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Case Study

Celonis: The process mining unicorn

By Benoit F. Leleux and Marc Chauvet

13 pages

December 2021

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Reference: IMD-7-2161

MUNICH, GERMANY, JANUARY 2019. Bastian Nominacher pondered how much Celonis had changed from its start in 2011, when he and his two co-founders were coding in a crammed 15-square-meter room in his flat. Reaching unicorn valuation felt “like driving a car at 250 kilometers per hour while changing the wheels,” he liked to say. It had been quite a ride. The journey had entailed sending a thousand hand-written letters to leads, dropping in (uninvited) to a fancy golf club to pitch Celonis to an enterprise resource planning (ERP) tycoon, bootstrapping without external funding for seven years, despite the prevailing view that technology startups should aim to scale as fast as possible … and a few even less glamorous activities that sounded quite surreal today. Graduating into the unicorn club had attracted the attention of prospects, current clients and competitors alike. The surge in leads required not only growing the sales team but also tightening the ties with SAP’s sales team. Current clients were asking for increasingly complex projects requiring tighter integration with their information systems; hence, Celonis’ younger management team had to pitch to more senior executives. Finally, the focus on scaling prompted Celonis to undergo a technological shift towards a cloud-based platform model and Celonis launched the Intelligent Business Cloud in October 2018. Was that not too much for the client base? Would the company culture survive the fast growth? And would the founders’ leadership team survive the transformation?

Learning Objective

Examine the managerial issues in a fast-growing technology company at the leading edge of digital transformation and big data analytics
Explore the pros and cons of various business models available to a software company, in particular the value of building an ecosystem
Analyze Celonis’s contribution to the broader adoption of Lean and Six Sigma by enabling the real-time analysis of digital process data
Discuss the challenges of fundraising for fast-growing technology companies in Europe

Keywords

Big Data, Process Management, Data Mining, Consultancy, Growth Management, Start-up, Technology Management, Scale-up, Growth

Settings

Europe, Germany
Celonis, Business Management Services, Consultancy
2015-2020

Type

Field Research

Available Languages

English

Related material

Teaching note, Video

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This case study is part of a series

Celonis: Building a lean digital ecosystem
Celonis: The process mining unicorn

This case study is part of a series

Celonis: Building a lean digital ecosystem
Celonis: The process mining unicorn

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Down under the data: LPX explores listed private equity

By Arthur Enders Karl Schmedders and Maximilian Ulrich Werner
Case reference: IMD-7-2583 ©2024

Summary

LPX AG, founded in 2004 by Michel Degosciu and Robin Jakob, is a leader in listed alternatives, focusing on listed private equity (LPE) and listed infrastructure. With its pioneering LPX Listed Private Equity Index series and NMX Infrastructure Index series, LPX provides essential benchmarks and innovative index-linked products used globally by asset managers. In February 2024, Michel returns from a skiing holiday, ready for a pivotal business trip to Sydney. He will meet with an investment advisory firm interested in developing new financial products based on LPX’s flagship indices, LPX50 and LPXBO. This meeting is crucial for enhancing LPX’s global market presence. Michel anticipates rigorous scrutiny from the Sydney analysts on the risk metrics and performance of LPE stocks. He plans to present a detailed analysis, showing when LPE stocks excel and underperform, integrating comprehensive risk factors for a nuanced understanding. The LPX50 Index captures the performance of the 50 largest LPE companies worldwide, while the LPXBO Index focuses on buyout strategies. Both indices have demonstrated superior long-term performance compared to the MSCI World Index, though with higher volatility. Michel's analysis reveals that LPX indices offer risk-adjusted returns comparable to the MSCI World Index. Employing the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) and a six-factor model, Michel quantifies the indices’ market risks and performance drivers, showcasing LPX’s sophisticated analytical capabilities. His goal is to demonstrate LPX’s expertise and the compelling investment potential of LPE, aiming to attract global investors and solidify LPX's reputation for future growth.

Reference IMD-7-2583

Organization LPX Group

Industry Finance and Insurance, Financial Services

Available Languages English

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