Appian’s Mobile BPM capabilities were a significant driver of our record 2011 results. I’d like to talk a little about how and why organizations are using Appian Mobile BPM.

For the longest time, knowledge workers using traditional BPM software could not easily do BPM functions on their mobile devices like completing work items, accessing real-time reports, or initiating processes. Meetings, travel or just being away from the desktop computer usually resulted in bottlenecks and inefficient processes.

Frankly, for an industry dedicated to process improvement and eliminating inefficiencies the lack of Mobile BPM options was embarrassing.

In 2011, we became the first BPM vendor to release a native Mobile BPM application for the iOS, BlackBerry and Android platforms. We focused on making the experience dead simple and highly intuitive. As a result, many of our customers rapidly adopted and subsequently expanded their use of Appian Mobile BPM.  More »

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Social BPM looks a lot like Facebook and Twitter but, unlike those platforms, it is dramatically increasing worker productivity.

What is Social BPM? It’s an activity-stream interface that allows workers to more effectively manage their business processes. You can use Social BPM to handle critical events, collaborate with subject matter experts, initiate processes and consume personalized information; all with pinpoint enterprise security and auditability in a zero-training interface.

Below is an example showing how an ERP system can automatically post critical time-sensitive information to Appian’s Social BPM interface.

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Tags: , BPM, BPM software, Business Process Management, mobile BPM, Social, Social BPM

A good indication of where organizations are making technology investments comes from looking at their job postings.

Indeed.com, a search engine that aggregates job postings across a large number of employer and recruiting sites, has a nifty ‘job trends’ feature that tracks the growth of specific keywords being used.

A search for the keyword ‘bpm’ shows a 450% increase, since January 2005, in its use in job postings. This aligns with the widely experienced growth of the BPM software market and Gartner’s recent prediction about increasing BPM spending in 2011.

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

It is a truism that for every person in an organization that cares about enterprise software there are nine people that care a lot less. This silent majority is often referred to as the ‘end user’ or ‘business user’ community. These are the folks that just want to get their work done in the least burdensome manner. They don’t care much (if at all) about what the underlying technology is. It is this majority that has driven the adoption of new platforms and paradigms such as iOS and Salesforce.

The hockey stick growth that BPM analysts continue to predict year after year is achievable. But it will not come from the minority of people already focused on process. Neither will it come from incremental updates to old BPM paradigms or from the resolution of debates over BPMN minutiae, for examples. Exponential BPM growth will come through the majority and its rapid adoption of Mobile, Social and Cloud technology.

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Tags: , BPM Adoption, BPM in the Cloud, Business Process Management, mobile BPM, Social, Social BPM

Last week, I visited the portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci . It’s a masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci, painted during the early Italian Renaissance. It is the only Leonardo da Vinci painting on display in North America, and it is breathtaking. You can observe Leonardo’s experimentation with the new medium of oil paint, his use of shadow and light, naturalism and atmospheric perspective.

Within a few years, the use of these techniques from Italian masters like Leonardo would spread throughout Europe and revolutionize art. It was the beginning of the Renaissance. Exciting times! It made me realize there is a parallel to the exciting times happening now in BPM software.

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Tags: , Appian 6, Business Process Management, mobile BPM