25:12The story of the Godfather of Process Mining w/Prof. Wil van der Aalst
In today's episode, it was my absolute pleasure and honor to host — the one and only — the Godfather of Process Mining. Prof.dr.ir. Wil van der Aalst is the Chief Scientist of Celonis and a full professor at RWTH Aachen University, leading the Process and Data Science (PADS) group. He coined the field of Process Mining, and his research interests include Process Mining, business process and workflow management, process modeling, and analysis. I, myself, took his course Process Mining: Data Science in Action in Coursera from the Eindhoven University of Technology a few years ago, which ignited my passion in the field. As the professor noted in this episode, not many people and companies, including SAP and IBM, believed at the time what this technology could accomplish. They were surprised but did not implement it. There were skeptics and resistance to change. Many enterprises go back to old ways of doing things because it is easier. They denied the transformation that Process Mining could bring to them. His students in his Process Mining courses branched out and built the Process Mining companies you see around the world, including; ProcessGold, Celonis, and PAFNow. As the academic field of study transitioned into product companies that aim to sell and bring this unique technology to enterprises around the world, Process Mining became a key ingredient of the digital transformation initiatives. Now, set your clocks to 2022 and watch the news — SAP acquires Signavio, Microsoft acquires Minit, UiPath acquires ProcessGold, and Appian acquired LanaLabs. The acquisitions are a great testament to the customer’s ask to not focus only on the diagnostics, but target execution and actions. By combining the rest of the platforms’ automation, execution, and process management capabilities, the enterprises aim to improve their business performance. Our guest does not need an introduction or marking — The professor is the undisputed Godfather of Process Mining.