The webinar is co-sponsored by Appian’s insurance solution partner, MajeskoMastek. MajescoMastek has teamed with Appian around a series of templates and frameworks to accelerate implementation of crucial BPM for Insurance solutions.

An insurance provider’s real path to profitability and sustainable market share gains is to focus on giving customers (and agents) a great experience.  That requires an IT infrastructure that delivers efficiency and effectiveness, as well as the native mobility and ease of social communication/collaboration that customers simply expect.

The problem is that legacy systems, or new systems done traditionally, are very expensive and have lengthy deployment times which increase risk. Leading insurers are increasingly looking to a new breed of technology – BPM software – that can be used to replace core systems and/or “wrap” existing applications. BPM “renovates” IT for immediate benefit and without risky timelines.

Attend the webinar to get actionable insights on:

• How BPM can eliminate manual processes, fill gaps, and address unmet customer needs
• BPM’s role in Claims, Underwriting, Policy & Admin, New Products and more
• Starting fast and reducing risk through cloud BPM
• How Mobile and Social BPM drive customer engagement and reduce churn

Register now and get the information you need to ensure your organization’s success.

-Ben Farrell, Director, Corporate Communications

The problem is, most BPM software vendors (and frankly, many industry pundits) have a limited view of what Social BPM really is. They relegate it to collaborative process design – making it easier for a handful of pre-designated people to work together in developing a process diagram. This is, at best, a single. The grand-slam homerun happens when Social BPM is applied to real-time collaborations across all employees (and customers) while business processes are being executed.

Let’s say you work in customer support for a large insurance firm. A customer has logged a trouble ticket for a rather mundane issue, and you have received a task with an appropriately moderate priority level. Let’s also say that, unbeknownst to you, a sales rep is sitting in a meeting with that customer discussing a large up-sell opportunity. While the support issue is nothing major, it is sticking in the customer’s craw and jeopardizing the deal. Through a Social BPM activity stream, the rep can do a search for the customer name, pull up all info related to that customer (including the trouble ticket event) and instantly post a comment about the sudden and unexpected urgency to resolve it. You instantly see the comment, take care of the mundane issue, and before the rep leaves the meeting, the problem is fixed.

If you’re using Appian, all of that took place via a single unified interface that’s as easy to use as Facebook. Unlike Facebook, however, Appian unites complex back-end enterprise systems, such as those used across your support and sales departments, and allows you to read data from and take action on those various systems from that single interface.

Social BPM isn’t limited to internal system and human events, either. Here’s another example:

You work for a property management company in Chicago. You have set up your Appian Social BPM feed to automatically track and post Twitter tweets containing the word “relocation.” A post appears in your Appian interface that says, “About to announce HQ relocation to Chicago. Start the apartment hunting!” You check the poster’s profile and see that she works for ACME, Inc.

ACME hasn’t issued their corporate press release on the HQ move yet, so your sales team has an opportunity to scoop competitors. Still in the Appian interface, you launch a case called “Jump on this Chicago relocation opportunity,” and add the comment “We have lots of Chicago apartments. Find ACME’s HR contact and offer some incentives.” This case goes immediately into process, gets assigned to your Chicago rep, and you’re off to the races.

These are just two examples. Once you get your head around the real potential for run-time Social BPM, the possibilities are virtually unlimited.

Ben Farrell, Director, Corporate Communications

The report outlines a four-step approach of “normalizing, standardizing and rationalizing applications; rationalizing and consolidating data centers; rationalizing data and security; and then migrating appropriate components to the cloud.” The DBB urged the department to act decisively in these areas, warning that the consequences could otherwise be disastrous.

According to the report, support for cloud computing is already strong, and validated, across the DoD: “Interviews indicate wide support across DoD for [data center consolidation and cloud]. Cost savings and efficiency benefits are widely understood; budget imperatives create [an] environment for making major changes; early DoD initiatives [are] already showing positive results.”

But tentative steps will not be sufficient, with the DBB stating, “independent and uncoordinated actions will increase barriers to coordination and information sharing. Costs will skyrocket and service levels will decrease given need to maintain legacy systems; future rationalization will be harder and more expensive. Security will fall further behind, leaving entire IT network increasingly vulnerable.”

Appian is committed to helping government agencies embrace the cloud. Medhat Galal, Appian’s VP of Enablement, is featured in the January issue of Government Executive answering the five most nagging questions about how the cloud can improve efficiency while reducing expenses.

Read the article, then contact us to learn how we can help your agency tap the power of Cloud BPM.

-Ben Farrell, Director, Corporate Communications

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.

The mobile and social revolutions are driving the “consumerization” of IT. In their wake, traditional enterprise software is no longer solving business problems. Increasingly, it is the problem.

