Celonis Celosphere 2025 | Janet Morrow, State of Oklahoma

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Janet Morrow

Director, Risk, Assessment and Compliance Division, Office of Management and Enterprise Services

State of Oklahoma

play_circle_outline Reduction in team sizes leading to significant ROI and improved services.

play_circle_outline Utilization of AI tools to enhance user experience and operational processes.

play_circle_outline Transforming Government Efficiency: Celonis Enhances Resource Management and Public Services for Oklahoma Taxpayers through Leadership Support and Technology Adoption

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Janet Morrow, State of Oklahoma

Janet Morrow

Director, Risk, Assessment and Compliance Division, Office of Management and Enterprise Services State of Oklahoma

In this Celosphere 2025 interview, Janet Morrow from the Office of Management and Enterprise Services at the State of Oklahoma joins theCUBE’s Rob Strechay and Savannah Peterson to share how the state is scaling Process Intelligence to drive measurable taxpayer ROI. Morrow outlines progress since last year: expanding Celonis across AP and AR, connecting to Workday for HCM and payroll (hire-to-retire), and using Ironclad for contracts to see how taxpayer dollars are being spent. She details a leaner operating model – shrinking the core team from 12 to 5 – whil... Read more

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Savannah Peterson

>> Good evening Celonis fans and welcome back to beautiful Bavaria. We're here in Munich, Germany, coming to the end of day two of our live coverage at Celosphere. My name's Savannah Peterson, bringing you all the best stories in customer case studies with the one and only Rob Strechay. Rob, what beverage are you going to have when we complete this wonderful three segments today?

Rob Strechay

>> I'm sticking to a beer. I'm sticking to-

Savannah Peterson

>> Sticking to the German tradition?

Rob Strechay

>> I think I might be a Dunkle, but it will be a beer of some sort, and I'm ready for it. I'm excited, but I'm excited to have more customer stories, which I think you can never have too many of.

Savannah Peterson

>> Well, and I am really excited to bring back a familiar face. Janet, welcome back to the show.

Janet Morrow

>> Thank you. I appreciate the time with you guys.

Savannah Peterson

>> We really appreciate it. We loved talking to you last year. Before we dig into some of the meatier questions, give us a little bit of an update. What's happened since last Celosphere?

Janet Morrow

>> Sure. Great. So Oklahoma has expanded its utilization of Celonis Moore and other platforms, Headstrong. We're touching all AP and AR now. We're looking at Workday and looking at our human capital management, our payroll, Hire to Retire. We've got it looking at Ironclad, which is our contracts.

Savannah Peterson

>> Oh, yeah.

Janet Morrow

>> So we're utilizing our time and how are taxpayers dollars being spent to negotiate contracts?

Rob Strechay

>> You told us you'd hope to return measurable results to the taxpayers last year and really faster taxpayer services, smaller government footprint, better ROI to the citizens. How has that worked out in the past year?

Janet Morrow

>> Well, you know I'm a big proponent of what we do and how we face out to our partner agencies so that the taxpayers are getting the best use out of their dollars. So it's a big, big drive for us. But when we got started, we had a 12 member team. We have five people on the team.

Rob Strechay

>> Wow.

Janet Morrow

>> So there's first, that's a giant ROI on our footprint of what it takes to do what we do every day and how we utilize the tool. But then our partner agencies are getting so much more and they're being come educated on how to utilize the tool, how to see what's happening with them, but also how they partner better with other agencies.

Savannah Peterson

>> So I'm curious, this exciting, you've made a lot of progress since we last chatted. We were very excited by your use cases out the gate. You'd already seen such incredible traction. In terms of the internal culture, I would imagine since you've stretched it across different business operations and whatnot, you've had to bring everybody into the fold. How has that been? What's the internal reception like?

Janet Morrow

>> So what I said earlier in a session was it's almost like having a sample. Have a little taste, see what you think. Well, what we see is, when they have that opportunity to see a piece of it, they lean in and they want it other places.

Savannah Peterson

>> Ooh, yeah.

Janet Morrow

>> So there's constant feedback. I want budget in there. I want to see what my procurement is year over year, not just what we first did of looking at contracts. Because, remember, we had to do this from a compliance perspective, but now it's very forward-facing and let's be proactive.

Rob Strechay

>> I mean, you look at it, and to stay on that, you were also looking to really, like you said, streamline things. And it sounds like, like you said, you got some ROI already in that and you wanted to really help from an AI compatibility perspective and really evolve. And how has that happened over that compatibility with AI and bringing things and enabling it over the past year?

Janet Morrow

>> So right, like the conference, PI, you need PI to have AI. Well, we have that AI tool. And again, where we love Celonis and lean into the dashboards and love all that data, our executives and our people within the other partner agencies, they need to be efficient with their time, so the AI piece gives them that opportunity to ask real-world questions without learning the tool and without learning dashboards and get immediate feedback on what they need. So how do I get this? And it instantly tells them where to go.

