Earlier this week we announced Appian’s results for 2011. In the immortal words of Frank Sinatra, “it was a very good year.” The numbers speak for themselves: 90 new-name customers, a 219 percent jump in license orders over 2010, and nearly 40 percent of total orders coming for Appian Cloud.

The story behind the numbers is testament to how enterprise mobility, social collaboration and cloud computing are reshaping the IT landscape. Appian’s Mobile BPM, Cloud BPM and Social BPM address the broken state of enterprise software today.

More »

Tags: , Appian, Appian 6, Appian Cloud, BPM in the Cloud, mobile BPM, Social BPM

BPM software is key to how federal departments and agencies are going to cope with the unrelenting pressures to increase agility, transparency, accountability, cost reduction and constituent service.  If you work in the public sector and have a focus on process improvement, you can’t afford to miss Appian World 2012. The conference (April 15-17 at the Reston Hyatt outside Washington, D.C.) is free, and in addition to great content and networking, it is the only place you can hear Kenneth Percell, former CIO of the U.S. Air Force Material Command, deliver his “Confessions of a Federal CIO.”

More »

Tags: , Appian World 2012, BPM for Federal Acquisitions, BPM for Government, Business Process Management and Government, Kenneth Percell, Process Improvement for Government

It’s no secret that the business of insurance is getting more and more competitive.  Thanks to numerous comparison sites on the internet, it’s easier than ever to quickly find just what you need.  As consumers, we’re all benefiting from more options, easier selection, and lower prices.  But for insurance companies, all of this transparency is another matter.

More »

Tags: , BPM, Business Process Management, competitive advantage, Insurance, process improvement for insurance

Forrester analyst Craig Le Clair has published an excellent report called “Stuck In Cement: When Packaged Apps Create Barriers To Innovation.” In his related blog post, he frets that “concrete” is the more apt, but less poetic analogy. Based on the research findings, I suggest “Packaged Apps Are the Concrete Shoes Pulling Business Down.” That’s how dire a picture Craig paints, but he offers a ray of hope by positing that BPM Software is the answer.

More »

Tags: , application development, BPM software, Enterprise Resource Planning, Forrester, mobile BPM, Social BPM

Gartner’s Jim Sinur recently predicted that 2012 will be “The Year of Intelligent Business Operations (IBO),” and stated that Intelligent Business Process Management Software (iBPMS) is the central enabling technology. Appian customers are among the vanguard of “leading edge organizations” Jim mentioned that are making IBO a reality today. This is because the innovations Appian has pioneered (Mobile BPM, Social BPM, Cloud BPM, real-time event architecture, in-memory analytics, extreme ease-of-use) are all crucial components to enacting an IBO strategy.

Click here to read a paper by Appian Principal Consultant Glenn Smith on “Intelligent Business Operations: BPM & Analytics in the Event-Driven Enterprise.”

More »

Tags: , BPM in the Cloud, Gartner, iBPMS, intelligent business operations, mobile BPM, Social BPM

Happy 2012..

Appian recently released our biggest update yet to the Google Android platform.  We have seen interest in Android surge from our clients and we are happy to announce that our Android mobile client is now at parity with our Apple iOS mobile offering.

For clients who use Appian’s Android version, you will notice that the interface is different from the Apple release and optimized to be friendly and familiar for Android users.  In addition, Appian Forms support has been updated on Android to support all the great features Apple users have enjoyed, such as intelligent pickers and rich media capture from the mobile camera and mic.

Appian has seen interest in Mobile BPM continue to surge with a growing list of expanded use cases and potential for process optimization.  Some Mobile BPM examples we are currently implementing include:  field engineering support, break-fix, field inspections, at home healthcare and nurse management, and mobile spend requests and approvals.

Demand for mobile access to critical business processes will grow for many more years as we all come to depend upon our mobile devices to perform more and more tasks previously only possible on our desktop/laptop computers.

For Appian customers, you can download and start using the latest version of the Appian Android mobile client from the Google Android Market.  For just the curious, try signing up for a free Appian trial and explore the Appian BPM Suite as well as this Android mobile client update.

Thanks,

Malcolm Ross

Director, Product Management

Tags:

Global IT industry analyst firm Ovum has published its annual “Decision Matrix: Selecting a Business Process Management Vendor” report, a comparative evaluation of the top BPM software vendors. Appian has been named the #1 vendor on Ovum’s prestigious “Shortlist.” This is based on unmatched scores across Technology criteria (including a call-out of our innovation around Mobile BPM, Cloud BPM and Social BPM) and User Sentiment (i.e., making sure customers are happy and successful with our software).

The report places the top vendors in the “Shortlist” category, with others placed in “Explore” or “Consider” categories. We’ll have the report available as a download on our site shortly, but in the meantime, here are some stand-out quotes:

More »

Tags: , BPM in the Cloud, Business Process Management, Decision Matrix, mobile BPM, Ovum, Social BPM

Discussions around customer service strategies have shifted from “customer management” to “customer engagement.” A recent piece in InformationWeek on  “Seven Ways IT Can Improve Customer Service” highlights this shift. The article, by Forrester Research senior analyst Kate Leggett, pays a lot of attention to process improvement and process consistency. Kate is a leading expert on customer service strategies, and a member of Forrester’s Business Process team, so this comes as no surprise. What is a little surprising is that she didn’t call out Mobile BPM and Social BPM more directly in her analysis. These components of Appian’s BPM software are playing a huge roll in the strategies our customers are rolling out to engage with their customers.

More »

Tags: , Business Process Management, customer experience, Forrester, Informationweek, mobile BPM, Social BPM

Ellen Carney, lead insurance industry analyst at Forrester Research, has just published an insightful report on the changing tide for insurance companies. You can read an excerpt here. “Tech Opportunities in the North American Insurance Industry” details the transition from “business-as-usual” to what Ellen calls a “business-as-unusual” model where the customer experience takes precedence over the products and services an insurer provides. BPM software, particularly Mobile BPM and Social BPM, are key technology enablers for this transition.

More »

Tags: , BPM for Insurance, Business Process Management, Forrester, mobile BPM, Social BPM

Appian is the sponsor of the Process Management track at IQPC’s Process Excellence Week Orlando, January 16-20 at the Buena Vista Palace, Lake Buena Vista, FL. On Day 2 of the conference, Appian Matt Calkins will deliver a presentation that should not be missed by anyone looking to understand how to make Mobile BPM, Cloud BPM and Social BPM work in their organization.

More »

Tags: , Appian 6, BPM in the Cloud, IQPC, mobile BPM, Process Excellence Week, Social BPM