It requires too much time, and is much too costly, to modernize these systems to deliver the type of mobile experience customers are demanding. Even if you push through that arduous ordeal, these systems remain stove-piped across business functions. Plus, you now have new levels of platform/OS discrepancies and security issues to deal with. All of this contributes to the increasingly fractured nature of an organization. On the social side, customer expectations about how they interact with a company are changing. Employee needs for how they interact with each other are changing. The nature of work is increasingly collaborative, and that is what social technology supports uniquely well.

Given that something north of 80% of an IT department’s budget is allocated just for the care and feeding needed to keep the lights on, there is precious little room in the current system for the focus on innovation required by these evolving needs.

That’s why 2011 was such a great year for Appian. Business leaders and IT executives are increasingly turning to us as their engine for innovation. Our BPM platform meets the requirements of the mobile revolution. Through “design once – deploy everywhere” we instantly enable comprehensive mobility that overcomes platform fracturing. We feature highly secure mobile processing. We deliver rapid mobile enablement of applications. The Appian BPM Suite also addresses the social revolution by masking extreme power behind an intuitive activity stream interface.  We seamlessly merge structured actions with unstructured events, and deliver collaboration that is firmly rooted in business events and outcomes.

But there’s no rest for the weary. Come to Appian World 2012 in April to get a sneak peak at Appian 7, and see how we will continue to push the envelope on modern BPM software capabilities.

- Ben Farrell, Director, Corporate Communications

Ken has an illustrious resume. Currently COO of The Percell Group, he is the USAF’s former Director of Engineering and AFSO21 at the Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, former Executive Director Warner Robins ALC, former Director, 402d Maintenance Wing at Warner Robins AFB and former Chief Information Officer at Air Force Material Command. He has decades of experience in both software development and maintenance, and a pedigree in continuous process improvement, having lead several organizations to CMMI 5 process maturity.

As a member of the Senior Executive Service, Ken has seen the good, the bad and the ugly of how IT and process support (or hinder) the goals of federal organizations. He will share the experiences that led him to become a BPM software True Believer – and he’ll deliver insights that will help you ask the right questions and take the right steps to make BPM work for your organization. In addition, Ken will lead a panel discussion on Federal Procurement Practices with several agency representatives.

Don’t miss this opportunity. The conference is free, but the content will be invaluable. Register today!

-Ben Farrell, Director, Corporate Communications

Here are some startling facts:

ERP software maintenance fees alone “represented one-third if enterprise IT software budgets in 2010, with license fees accounting for another 25%.” That’s right: just keeping the ERP lights on eats up more than half of the total IT budget.

Perhaps that would be acceptable if ERP software delivered what the business needs today, but Craig shows that it clearly does not. Of ERP and other monolithic packaged apps he states, “These systems have developed inflexible architectures and have become aligned with silos built around business functions that now present a serious barrier to many fast-moving companies.” In other words, the limited extensibility of those apps leaves them stuck in business silos that they then help perpetuate, while required business functions existing in the white space between packaged apps continues to be paper- and email-based, cumbersome and non-standardized.

What’s the Conclusion?

Craig states that, “Enterprises that deployed ERP six to nine years ago are now questioning the budget for upgrades – and they should.” Business has changed dramatically in that time – and the rate of change is increasing. The business “wants more value and is reluctant to invest just to maintain functionality that many already view as lacking.”

What’s the Alternative?

Craig says that what’s required is a “Process-first Perspective” based on “an outside-in focus that starts with the needs of the customer.” To paraphrase again: build your business processes based on what’s going to optimize the customer experience, not based on the limited capabilities of your packaged apps.

How Do You Get There?

Do you need to take a jackhammer to the cement (or concrete) for a massive “rip and replace”? Luckily, no (have you ever used a jackhammer? It’s hard and slow work.). Instead, you can get the new and flexible functionality you need, and breathe new life into those legacy systems, by overlaying your packaged apps with a flexible process layer. In Craig’s words, “In the future, companies will address process and application gaps not by customizing on-premises software, but by linking best-of-breed applications using accessible and adaptable processes built on top of Dynamic Case Management or BPM Suites.”

What’s the Next Step?

Modern BPM software, with native mobile and social capabilities, is creating a seismic shift in corporate IT. Contact Appian to learn more about removing the concrete shoes.

-Ben Farrell, Director, Corporate Communications

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

Gartner first outlined the tenets of IBO in a mid-2011 report called “The Trend Towards Intelligent Business Operations.” The report says, “Intelligent business operations are a style of work in which real-time analytic and decision management technologies are integrated into the transaction-executing and bookkeeping operational activities that run the business. Intelligent business operations are becoming increasingly practical because of the growing amount of data generated by sources inside and outside the company, and because of the wide availability of software tools to process that data immediately.”

To be sure, comprehensive IBO requires more than an iBPMS exclusively. But by combining process, events, data and analytics, masking their collective power and complexity behind a simple social interface, and making it all universally accessible on any device platform, Appian gets you further down the IBO road than any other technology. And not just farther – we get you there faster, too. The rapid and broad BPM user adoption enabled by Mobile and Social is complimented by the delivery speed made possible by Cloud BPM and Appian’s drag-and-drop, zero-code development/composition.

