Introducing the Process Orchestration Maturity Model

Process orchestration is critical to accelerating automation, hyperautomation, and digital transformation alike, leading to greater efficiencies and better business outcomes. According to the 2023 State of Process Orchestration report, "96% of respondents believe that automation is critical to achieving their digital transformation goals."

To achieve these goals, many organizations adopted emerging automation technologies and tools, ending up with fragmented automation pieces loosely coupled with each other. At first, automating even a single part of a big process returned a lot of value, but eventually, a growing number of local solutions created more complexity to manage the whole end-to-end process. In addition, this hindered opportunities for optimization and improvement, leading to automation stagnation and declining ROI.

This happened because many business-critical processes are complex by nature.

According to 72% of the survey respondents, "real-world, business-critical processes are becoming more complex to maintain." That's because many of these processes consist of:

• Multiple steps
• A large number of different endpoints — including systems, people, devices, and even departments
• Workflows that need to be executed in parallel
• Situations that require exceptions handling
• And more.

In addition, according to McKinsey, "65% of smaller companies report success with automation, compared with just 55% at large organizations."

Over the past five years, organizations have accelerated their digital transformation efforts, adding new technology systems and processes to their mix at an unprecedented rate. In fact, software spending in this time period outpaced the general inflation rate by 4x. As organizations consider the impact of this spending spree, many are disappointed by how these new systems and processes lack alignment with their business goals. Undoing the high costs of transformational debt means considering how new technology fits in with the old. That includes how processes flow seamlessly from end to end — across people, systems and devices.

New software means new silos that impact internal efficiency, business agility, time-to-value, and customer experiences. Organizations who are not implementing process orchestration across these silos often experience:

To contrast, organizations that are highly mature in their process orchestration lifecycle implementations experience strategic, scaled adoption of end-to-end automation, aligned with their specific business goals and initiatives. According to Deloitte, 92% of advanced automation adopters leverage end-to-end automation as a part of their strategy now, or plan to do so in the next three years.

The result is achieving measurable business outcomes such as:

Let's take a closer look at the maturity model, and how your organization can advance in its process orchestration maturity.

Given organizations' varying priorities, advancement may look different for each team. However, organizations at each of the levels below may share these common characteristics as they accelerate in their maturity journey.

Level 0: No process orchestration

Organizations at Level 0 may be automating in silos with limited to no orchestration across processes, but have the most urgent need to implement process orchestration in some form.

They may find that a lack of orchestration reduces their operational ability to operate/execute, or hinders their ability to drive digital transformation. As such, this group is often the most motivated to break down silos that may negatively impact critical business outcomes.

These teams can focus on improving their ability to plan or act strategically or efficiently. Collaboration with business users on individual processes/projects or in training capabilities could be one specific area to improve.

Level 1: Single project or ad-hoc use

Organizations at this level of maturity are just beginning to realize how process orchestration can support their business needs on a project-to-project level.

They will need to invest the most resources into standing up the people, methods, and technologies needed to improve their mission-critical business processes and to understand how these efforts can drive further organizational value.

Level 2: Broader initiative

Organizations at this level of maturity have experienced some level of success with process orchestration, although this success may not have been measurable. They are beginning to question how to initiate broader process orchestration initiatives to bring more tangible value to the organization.

Maturity at this level may mean building their organizational strategy and establishing their team structures. However, they may still struggle with meaningful measurement.

Level 3: Distributed adoption

Organizations at this level of maturity are well on their way to using their process orchestration practice to drive business outcomes at scale across their organization. They have a clear understanding of the power of process orchestration, and are building out a roadmap to deliver bigger results faster across the organization.

They have the right personnel in place and are advancing maturity by working on the team structures and measurement practices that empower them to accelerate solutions across departmental silos and isolated business functions.

Level 4: Strategic, scaled adoption

Organizations at this level of maturity are delivering digital transformation due to their ability to drive better business outcomes. These outcomes are achieved in large part due to the organization's ability to deploy process orchestration at scale across the entire company. Sophisticated strategies, teams, and delivery methodologies have all combined to drive business outcomes and deliver value for the organization.

Even so, they understand that continuous improvement is necessary to achieving their ongoing process orchestration goals, and are focused on creating and implementing a feedback loop for improvements.

As organizations advance through their process orchestration maturity journey, they gain full visibility and strategic oversight into their end-to-end processes, driving stronger alignment between business and IT. As a result, they can achieve greater automation outcomes faster, at lower cost, and with reduced risk. In other words, process orchestration maturity empowers organizations to achieve a culture of continuous improvement and adaptability toward any changes that arise.

According to Gartner, "Process orchestration is critical both to manage end-to-end customer journeys and to provide consistency of experience to the human workforce." It has emerged as a transformative strategy across sectors, empowering organizations to streamline operations, improve customer experiences, and drive sustainable growth. Embracing this approach positions organizations to thrive in an increasingly digital and competitive landscape.

With advanced maturity, the optimized use of process orchestration can drive organizations toward the ultimate goal of strategic, scaled adoption. These teams get more value from automation and orchestration efforts than their counterparts. Perhaps most importantly, their efforts are aligned with specific business outcomes, setting highly mature organizations apart from the pack in the path toward digital transformation success.