Celonis Academy learner to Celonis Employee: How Rohit Kumar shifted careers from IT to process mining

Rohit Kumar knows. With an education in engineering and business, Kumar went from working in software performance testing and learning about process mining through Celonis Academy to becoming a Celonis employee. In June 2022, he joined Celonis full time as a senior technology consultant in the company’s India office.

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https://videos.celonis.com/watch/Mwgx896yKNs8FNudYKVEd4

During a recent interview, I spoke with Kumar about his current role, how he got interested in process mining, his learning experience with Celonis Academy and what it was like going from Academy learner to Celonis employee.

We also chatted about his love for physical fitness and his inspirational podcast and YouTube video series.

The following is a transcript of the video interview edited for readability.

Tell me a little bit about your background. Is it in finance, data science, what?

Rohit Kumar: So I am a BTA graduate in electronics and communications followed by MBA marketing, and I mostly worked in IT sector.

Before you joined Celonis, what were you doing?

Rohit Kumar: So before joining Celonis, I was working with few of the global Indian MLTs and I have work experience of around 5.6 years, which includes performance testing and process mining, both. So I was working as a software engineer in the performance testing domain for quite a few years, and then I moved to the process mining arena.

Tell me about your current role with Celonis. What's your title, what's the business unit, and what's your day to day like?

Rohit Kumar: So, currently I'm working as a senior technology consultant at Celonis, India office. I am part of professional services unit here. Since I joined Celonis, essentially, so I'm going through the onboarding training track, which includes multiple training.

Again, there are some mandatory and technical stuff. Also, there are certain challenges rounds, which I'm a part of, but post training, I'll be doing the following activities where I'll be the spark for all technical inquiries for our partners and their customers in the APAC and EMEA regions. I'll be providing expertise on Celonis product and integration and support technical consulting, realtor inquiries.

Also, I'll be supporting partner implementation of the Celonis EMS. And will also work closely with the senior ecosystem management and other technology consultant and build a deep expertise in various technical aspects of the Celonis EMS, which includes process and task mining, planning, and simulations, action flows, et cetera. That's on my plate.

How did you first get into process mining?

Rohit Kumar: So I got into process mining and EMS in my last organization, I just said, so while I was doing training on the Academy there, so this product fascinated me a lot. So the kind of mining capabilities, which I find in Celonis provides, well, just blown away my mind. And then I decided to make my career in process mining domain.

The one major capabilities which attracted me to this technology was EMS. I just loved it. If you look into it, what not, EMS provides you, the capabilities I'm talking about, real time data engine, which means how to get data from your entire process ecosystem into Celonis. Then comes process and task mining, which shows you exactly what is happening in your business.

Then there's planning and simulations, which lets you to the model and simulate future state processes to understand the impact of your decision. There's again, visual and daily management features available there. There's accent flows, which is again, a strong feature, which gives you the ability to execute and automate accents across all your underlying systems.

So I was very much fascinated by this EMS and again, Celonis is the pioneering EMS system and they're the global leader. So this one important functionality grabbed my eyes. And I was like, I want to do this process mining. I wanted to be there.

How did you first find out about Celonis Academy?

Rohit Kumar: So my first exposure to the academy was in a previous organization to be honest. And then there I found this Celonis academy and then I did few certification before joining the project because I need to get hold of the modules. What is basically the basic concept of process mining and that's, I believe the academy provides to a lot of good courses and that's where I get my first exposure over there.

How did the knowledge you gained with Celonis academy influence your career?

Rohit Kumar: So the knowledge, which I gained from Celonis Academy helped me a lot in setting my career, to be honest, because of Celonis Academy, I am here in a call with you, that's, you can understand the importance of this Academy. I have under went multiple Celonis certification, which includes Celonis implementation professionals, business value architects, solution professionals, and app creator.

Indeed, it helped me a lot as a newbie to process mining. It was quite challenging initially because I was exposed to this arena for the first time, entirely different domain. And I was looking to the functionalities, which Celonis offers in terms of finding inefficiencies and bottlenecks in the business, to start with variant explorer and post explorer, which sets the context for the mining.

It was quite new for me, but at the same time, I was very much excited, delighted to see how it is happening, how you are seeing the inefficiencies in your businesses, in the processes. But gradually with consistent learning, I get a hold on it. And finally, I am here into Celonis. So it is like a journey from being a learner to becoming a Celonot was made possible only because of Celonis academy.

What did you like most about Celonis academy?

Rohit Kumar: I love the Celonis academy interface, first of all. It's very simple and lucid in terms of navigation. Also, I like the way of delivering the content be it audio, video, or taking quiz at the end of the courses to have a quick recap or summary. Each model have different sub modules. One can start with their own pace. And at the same time they can test their knowledge in the Celonis cloud instance.

So I am one of those early users of Celonis academy who has seen the academy interface and transition to a new one in the last year, because last year I believe Celonis academy entirely changed, shifted from what they have. And the recent inclusion of playbook has been a great add-on to the Celonis academy for the Celonis academy users. So I love those metrics.

Which Celonis academy course would you recommend to others who are starting out with process mining or with execution management?

Rohit Kumar: So for a beginner, I would suggest first go through the Celonis kickstarter and foundation course to understand the nuances of process mining, and then take that Celonis implementation professional certification course to understand the end to functionalities of the product. Why I'm saying this is because for a beginner, it's very important, you need to have the basic concepts like, what is process mining? What is task mining? What are events, et cetera.

So this will give you quick idea about the entire concepts. One important note, which I wanted to make here is while doing the course, please go through the guided learning tools, which in perhaps the best way to get used to the dashboard building and understand the various phase of analysis building from basic to advance.

This will really help the beginners. For me, it worked. I did. I followed the guided learning towards, I followed the step by step processes, which is mention over there and tried to create analysis. So this really helps a lot. So that would be my suggestion for the beginners who are into the process mining.

When you aren't working, what are some of your hobbies? How do you unwind?

Rohit Kumar: I love to explore new places. I try different cuisines. At the same time, I also network with like-minded people and try to suit podcast for my channel during my weekends. I also love to play table tennis and badminton. I am also an avid runner and fitness freak. So I used to run a lot of marathons to make my body charged up for the entire day. So yes, I do quite a few things in my spare time to engage my mind and body.

Tell me about the podcast. What do you usually talk about on the show?

Rohit Kumar: So I try to talk on different topics, which is, again, in terms of my audience are youth who wanted to know more about in terms of soft skill or regiment making, something which is very much important in today's career oriented role. So for example, once you are passed out from the college, we simply believe that having a degree will do, but that is not the case. Only the hardest skill is not going to work for you. You need to have the soft skill again at the same time. So I try to bring people from different industries who are doing very good in their industry and try to hear from them.

So it's something, it's a mutual talk from the people who are very much good in their arena and they're giving insights, hey, how to make a better regiment, how to isolate yourself from those all crowds, which is coming with all set of regiments.

So you regiment making is an art, how to leverage LinkedIn, how can you leverage LinkedIn to the best of capacities. So people who are doing well in those field, I try to call them and try to shoot a podcast. And then I spread this message across my network and who knows, maybe someone sitting at some different places can get benefit from it and can have a better career. That's the whole idea.

And one thing that the motto of my channel is to set positive vibes and touch millions of lives. So with this intent, I started this channel and though, I am not ... it's very small subscriber today, but the intent is very huge. Impact is very huge. Like in Celonis we say, impact day. So I'm trying to create an impact from my side to a wider audience.

Where can people go to listen to your podcast, to see your videos? Where can they find it?

Rohit Kumar: So they can simply type on YouTube, The Rohit Vibes.