Celonis Celosphere 2025 | Jesper Blomster, Scania Group

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Jesper Blomster

Business Development Officer,

Scania Group

play_circle_outline Jesper shares his experience as a Celonis user for 18 months at Scania.

play_circle_outline Discussion on transforming processes and improving customer delivery through data insights.

play_circle_outline Enhancing Cash Flow: Overcoming Strategic Challenges and Operational Silos in Accounts Payable Management

play_circle_outline Recognition of cultural shifts necessary to improve interdepartmental collaboration and visibility.

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Jesper Blomster, Scania Group

Jesper Blomster

Business Development Officer, Scania Group

In this Celosphere 2025 interview, Jesper Blomster, business development officer of Scania, joins theCUBE’s Rob Strechay and Savannah Peterson to share how Scania put process intelligence at the center of its transformation. Blomster explains how an 18-month journey with Celonis began in finance and expanded across accounts payable, procurement, logistics, production, outbound logistics and commercial sales operations – each tied to one goal: delivering vehicles on time. He details how breaking data and organizational silos helped Scania monitor payment flows... Read more

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What has been the impact of using Celonis on the company's processes and operations over the past 18 months? add

What has been the progress and success achieved in addressing challenges within accounts payable, procurement, logistics, production, outbound logistics, and sales operations to ensure timely vehicle delivery? add

What were the main strategies discussed for improving operational efficiency within a company? add

What are the benefits of using a tool like Celonis in a business setting? add

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Savannah Peterson

>> Good afternoon, CUBE Community and welcome back to Munich, Germany. We're here midway through our second day of two days of live coverage at Celosphere. My name's Savannah Peterson. Delighted to be bringing you the best and brightest here this week with Rob Strechay. Rob, how are you feeling given that we've gotten such a good dose of customer stories this morning?

Rob Strechay

>> I can't get enough of the customer stories. And I think again, I think these help people understand how they can get started and how they can get to where everybody wants to get to, which is AI and agentic frameworks. But there's a lot of work that has to be done upfront and a lot of things have to change.

Savannah Peterson

>> That's for sure. Very excited to welcome a brand new guest to theCUBE. Jesper, thank you so much for coming to hang out with us today.

Jesper Blomster

>> Thank you for having me.

Savannah Peterson

>> So, you walked up here and you said you have a great story. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your background and the journey that you've seen at Scania so far? And then we'll get into some of the Celonis details.

Jesper Blomster

>> Sure. So, we have been a Celonis user or Celonis customer for almost latest 18 months. And it has really changed the way we think of our processes, how we can challenge the way we work, but also redevelop or re-engineer the way we work. So, it all started back in finance two years back, 24 months ago. The project kicked off in January 2024. And from there, just within 18 months, we have been able to actually cover biggest part of our supply chain in some way. We have a thin line now, crossing from accounts payable into procurement, over to logistics, production, outbound logistics, and now our commercial flow as well for the sales operations. And everything that we have done has always been connected to how can we help our customers to receive their vehicles on time. How can we understand where things go wrong? How can we address the key challenges or opportunities, depending on how you see it, from our perspective? So, we have really been able to get progress in this journey. And the reason for that are several, but maybe we can come back to that.

Savannah Peterson

>> Well, actually, I mean, I love that you're talking about that. You've been using Celonis for 18 months. It seems like you've achieved quite a bit of success in that time period. Can you talk to us a little bit about where you started and then how you were able to scale that across the organization?

Jesper Blomster

>> Sure. It all actually started with us having a key yearly challenge in our corporate strategy. In a corporate strategy, say we have to improve our cashflow like everyone else.

Savannah Peterson

>> I was going to say, just something a lot of people can relate to in the audience, I'm sure.

Jesper Blomster

>> Exactly. We have to lower cost and we have to increase cash, basically like that. And then we're looking for a short term win, like the quickest success that we could get. And how can we tie that up to really take it from an operational plane up to a tactical level, up to strategic plane. So, we really tried to do that from the outset. So, we started back in accounts payable, targeting and monitoring the payment flows, like most of the companies do. But the difference here is that we tried from the outset to really understand how can we break the silos between the different parts of the company, because that is one of our core struggles that I bet that most companies are. So, we start in accounts payable, targeting the payment flows. That required, for example, payment data or contractual data as well from procurement. First silo broken. Then we targeted how can we improve the things also within procurement. They had one strategic target, which was improving or at least following our contracts. Start to pay more on time, following and increasing the debts payable, outstanding. So, to do that, we needed to have data from both these sides. To follow the contract, we need to have both invoice information, contractual data, and support operational people to really get rid of the things that they find is hard. But also, having the connection from an operational plane, how they are contributing or not contributing to the strategic target of improving DPO. So, back in finance, that was the first start, if I put it that way. And now where I am, I'm mainly focused on the order to delivery flow. And Scania, we are over 100 years old. We are decentralized. We truly believe in modularization. But we also have a big chunk of complexity, which many company have.

