Clariant: Combining advancements in process improvement and data-driven decisions
The formula for proactive business process management
Clariant’s purpose, “Greater chemistry—between people and planet,” aims to transform ideas into breakthroughs by creating meaningful connections and bridging gaps. With SAP Signavio solutions, the chemical maker is building connections and identifying gaps across its own processes, enabling process excellence as well as a cleaner data footprint that sets the stage for cloud ERP.
| Industry | Region | Company Size |
| Chemicals | Muttenz, Switzerland | 10,465 employees (2024) |
automation of client billing, up from 60%.
reduction in system errors in one finance process.
Senior IT Business Consultant, Clariant Services UK Ltd. (part of Clariant AG)
Improving process efficiency and cleansing data to prepare for cloud ERP
Specialty chemical producer Clariant AG helps diverse industries address critical issues of our time, whether that involves conserving finite resources or promoting emissions-free mobility. Through its three business units of Care Chemicals, Adsorbents & Additives, and Catalysts, the company produces everything from automotive coatings and renewable-fuel purifiers to flame retardants and wastewater-treatment solutions.
With global operations spanning more than 70 production sites, Clariant runs a complex organization. This complexity was increased by several decades of company spin-offs and integrations, leading to large volumes of data as well as high numbers of incomplete transactions and obsolete company codes. Before embarking on the RISE with SAP journey to embrace cloud ERP, Clariant set out to clean up this data and reduce the transactional footprint of its business units.
Clariant also spotted an opportunity to improve business performance by analyzing and automating processes across the company. To achieve this, the company needed a portfolio of intuitive data- and process-analytics solutions that would let it streamline processes and empower diverse teams to proactively manage these processes to enable sustainable improvement.
Senior IT Business Consultant, Clariant Services UK Ltd. (part of Clariant AG)
Analyzing processes and data with a suite of user-friendly solutions
A user of SAP solutions since 1998, Clariant decided that SAP’s business process transformation portfolio offered the solutions, tools, and content it needed to understand, innovate, and transform business processes in an intuitive and data-driven way.
The company implemented the SAP Signavio Process Insights solution to get a better understanding of its business processes and quickly discover areas for improvement and automation through process analytics. It also deployed the SAP Signavio Process Intelligence solution to gain visibility into how its processes are executed.
One attractive feature of the solutions was the ability to tailor dashboards using custom widgets, which Clariant knew would help teams of different abilities use the solutions and take ownership of their processes.
Senior IT Business Consultant, Clariant Services UK Ltd. (part of Clariant AG)
Empowering diverse teams to automate processes and make smart decisions
Approximately 350 users have been trained on SAP Signavio Process Insights across Clariant’s services and business units, enabling improvement across the company’s wide range of processes, including invoice to cash and invoice to pay. The solution, along with other offerings from the SAP Signavio portfolio, is helping the company gain process insights, check performance indicators, and follow correction recommendations.
Clariant also used the portfolio during its migration from on-premises ERP to the private cloud as part of the RISE with SAP journey. This involved reducing the amount of outdated or obsolete data and optimizing its data-center footprint while reducing IT customization and simplifying processes. Diverse teams can now use intuitive dashboards within the solutions to identify partially processed or obsolete transactions that will become candidates for archiving.
With leadership from its IT team, Clariant is building a robust business process management community that can see issues as they happen and predict future developments, fostering sustainable improvement. SAP Signavio Process Insights, in particular, has helped Clariant increase process automation, benchmark its processes, and enhance decision-making. For instance, a team comprising members of the company’s business units, global business services, and IT divisions succeeded in increasing billing automation from 60% to 74% in 12 months, with some teams reaching 100%.
In another project, Clariant identified 2 million service-entry sheets without final entries, some of which were more than two decades old. It was able to close out and archive 1.6 million of these, and its next step is to identify the financial impact of reducing this data.
Similarly, in a finance project relating to internal orders, the company slashed the volume of a particular type of system error from around 140,000 to approximately 27,000, reducing system loads and runtime. The company continues to work on addressing the remaining root causes and is able to track the positive trend within SAP Signavio Process Insights.
Meanwhile, on the material requirements planning (MRP) side, the company applied root-cause analysis to identify a process gap causing 0.25 million materials that were flagged for deletion to be incorrectly active for MRP. The long-term fix involved updating the lifecycle management program to automatically update when a material’s status changes.
In terms of cloud ERP transformation planning, Clariant used 22 correction recommendations to identify and remove redundant customization from spin-offs that did not need to be carried over to the new environment, thereby aiding standardization. Similarly, using the solutions to identify and remove obsolete high-volume tables supported a timely cutover to the new ERP solution.
Senior IT Business Consultant, Clariant Services UK Ltd. (part of Clariant AG)
Continuing to build a culture of sustainable process improvement
Clariant plans to further explore the potential of SAP Signavio solutions in its finance and logistics processes, with a focus on invoice to cash and invoice to pay. It also wants to use the solutions to identify areas of improvement across audit and compliance.
In parallel, the company continues to run different projects to close out and archive incomplete and obsolete transactions, company codes, customers, and vendors.
Furthermore, Clariant is starting to explore the potential use of AI-assisted process mining. And it’s considering the benefits of deploying the SAP Signavio Process Modeler solution to capture, maintain, and improve its business processes with a comprehensive and user-friendly modeling offering for business process management.
By encouraging a cycle of insight, action, and improvement among process owners and stakeholders, the company has created a culture of business process management that opens up almost endless possibilities for advancement.