The Next Digital Twin Isn't of a Machine, It's of Your Business
CIO, Friday, October 30th, 2026
Douglas Laney proposes Economic Process Modeling to build digital twins of a business that show the economic value of its work.
In a CIO opinion piece, Douglas Laney argues that organizational digital twins mostly model how work flows rather than what it is worth.
He proposes Economic Process Modeling, which attributes value across revenue contribution, cost and friction, risk exposure, option value and information value to produce a value ledger.
He says the data already exists in process mining, ERP, CRM and risk systems.
As an example, port operator CentrePort modeled its invoicing workflow before automating it, cutting processing time per invoice from 25 minutes to 23 seconds.