Savannah Peterson

>> And they're able to do it with natural language.

Janet Morrow

>> Yes, very much. So I don't need to be an expert again in the ERP and know the specific terminology to say, "Where do I find this?"

Rob Strechay

>> And this is them leveraging the process co-pilot.

Janet Morrow

>> Absolutely. Yes. And we were kind of testers of that.

Rob Strechay

>> The first state that was out there doing it.

Janet Morrow

>> Yes. Right. And it's been incredible. Great partnership, again, we were able to go back to Celonis and say, "Hey, we need more here." But also, you only want the information in there that's going to be beneficial to the users. We don't want to use all that energy to provide information that's not going to leverage that opportunity for them.

Savannah Peterson

>> I love that. You just brought up the sustainability aspect of it.

Janet Morrow

>> Yes.

Savannah Peterson

>> No reason to use more power than we need to, and no reason to overwhelm a user who's just looking to get the answer that they need to be most successful that day. I think one of the things that I know we're both also very passionate about is responsible AI and the public sector mission-critical. How does working with Celonis help give you the confidence that what you're deploying is responsible and safe for the citizens of Oklahoma?

Janet Morrow

>> Right. So again, we are the holder of data that touches every citizen of the state. So we don't ever utilize anything that would be confidential in nature. And again, harnessing that AI that it's only looking specifically at what we need it to look at for a business practice so that, again, the taxpayers are focused on by those individuals outside of the tool.

Rob Strechay

>> Yeah, I think that to me, also what you were talking about, to kind of circle back around, how you've partnered with the other state agencies, when you look at it, breaking down silos has been a big theme. How has that worked out? And really, I think we've also been talking about this whole shared language that people are using across it. How does that work? Because government's complex and it's not as simple because you can't really tell other agencies what to do, you have to lead them to water kind of thing.

Janet Morrow

>> Well, but the tool actually comes back to them and says, "Is this really what you're wanting to ask?" So it comes back and says, "Janet, is that really the question you wanted? Here's that data point." And then you can counter that question and say, "Well, no, that wasn't what I was looking for." So it really is engaging to say, "Is this what you needed?" So if my terminology's different because of my particular business within government versus another agency's particular business, it asks that question back to you.

Savannah Peterson

>> What do you think, I've actually referenced your story multiple times between the last time we saw you and now, because I think it's really amazing the impact you get to have on the general public, not just those who work in technology like we do and implement these tools. What are some of the benefits you've been able to realize for the taxpayers of Oklahoma?

Janet Morrow

>> Well, our governor is a huge supporter of us in this tool, so if we didn't have that, we wouldn't be where we are today. So that's just a little shout-out to him for being such an engager of technology.

Savannah Peterson

>> Love to hear that.

Janet Morrow

>> But here's the piece. If I'm spending less and I have less FTE, that means the taxpayers are utilizing that dollar for them versus us tied up in bureaucracy and paperwork, and red tape that we all normally associate with government. We are making it leaner, we are making it faster, we're making it more efficient, so the dollar really goes back to the citizens of our state.

Savannah Peterson

>> Which is so impressive. It can go back to public projects, schools.

Janet Morrow

>> Right, right.

Savannah Peterson

>> So many different things get to benefit from that.

Rob Strechay

>> There's never a shortage of things that are in need of the tax-

Janet Morrow

>> No. No, because it's their money.

Rob Strechay

>> Yes.

Janet Morrow

>> It's their money.

Rob Strechay

>> Absolutely. Again, it's always, trust me, in Massachusetts where there was just the votes this past week about overrides versus non-overrides and things of that nature, and it's that season back home and everything.

Janet Morrow

>> Well, but it also gives the legislature real tangible information to look at their constituents and say, "We need to make changes to the law so that the money's going in the right direction and the government's operating the right way." But again, that goes back to you as a citizen so that you've got better infrastructure, better roads, better resources. Nobody's waiting to get a driver's license, right? All the things that you and I need to be good citizens. But we're also not waiting six months, eight months, 10 months to get something we need.

Savannah Peterson

>> Oh yeah, nobody needs to wait that long. Go ahead.

Rob Strechay

>> Yeah, so I think one of the things I'm also curious about because, like since last year, since we were here, agentic AI has become such a big thing, and I think one of the things that you were also on the path was kind of that digital transformation. How has Celonis really partnered with you to help with that digital transformation and really get you ready for AI and responsibly help in the public sector?

Janet Morrow

>> So we've talked about this all week. Celonis sets above all of our legacy systems, so it doesn't necessarily replace the various tools because again, we all have our own tools that we're particular to. It sets above and it tells us, "Here's where some inefficiencies are," and it pulls it all into a single pane of glass. So we can see it in one place versus someone spends 10 hours at one agency pulling data out of a platform, then we've got to bring in another platform data and then we have to bring it together. It's right there for us to see live.

Savannah Peterson

>> And I would imagine that helps you prioritize where to invest your time, your efforts. And actually, I'm curious, does that take out some of the tension that naturally exists within any organization as to where to focus their time? Because you have the data now in a space that everyone can understand.

