Bayer: Process Mining Supports Digital Transformation in Internal Audit

Internal Audit at Bayer AG was an early adopter of the innovative Process Mining technology though—at first glance—an audit organization does not seem to be predestined to be the typical point of entry. Two factors favored this step: On the one hand, Bayer AG has been using SAP globally in its core processes for many years; this systemic homogeneity is not to be underestimated for the implementation of a Process Mining application. On the other hand, the majority of the audits performed by Internal Audit at Bayer AG, particularly in the commercial area, are strongly process driven. Although proven and extensive table-based toolboxes were available, it is very difficult to describe and interpret a global e2e process using tabular analyses and to audit it in a risk-oriented manner. Intense search discovered visual Process Mining as the perfect solution. In the start-up hall of the international IT-Fair CEBIT in 2012, the first meeting with an innovative young company took place. On the personal wish not to endure PowerPoint presentations, but only to see live data of real existing systems, it quickly became clear that the product came very close to what we had been looking for since many years. Our use case outlines the challenges of implementing Process Mining and how it drove the digital transformation of Internal Audit at Bayer.