Savannah Peterson

>> Quite literally big. We're talking about trucks.

Jesper Blomster

>> Yes, exactly. Exactly. But everything that we do, we really have this mindset of how can we improve, get better. But I don't really know where to take it from here, but we do have a lot of stories that I can tell.

Rob Strechay

>> Well, I got an idea for you.

Jesper Blomster

>> Go ahead.

Savannah Peterson

>> Back to you, Rob

Rob Strechay

>> So, I think, again, we were talking upfront before we came live here and part of... You've been on this journey, because this is not the first time you've tried to modernize processes. We were talking about RPA and other things. There's a lot of technologies that have always, over the years, claimed to be able to satisfy and automate processes. Talk to that journey through those technologies to where you landed with process intelligence.

Jesper Blomster

>> Sure. So, myself, I've been in the digitalization space for almost 10 years. And in there, where I was starting as many others, it was greenfield and everyone was supposed to automatize everything with RPA. Just imitate the human, what we're doing in our broken processes and just go out, find nails with our hammer, so to say. So, I've started, as many others, in the RPA space. You can think of it like a journey with two years apart. So, we start 2018. Everyone was focused on technology, automation, had RPA workshops or whatever you want to find. Then we realized, okay, we need to dig down into area of analytics, data, have to make all data available. I had a huge project called Single Source of Truth. We skipped that for now, but you have the theme. Then we had a year where we focused on... an era where we focused on how can we really make everyone work with the business insights, business analyst, business intelligence, but also becoming a citizen developer, for example. I bet you recognize this?

Rob Strechay

>> Yes.

Jesper Blomster

>> 2022. Then we came into another era, but nothing of this has really turned a needle or really made a big change. And that was when we entered strategy. We need to connect this to a north star. And in this, you can also say that back in 2018, we had one budget. That budget increased by double. That budget increased by double. That budget increased by double. It actually did, because we had successes where we could say, with RPA, we have freed up 300 FTEs. And that helped me to talk about this and really get the buy-in to get more budgets. But when I entered 2024, my CFO gave me three things or two things. First of all, he said, "No, you don't get what you want. You get 10%." "Okay, thank you." That was the first thing. You get 10% of what you want in funding. Secondly, he said, "You now had the assignment to go out and find AI initiatives all across the organization." So, I was running digitalization across globally for Scania for finance. Which he then said, "You have to find one AI initiative within procurement, one in logistics, one in production. Everywhere, all across the organization." But then we are back actually to having the same mind or mindset of finding nails with the hammer. And I don't believe in that. What I believe in, which I actually then started to talk... So, I started to talk to these different people all across the organization, all the different CFOs and financial managers, and realized that it's not interesting for them to talk about how we can improve their life as controllers or how we can improve their way they are handling Excel. That's not interesting with the help of AI. What they were interested of was actually, how can they contribute to their financial targets of their organization? In other words, actually solving a business problem within their organization. So, within procurement, we were talking about how can we improve days payable outstanding. Within logistics and production, we were talking about how can we improve days inventory outstanding. You get the point?

Rob Strechay

>> Right.

Jesper Blomster

>> So, by talking in these terms, we actually were able to turn this around. So, going from this high increasing numbers in budget, we had 10%. But the whole point was here in 2024, we turned it totally around and we're talking about processes, problems, operational pains, and contribution on strategic level. And that gave me something special. And that is, okay, now I actually have built the accountability and understanding about the problem. Together with them, we have a common problem. Secondly, that leads us back to how does this contribute, the problem we're talking about, to the strategic target. But by having both of those, you can also talk about accountability. That person will actually succeed if you make it right. So, that person, in this case, the CFOs out there, said, "This is the people that can contribute to the challenge we have. " Then we talk about data. Data is now the enabler to make this happen and technology is selected last, which means instead of going from left to right, we go from right to left. So, process, strategy, people, data, technology, instead of the other way around. So, all of these learnings really helped me.

Savannah Peterson

>> It's a big shift.

Jesper Blomster

>> It is.

Savannah Peterson

>> It's a paradigm shift, so to speak, in transformation land.

Jesper Blomster

>> I would say it is. And all of this has really helped me and our organization altogether. I mean, there's a team effort to really talk this language. So, when we enter the area or arena of process mining, we also drawn out a plan. Finance, that's the first gateway. Check. What do we do to cover that we actually can contribute on a top line, and bottom line of the company, and affect the customer in the end? To get the full digital trail, who has done what throughout this process? So, we draw out a plan. What do we do to cross the silos and get initiatives throughout the entire organization? So, a year ago, we had crossed three of them. And here we had tactics and talks together with other different management people. So, I reached out to the organization I'm in now, in order to delivery. And I think it was June or August 2024. And I said, "Hey, I think that we have something we need to talk about. What do you think? They were not so happy about it first, so we had to turn it around, like, "What is your biggest problem?" And then they gave that to me, like, "Okay, this is a problem. We have no visibility here. We have a hard time to track and improve the processes and we have a lot of capital tied up." Interesting. So, here we now are able to actually see how can we improve this payable outstanding, these inventory outstanding, and really contribute to the full cash conversion cycle. And we're doing that based on the same burning platform, meaning we have a we problem, not a me problem. So, that was a long way to tell everything that you wrote before.

