That makes them difficult to standardize, monitor, or optimize, especially when so much of the work happens outside of core systems, in spreadsheets, emails, and legacy tools. Without full visibility, even well-designed transformation efforts struggle to deliver results.

Why transformation requires better process visibility

For many global enterprises and organizations, achieving true end-to-end transformation remains a challenge. Disparate systems, regional variations, and manual workarounds make it difficult to understand how processes are actually being executed. Without full visibility, even the best transformation strategies fall short – resulting in stalled automation, inconsistent performance, and missed improvement opportunities.

Most existing tools provide only a partial view. System logs capture structured data, but not the manual, cross-system work that makes up a significant share of enterprise operations. Interviews and self-reported documentation often fail to reflect reality. The result is a fragmented understanding of how work happens – and a high risk of designing improvements based on incomplete or outdated information.

What task mining brings to shared services transformation

Task mining is a technology that captures user-level activity directly from the desktop – turning clicks, keystrokes, and application usage into structured data. Unlike traditional process mapping or log-based tools, task mining provides a detailed, objective view of how work is actually performed across applications, teams, and geographies.

For shared services leaders, that means finally being able to see and understand the full execution of complex, end-to-end processes – including the manual work that happens outside of core systems. With this level of process intelligence, teams can identify inefficiencies, standardize execution, and prioritize the highest-impact opportunities for automation and improvement.

Here’s how some of the most common shared services processes can benefit from task mining.

Record-to-report: reduce manual effort and improve financial reporting

The record-to-report (R2R) process is foundational to financial integrity, but it’s often burdened by manual journal entries, fragmented reconciliations, and inefficiencies across enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, spreadsheets, and portals.

Task mining helps finance teams understand how these activities are actually performed. It reveals where time is spent, which steps are repeated or manual, and where breakdowns occur in approvals, reconciliations, or reporting. These insights empower teams to streamline workflows, reduce risk, and support more timely, accurate reporting.

The result: streamlined financial reporting, fewer manual reconciliations, and stronger audit readiness across the entire record-to-report process.

Procure-to-pay: streamline exceptions and increase compliance

In the procure-to-pay (P2P) process, even organizations with mature procurement systems face challenges like inconsistent vendor onboarding, slow invoice approvals, and manual resolution of exceptions. These issues are often hidden in emails, spreadsheets, and one-off workarounds.

Task mining provides visibility into how procurement and accounts payable tasks are executed in practice – helping teams identify bottlenecks, enforce policy compliance, and reduce variance across regions and business units.

The result: shorter cycle times, fewer exceptions, and standardized procurement operations that support scalability.

Order-to-cash: improve customer experience and working capital

The order-to-cash (O2C) process spans multiple departments – from order management to finance – and is critical for both customer satisfaction and cash flow. Delays in credit approvals, manual invoicing, and inconsistent collections handling can all impact performance.

Task mining exposes the real paths orders take through the system, identifying where work gets stuck and how exceptions are handled. It also helps teams compare actual workflows against expected ones to enforce conformance.

The result: faster fulfillment, improved collections, and a smoother customer experience with fewer manual handoffs.

Quote-to-cash: uncover friction in high-value sales cycles

Quote-to-cash (Q2C) is often the most complex process, touching sales, legal, finance, and operations. Manual quote creation, inconsistent pricing approvals, and disconnected billing systems create friction and delay revenue realization.

By capturing every interaction involved in Q2C – from quoting tools to contract portals – task mining reveals inefficiencies and helps organizations redesign the process for speed and alignment across teams.

The result: accelerated sales cycles, fewer errors, and more predictable revenue recognition.

Turning process insights into impact

Task mining isn't just about visibility – it's about turning that visibility into measurable impact across complex, distributed processes. At Merck, the Global Business Services team used Mimica to do exactly that.

As Steve Carpenter, Executive Director of GBS Digital Services at Merck, explained in a recent webinar, “We’re driving our finance transformation via process mining and task mining. Mimica is part of that remit because we believe that there are processes out there that aren’t 100% system-based, and we need to have visibility into what’s actually happening on the desktop.”

Starting with the Record-to-Report process, Mimica helped the team:

• Map more than 200 tasks across regions and systems, revealing inefficiencies and setting clear productivity benchmarks
• Identify improvements that saved over 10,000 hours in time and effort
• Uncover over $500,000 in cost-saving opportunities, including automation potential with generative AI

As Ivonne Mora, R2R Process Director, shared, “We have worked for years in these processes, and by reviewing the maps and having these sessions, within an hour we discovered valid questions and differences that we never considered before.”

This is the power of task mining – not just diagnosing problems, but uncovering new ways to improve how work gets done, across teams, regions, and partners.