The Total Economic Impact™ Of The Flowable Case Platform

Retail Onboarding Productivity Savings

Evidence and data. The interviewee said that prior to Flowable, their organization’s customer onboarding relied on a series of manual reviews, data validation activities, and handoffs between teams. Employees frequently coordinated onboarding activities through email and multiple internal systems, limiting visibility and increasing processing times. In some cases, customers waited up to 14 days to complete onboarding, which created operational inefficiencies and increased the risk of customer abandonment.

The organization used Flowable to redesign and modernize the onboarding process. This reduced the need for manual intervention and improved consistency and visibility across the onboarding journey. Following the deployment, most onboarding activities became automated, with employees primarily focused on exception handling. Activities that previously required hours of effort typically required between 15 and 30 minutes, allowing employees to focus on customer support and other higher-value activities.

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interview, Forrester assumes the following:

• The organization has a customer base of 370,000.

• The organization has an annual customer growth rate of 1.5%.

• The organization processes 5,550 onboarding requests per year.

• During Year 1, the organization realizes 50% of the benefit as it completes use case development, deployment, and user adoption activities before reaching full operational scale.

• Prior to Flowable, employees spent an average of 3 hours processing each onboarding request.

• Flowable automates approximately 85% of onboarding activities.

• Onboarding requests that require employee intervention after deployment require 15 minutes of effort.

• The average fully burdened hourly salary for a back-office employee is CHF 58.

• The organization has an 80% productivity recapture rate.

Risks. The scale of this benefit may vary from organization to organization based on:

• Existing level of onboarding automation.

• Existing level of process maturity.

• Complexity of onboarding requirements and regulatory controls.

• Customer volumes.

• Onboarding activity levels.

• Adoption rates.

• Percent of onboarding processes migrated to Flowable.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of CHF 1.4 million.

Additional Operating Profit From Improved Customer Onboarding

Evidence and data. Prior to Flowable, the interviewee’s organization relied on manual reviews, email-based coordination, and multiple handoffs between teams for customer onboarding. Account opening could take up to 14 days in some cases, creating friction throughout the onboarding process and increasing the likelihood that prospective customers would abandon their applications before completion. As part of its onboarding initiative, the organization redesigned the onboarding journey and automated many of the underlying workflows. The interviewee reported this improved operational efficiency and customer experience, which they said helped lower customer dropout rates and led to a more seamless onboarding process.

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interview, Forrester assumes the following:

• Prior to Flowable, the customer abandonment rate during onboarding was 30%.

• Flowable reduced onboarding-related customer abandonment by 50%.

• The organization realizes additional value from customers who successfully complete onboarding.

• The organization has an average operating profit of CHF 546 per customer.

Risks. The scale of this benefit may vary from organization to organization based on:

• Existing onboarding performance.

• Existing customer abandonment rates.

• Customer acquisition volumes.

• Variations in operating profit generated per customer.

• The extent to which onboarding speed influences customer conversion rates.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 20%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of CHF 739,000.

Training Time Savings

Evidence and data. Before Flowable, the interviewee’s organization relied on multiple internally developed applications and legacy systems to support customer onboarding and KYC processes. Because these solutions were custom-built and often supported different stages of the process, new developers were required to learn several applications, workflows, integrations, and development approaches before they could effectively contribute. The interviewee noted that maintaining and evolving these applications became increasingly difficult as the organization modernized its operations.

Following the implementation of Flowable, developers worked in a more standardized development environment with common modeling standards and low-code capabilities. The interviewee noted that new team members were able to begin contributing to projects much faster than in the previous environment, with junior developers typically becoming productive within a month. This reduced onboarding effort and accelerated time to value.

The organization also experienced training efficiencies for business users. The interviewee noted that Flowable’s guided workflows and interfaces simplified process execution and reduced the amount of training required for employees participating in onboarding and KYC activities. They also said they expect these efficiencies to increase as additional use cases are deployed.

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interview, Forrester assumes the following:

• Prior to Flowable, the organization’s developer FTEs required 260 hours of onboarding and training before becoming fully productive.

• Flowable reduces onboarding and training time for each developer to 68 hours.

• The organization onboards and trains 14 new developers annually.

• The average fully burdened hourly salary for a developer is CHF 84.

• As licensing capacity expands to support additional use cases, the organization onboards and trains 50 new back-office employees in Year 2 and 109 back-office employees in Year 3.

• The organization’s back-office training requirements decrease from 12 hours per employee to 3 hours per employee.

• The average fully burdened hourly salary for a back-office employee is CHF 58.

Risks. The scale of this benefit may vary from organization to organization based on:

• Existing developer skill sets.

• Existing developer familiarity with process automation platforms.

• Complexity of existing applications.

• The number of new developers and business users who require training each year.

• The pace of adoption across additional use cases and departments.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of CHF 563,000.

Reduced Legacy System Maintenance Costs

Evidence and data. Before Flowable, the interviewee’s organization relied on several internally developed onboarding and workflow applications to support customer onboarding and related business processes. The interviewee noted that although these applications meet business requirements, they require ongoing maintenance and support from IT teams and have become increasingly difficult to evolve as business and regulatory requirements change.

The interviewee estimated that approximately five employees spend 50% of their time supporting custom-built applications, which is roughly the equivalent of 2.5 FTEs. They said they expect their organization to gradually retire these applications, which they believe would reduce maintenance requirements and allow technical resources to focus on new process automation initiatives rather than supporting aging siloed systems.

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interview, Forrester assumes the following:

• Prior to Flowable, approximately five IT employees spend 50% of their time supporting legacy systems, equivalent to 2.5 FTEs.

• Legacy systems remain in use during the initial deployment phase; therefore, no legacy maintenance savings are realized in Year 1.

