs, showing every path actually taken, not the one on the wall, with frequencies and timings.
Find the friction
We surface bottlenecks, rework loops, unnecessary variants, and conformance gaps where the process deviates from policy, then trace each to a root cause.
Rank the opportunities
Findings become a prioritized list of fixes and automation candidates, each scored on impact and feasibility, with judgment-heavy steps flagged for AI rather than rules.
A grounded view of where time, cost, and rework actually go.
- The as-is process, as it truly runs, with every variant and its frequency.
- Bottlenecks and wait states ranked by their drag on cycle time and cost.
- Rework and rejection loops that quietly inflate effort and lead time.
- Conformance gaps where execution drifts from the intended or compliant path.
- A ranked candidate list of what to fix, what to automate, and what to leave alone.
The benefit came from fixing the process, before a single bot was built.
Challenge: A [global enterprise client] planned to automate an order-to-cash process based on a documented flow that everyone trusted.
Approach: Event-log mining reconstructed the real process, exposing rework loops and a bottleneck no map showed.
Result: Automation was redirected to the actual constraint, and [XX%] of the projected benefit came from fixing the process first. (Softobiz to verify.)
The evidence base for the automation program.
Robotic Process Automation
The category this discovery work feeds with grounded, ranked candidates.
RPA Strategy and Consulting
Where the ranked opportunities become a sequenced automation roadmap.
Intelligent Process Mining
The continuous mining practice this analysis draws its techniques from.
Bot Development and Customization
Where confirmed, feasible candidates are turned into working automations.
Agentic AI
Where judgment-heavy steps are routed instead of forced onto rules-based bots.
Intelligent Automation
The wider portfolio this discovery work grounds in evidence.
What process owners ask us first.
No. Where system logs are sparse, we supplement with task capture and interviews. Even partial logs usually reveal variants and bottlenecks that mapping misses entirely.
No. A map is what people believe. Discovery reconstructs what actually happened from data, including the exceptions and loops that maps leave out.
A grounded view of the as-is process, ranked bottlenecks and root causes, and a prioritized list of fixes and automation candidates ready to feed a roadmap.
Let us mine the evidence and show you where the time, cost, and rework actually go.
A grounded view of the as-is process, ranked bottlenecks and root causes, and a prioritized list of fixes and automation candidates ready to feed a roadmap.