Rob Strechay

>> No, it was great. I mean, I think again, it's a way as you look through how you've transformed things, because I mean, the story you told about from RPA on is really... we hear it a lot. I mean, everybody tries every new technology. And now it's AI and agentic AI. Last year, it was GenAI. This year it's agentic AI. Probably next year, it's still going to be agentic AI, because I think it's going to take a long time.

Savannah Peterson

>> Or ROAI, if you ask.

Rob Strechay

>> Well, how do you get to your ROA?

Jesper Blomster

>> But the thing is, if you rewind a bit. Two years back, I had a presentation at an automation fair with the word automation crossed out, talking about digitalization instead. If I had the same presentation today, I would cross out digitalization as well and talking about process, strategy, problems, burning platform, commonalities. And we, as like, how can we together solve a problem, the core strategic issues, rather than talking about, how can I be the hero with digital in this? And rather turn it around, how can we solve a problem and I can support you?

Rob Strechay

>> But I mean, I think part of that is you were getting at, to Savannah's point there, the RO of AI. You can't get to that if you aren't solving a problem. There's not a return or the value as you were talking or capital tied up and, hey, how do we not have as much capital tied up in this process, be it supply chain or what have you? But also, you're going through and basically using process intelligence to basically come up with a common language across the company. Has that helped significantly as you've built that semantic layer out in the process intelligence graph, helped you break down those barriers?

Jesper Blomster

>> Not yet, but it will. So, now we're still building in silos, but we're trying to help one other out. How can we actually find the commonalities between? And how am I really contributing to you or how are you affecting me? That is coming. But once we have the full digital trail, which we will have probably as the first, in the end of this year, we will have the full. In a very small scope still, we have the full view. We can start to ask questions. This is a customer that they get a delivery late and we can ask the question of why. For the first time, we're able to get that full visibility and trail. And that is a huge lever for us.

Savannah Peterson

>> That's a big shift, not just from a visibility perspective, but culturally, because you're able to not wonder or assume, or blame in certain cases, depending on different divisions of a business. I mean, just being blunt, we're humans. We're going to do things like that. Well, one of the things that I heard as a common thread throughout your story is the usefulness, the value in having something like Celonis to help unify the efforts across the team. Convincing finance of anything is always a bit of a challenge, bless all you fine folks in finance. But what's nice is it really has helped you get everybody on the same page and driving towards that same goal across the organization.

Jesper Blomster

>> Exactly.

Savannah Peterson

>> It's really cool.

Jesper Blomster

>> But I wouldn't say it's the technology itself. And your question about the topic for next year, I never speak technology. I speak finance with finance, procurement with procurement, and I try to use those terms. Then how we solve that, they don't bother. The thing is, what is the thing that we together needs to address?

Savannah Peterson

>> No, that's cool.

Jesper Blomster

>> That's why I try to work with this. Really target from the strategic standpoint, break it down to an operational plain, and touch all levels while we do so.

Savannah Peterson

>> Yeah. I'm using the right lexicon. It's awesome. All right. I've got one last question for you, Jesper, because this has been a blast. You've experienced an impressive amount of success and change in the last 18 months. When we're at Celosphere 2026, this time next year, what do you hope to be able to say then that you can't yet say today?

Jesper Blomster

>> That we are on the main stage.

Savannah Peterson

>> There we go.

Jesper Blomster

>> Yes.

Savannah Peterson

>> You won't even be able to say it. We'll be able to see you on the main stage.

Jesper Blomster

>> Exactly.

Rob Strechay

>> Then you come visit us here, so that'll be good.

Jesper Blomster

>> Yeah, that's true. That's true. No. But honestly, that's really where I think that this is going. If we really now make this a reality, scale it globally, and not having this thin line, we have a fat line, that I truly believe that we have a story that is really interesting to tell.

Savannah Peterson

>> Well, we are interested in it, Jesper. Thank you so much for taking the time to sneak up and get on the news desk with us today. I know this was a bit unexpected for you. We're really grateful.

Jesper Blomster

>> Thank you so much.

Rob Strechay

>> Yes. Thank you.

Savannah Peterson

>> Yeah. Thank you, Rob. And thank all of you for tuning into our two days of live coverage at Celonis Celosphere. My name's Savannah Peterson. You're watching theCUBE, the leading source for enterprise tech news.