• As processes are migrated to Flowable, the redeploys one IT FTE in Year 2 and 2.5 IT FTEs in Year 3 to higher-value activities.

• The average fully burdened annual salary for an IT employee is CHF 175,000.

Risks. The scale of this benefit may vary from organization to organization based on:

• The number of legacy systems being replaced.

• The complexity of legacy systems being replaced.

• Whether the organization replaces custom-built solutions or point solutions that have license costs and maintenance costs.

• Internal maintenance requirements for existing applications.

• The pace of Flowable adoption and migration across business processes.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of CHF 427,000.

Retail KYC Process Productivity Savings

Evidence and data. The interviewee’s organization previously relied on fragmented and largely manual workflows for KYC processes. Employees frequently needed to reenter customer information, navigate multiple siloed systems, and coordinate approval through email-based processes. The interviewee explained that workflows were largely static and often required employees to manually review and validate information spread across multiple systems.

Following the implementation of Flowable, the organization redesigned and modernized its KYC processes. It adopted a more dynamic, case-based approach that centralized customer information, automated task routing, and embedded controls directly into the workflow. Employees gained the ability to reuse information already collected during onboarding, which reduced duplicate work and improved process consistency.

The interviewee noted that most of the time needed for KYC reviews is often spent gathering information from customers and obtaining internal approvals. But they said by streamlining routing, validation, and information management, Flowable reduced administrative effort and allowed employees to focus on higher-value compliance and customer activities.

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interview, Forrester assumes the following:

• Approximately 15% of the organization’s retail customer base undergoes KYC review annually as part of ongoing regulatory and compliance requirements.

• With Flowable, KYC processing effort is reduced by 20% in Years 1 and 2 and by 40% in Year 3 following full adoption.

• Benefits are phased gradually, with no benefits realized in Year 1, partial realization in Year 2, and full realization in Year 3 to reflect platform rollout and user adoption.

• The average fully burdened hourly salary for a back-office employee is CHF 58.

• The organization has a 50% productivity recapture rate.

Risks. The scale of this benefit may vary from organization to organization based on:

• Existing KYC processes

• Level of automation for KYC processes.

• Regulatory complexity.

• Review requirements.

• KYC review volumes.

• KYC customer mix.

• The pace of platform adoptions and workflow standards.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of CHF 344,000.

Unquantified Benefits

Benefits that provide value for the interviewee’s organization but are not quantified for this study include:

• Optimized process design and modernization. The organization used its Flowable implementation as an opportunity to redesign and modernize customer onboarding and KYC processes. The interviewee said this enabled the organization to eliminate unnecessary process steps, standardize workflows, and introduce more flexible process management capabilities. As a result, the organization establishes a stronger foundation for future process improvements, helping ensure that business processes remain scalable, adaptable, and aligned with evolving customer and regulatory requirements. They also said having the ability to continuously optimize and modernize processes may create additional long-term value across the organization. To quantify this benefit, the organization would need to measure the time and cost savings associated with future process improvements.

• Improved document management and information access. Prior to using Flowable, the organization’s customer information, documentation, and workflow activities were spread across multiple applications and processes, which often required employees to navigate different systems to locate information and understand case status. The interviewee said Flowable consolidated customer information, documentation, and case history within a single platform, improving visibility and reducing the effort required to access relevant information. They also noted that employees have all relevant information in one place, which makes it easier to review cases, understand historical activities, and maintain consistent processes while saving time and supporting better decision-making and collaboration across teams. To quantify this benefit, the organization would need to measure the time saved by locating and validating information.

• Strengthened auditability, traceability, and compliance. The interviewee highlighted improved governance through oversight across onboarding and KYC processes following the implementation of Flowable. They said that by centralizing workflows, approvals, customer information, and supporting documentation, the platform creates a complete record of process activities and decisions that provides greater visibility into how cases are handled and enables employees to more easily track progress, validate actions, and demonstrate compliance with internal and external requirements. The resulting auditability reduces the effort associated with compliance reviews and investigations while helping the organization maintain consistency across regulated processes. The interviewee said they expect that as their organization migrates additional use cases to Flowable, these governance and compliance benefits could expand across a broader range of business processes. To quantify this benefit, the organization would need to measure reductions in compliance, audit, and investigation effort.

• Enhanced employee experience and productivity. The interviewee said Flowable simplified day-to-day work for employees involved in onboarding, KYC processes, and document management. Previously, employees were required to coordinate activities through email, manually track workflow status, and move between multiple systems to complete individual tasks. The interviewee noted that Flowable automates task routing, provides visibility into process status, and guides employees through required activities, which allows employees to shift their focus from administrative and coordination activities to customer interactions, compliance reviews, and other higher-value work. They also emphasized that the platform made processes easier to execute and reduced operational complexity for business users. To quantify this benefit, the organization would need to measure improvements in employee productivity, satisfaction, or retention.

Flexibility

The value of flexibility is unique to each customer. There are multiple scenarios in which a customer might implement the Flowable Case Platform and later realize additional uses and business opportunities, including:

• Future process automation across additional business functions. The interviewee explained that onboarding and KYC were their organization’s only initial use cases. They said that as the organization gains experience with the platform, it plans to expand Flowable to additional business processes and gradually consolidate other workflow capabilities onto the platform. This may enable the organization to realize additional productivity, compliance, and application rationalization benefits beyond those quantified in this study.

• Future AI-driven process automation and development acceleration. The organization initially adopts the Flowable Case Platform and upgrades to the Flowable Agentic Case Platform after Year 3. This may unlock additional opportunities to accelerate application development through Flowable AI Studio, automate more complex workflow activities, and realize fully autonomous process execution.

Flexibility would also be quantified when evaluated as part of a specific project (described in more detail in Total Economic Impact Approach).