Janet Morrow

>> Well, so I will tell you, like APAR, our agency is responsible because we're a shared service to provide AP and AR services across 60 different agencies.

Savannah Peterson

>> Whoa.

Janet Morrow

>> And again, they all have different mission-critical jobs. They look at it every day to decide how their team's going to deploy every morning. And the tool does that for them. They come together, they see what they need to do and they action. And where before it might've just been a dashboard of KPIs, it literally steers their day every single day.

Rob Strechay

>> How have you seen, because I mean, you talked about no AI without PI. How have you seen this help parts of the other organization or other agencies really rethink some of their processes? Because I think that's one of the big themes here too, is that, "Hey, it's not just about putting what I currently have in there. It's about process improvement as part of it. How has that worked out?

Janet Morrow

>> Well, so again, we were put into place for a compliance reason, right? We needed to address the situation, we had talked about that last year, but now it's a tool for them to say, "I have the opportunity to move faster, more efficient, and provide a service differently and better," because the tool tells them, "Here's your process, here are those little spaghettis that start to go off track, and how we can redirect to do it better." So they are experts in their area, but they instantly see it takes me X number of days to get this license out the door, or it gives me X amount of time to get these invoices paid, and I'm in this business area, now I understand how I can be more efficient. So it can go down to every specific platform and put it in the same place.

Rob Strechay

>> Wow.

Savannah Peterson

>> I love that you just described it as little spaghettis. Because it is, it's gently messy sometimes or easy to get distracted. What's been the coolest thing for you, just speaking as an individual, I know you've done so much as an organization, what's been the most impactful thing that you think you've been able to achieve since you've had the insight provided by Celonis?

Janet Morrow

>> So one of the big things that has come up is obviously efficiency all the time. We have less to work with, we need to do it faster, we need to do more. That's what you have to do in government. We need to cut your budget because we need that money out on the streets. But for us, we can look at contract utilization and say, "Before we deploy to 40 different vendors, do we really use all 40 of those vendors? We only use three. Let's only execute three contracts so that we know we're, A, leveraging price, we're also leveraging that utilization of our internal council, our procurement officers, our agencies, and we're saying, don't take the time to negotiate a new contract. We have one that exists for the exact same thing with another agency. So let's partner you two together and let's leverage the pricing with the vendor as well." That's great.

Savannah Peterson

>> Super smart. You're taking the bloat out of government, at least as it's historically portrayed sometimes.

Janet Morrow

>> Right, right.

Savannah Peterson

>> Which is a natural thing. It happens.

Rob Strechay

>> Yeah. I mean, I think again, just because why I love talking to the customers here is really around the lessons learned and best practices that they've seen work. What are some that you could say, because I think government definitely has some uniqueness to it versus say, large corpora-... It's a little bit different than Mercedes-Benz building cars.

Janet Morrow

>> Sure. Sure. But we have the same issues.

Rob Strechay

>> Right.

Janet Morrow

>> Right? We have supply chain issues. We've got to take care of citizens of the state. What happens? What are the breakdowns? But for us, it really is one of those opportunities where we say, "Hey, why haven't we ever considered this? Let's let the tool set above and let's see what we see that's happening." And again, is there a breakdown in the process? Are we hitting walls because we've got legislative problems that hold us back? So again, it gives us the power to say, "We need a new resource, we need to change the law." I mean, it's a great opportunity. And then we can look at our citizens and say, "We are doing what's in the best interest of you and our state, and we're taxpayers too, that we want this to be a great tool."

Savannah Peterson

>> And you have the data in the system to give you the confidence that you are even beyond the aspiration.

Janet Morrow

>> Accurate.

Savannah Peterson

>> Yes, exactly. No, it's such an exciting example. All right, Janet, you know how we're going to close this out because we brought it back up this time around. What do you hope to be able to say at Celosphere 2026 that you can't yet say today?

Janet Morrow

>> I would like to tell you that it's deployed in a lot of our services agencies that really impact the citizens of our state that need them the most. Like that they are able to say, "We are seeing all these efficiencies, not only with the dollar that is spent, but also with the services those citizens that need it the most receive."

Savannah Peterson

>> I love it, Janet.

Rob Strechay

>> I love it too.

Savannah Peterson

>> But we cannot wait to talk about that next year.

Rob Strechay

>> Yeah.

Savannah Peterson

>> Thank you for always sharing your wonderful story.

Janet Morrow

>> Sure.

Savannah Peterson

>> And I hope the citizens of Oklahoma know how lucky they are to have you.

Janet Morrow

>> Well, thank you. I appreciate your time.

Rob Strechay

>> Thank you.

Savannah Peterson

>> Yes, absolutely. And thank all of you for tuning in to our fantastic two days of live coverage here from Munich, Germany at Celosphere. My name's Savannah Peterson. You're watching theCUBE, the leading source for enterprise tech news.