Companies that have been using Appian software for years are evolving to programs and use cases that look exactly like Gartner’s IBO vision. We’re also finding that Mobile/Cloud/Social is helping “BPM newbie” organizations leap-frog to cutting edge deployments much more easily than in the past. Read Glenn’s article for a more thorough examination and some food-for-thought on what IBO might look like in your organization.

-Ben Farrell, Director, Corporate Communications

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:

“Exceptional Technology and User Sentiment scores lead us to assign a ‘Shortlist’ rating to Appian, the only BPM specialist in the top Decision Matrix category.”

“Appian scores the highest for the technology dimension, beating behemoths such as IBM.”

“Appian’s User Sentiment score is remarkable, and unmatched by any other vendor with a ‘Shortlist’ rating.”

“Appian has made good use of contemporary user interface constructs and smartphone applications.”

“Cloud-delivered BPM is the other notable aspect of Appian’s portfolio.”

Being the innovation leader can sometimes be tricky, because while customers experience the real-world value, industry pundits can be slow to pick up on it. The BPM team at Ovum clearly understands how Appian is driving BPM software to new heights of enterprise value in the mobile and social age.

-Ben Farrell, Director, Corporate Communications

In the article, Kate talks about the importance of knowing your customer, knowing how they like to communicate, and providing a consistent experience across all possible channels. BPM software’s value in stitching together disparate enterprise silos is well established, but Social BPM extends that value to the new world of social media. One powerful aspect of the Appian Tempo social interface is that is can incorporate social channels like Twitter into a business event feed. This gives companies an easy way to know when its customers are talking about the company – and that knowledge can be fed directly into process so that appropriate action can be taken in real-time. With peer-to-peer social dialogue on the rise, corporate marketing is no longer the generator and controller of the message. What matters now is knowing what conversations are happening, and having the business agility to participate.

Social BPM is more than just “social” because in addition to enabling direct customer conversations and collaborations – which any social enterprise platform can do – it also provides the means to track those interactions, keep them as an audit trail in the customer case, and learn from them to improve the product and service experience.

Disintermediation of the message is only one part of the equation. There’s also the proliferation of media platforms. As Kate points out, “Your service experience should let customers start an interaction over one communication channel and complete it over another. To make this happen, CIOs must ensure that channels are not implemented in silos, but are integrated so that agents have a full view of all customer interactions.” We’re past phone and email. Consumers are increasingly using new channels – particularly mobile platforms. This is where Mobile BPM becomes vital to an integrated strategy. By providing a native mobile app to consumers that is tied to enterprise process – the same processes running the call centers and web service platforms – consistent cross-platform service becomes a reality, not a pipe dream.

This holistic process and data exposure is equally key to another of Kate’s main points: making sure service reps are armed with the data they need to deliver a stellar customer experience. “Customer service systems must be more than just the front end of a database of customer information and cases,” she says. “They should also be integrated with back office applications so that agents can retrieve real-time answers to questions such as ‘when did my order ship?’”

This is where real-time data access within mobile and social process is crucial. And not just for reps in the call center. Field service personnel need it. The field sales force needs it. Any employee who comes into contact with a customer needs it.

Mobile and Social BPM are integral to the customer service strategies of the future. They are lynchpins in moving from a “system of record” mentality to a “system of engagement” mindset that will exceed customer expectations.

-Ben Farrell, Director, Corporate Communications

The report uses data from a Forrester survey of insurance IT decision makers that highlights revenue growth as the #1 industry priority. Ellen cites that “innovation is viewed as a channel to revenue” because harnessing mobility and social into insurance business models will directly impact the customer experience. She says, “Mobile has changed the way we envision an insurance company…This change means that initiatives to deliver sales and customer service business capabilities must be mobiled. Social media are also maturing into a means to improve collaboration within the insurance ecosystem.”

This is precisely what Appian BPM is enabling our insurance customers to do. By putting full-featured process solutions as native apps on all popular mobile platforms, and utilizing a modern social interface, we are helping transform the industry. As Brian Flynn, global CIO at Crawford & Company has said, “The Appian BPM Suite, with its mobile and social capabilities, is truly an enabler that will change the way we work with our business partners and ultimately how we service our clients.”

What’s more, Appian also helps achieve the persistent objective of cost reduction by delivering those native mobile and social apps with ZERO additional development cost. This is above and beyond BPM’s traditional value in delivering, as the report says, “faster and cheaper processing of claims and disbursements, while ensuring that they’re paying claims the right way.”

Appian BPM precisely fits Ellen’s definition of the changing insurance IT landscape, where CIOs are moving from a limited focus on operations and cost containment to one in which “the role of technology is integral to support these new business disruptions.”

-Ben Farrell, Director, Corporate Communications