There’s nothing like an initial public offering (IPO) to get people to sit up and notice a company.  IPOs are only possible when companies are delivering novel solutions that offer great value and facilitate strong revenue growth.  That’s the case with Guidewire, a software company that’s built enterprise applications to support the core systems of property & casualty (P&C) insurers.

But a closer inspection of Guidewire, made possible through their IPO regulatory filings, shows their solutions are novel only in comparison to the ancient IT systems and paper-based processes used extensively by P&C insurers today.  Guidewire is a big advance over those, but only a few steps in the BPM direction.

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Tags: , Appian, BPM for Insurance, Business Process Management, Forrester

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.

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

Earlier this week, we announced the opening of our new Australia/New Zealand regional headquarters office in Sydney. The market for BPM Software across ANZ is growing rapidly. Economies across Asia-Pacific appear to be much stronger than in other areas of the world right now. Australia, in particular, has done very well through this protracted period of global economic crisis. According to Dr. Michael Rosemann of the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), as quoted in a recent interview with Gartner, Inc. (subscription required), the country had the second-strongest currency in the world in 2010.

Economic strength means business growth, which demands scalable business processes and invites innovation. That’s why Appian already has an impressive roster of customers in the region – customers that are expanding BPM projects into enterprise-wide BPM programs – and it’s why we expect continued growth in the area. Dedicated Appian sales and professional services staff in-country will help us capitalize on the opportunity, and will ensure the success of our customers in the region.

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Tags: , Appian, Australia, BPM, Business Process Management, New Zealand

We knew that Appian’s BPM software competitors would eventually wake up and try to grab some of our Mobile BPM thunder. We also expected that when they did, the offering would be well short in catching up with our innovation lead. Just recently, we’ve been proven right on both counts. But even we are surprised at how low the bar has been set among the other vendors.

Don’t be fooled by look-alikes. All Mobile BPM is NOT created equal. Delivering Mobile BPM over the web rather than through a native mobile experience is a terrible mistake – for your internal users, for your customers and for your IT shop. The reasons boil down to user experience and cost.

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Tags: , Appian, Business Process Management, mobile BPM

I recently gave my “Business Process Management 101” talk at a meeting of the National Credit Business Exchange.  The audience was eager to learn about a new approach to software and peppered me with questions, showing their excitement and enthusiasm.  But I noticed the enthusiasm waning in my discussions with the group after my talk as reality quickly set in.  The reason for the decline is exemplified in the comment I got from one attendee.

The words this person used were powerful and telling.  But I got more from their body language which showed the excitement I had generated ended up bringing back painful memories.  I knew right then and there that they wouldn’t even bring this to their IT department leader and a chance for their company to gain a competitive advantage was lost.

I wonder what this person’s CEO would have thought if they had been a fly on the wall for this conversation.  How did we get here?

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Tags: , Appian, BPM, BPM software, Business Process Management

I recently went through the process of getting a new individual life insurance policy, something that’s done thousands of times a day across the country.  My experience is a cautionary tale for leaders of insurance companies everywhere.  When the process was finally complete, and I signed the last policy document, I wrote beneath my signature, “P.S.  I hate you!”

If you like consumer frustration stories, read on and you’ll be entertained.  If you are in the insurance business, you definitely want to read my tale of woe as I also lay out how to easily delight customers and earn superior profits.

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

There has been some recent discussion in the media about the status of the Army Knowledge Online (AKO) program. Certain organizations are trying to diminish one of the most successful knowledge and process management systems ever launched in the federal government; one that has saved the U.S. Army more than $500M per year according to congressional reports.

There is no question that the AKO criticism is coming from parties that stand to gain financially if the Army spends hundreds of millions of dollars to substitute this system with inferior technology. The fighting men and women in the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, and state-side service personnel, have too much hanging in the balance to be subjected to these sorts of self-interested machinations.

For what it’s worth, the truth is this: the AKO discussion is an issue regarding a program for enterprise email for the Army and DoD. It is not an issue related to AKO’s other functions, or Appian’s BPM software. More »

Tags: , Appian, Army Knowledge Online, BPM for Government

We had our quarterly company meeting yesterday. Everyone was in a pretty good mood based on our success in the first half of the year. As usual, our executive team did a great job talking about numbers, goals and strategies. Our CEO Matt Calkins, however, spent most of his time on something much bigger. He talked to us about redefining Business Process Management by redefining BPM software – how it looks, what it does, and where it does it. By doing that, he said, we will change the very nature of how organizations operate and how work gets done.

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

Edward Hughes, Appian’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales, recently spoke with Lisa Valentine of FSOkx about the driving trends in BPM software and how they can help financial services institutions (FSIs) transform their businesses. FSO recently named Appian the premier vendor for BPM solutions in financial services in their 2011 Excellence Awards.

Mr. Hughes discussed how Appian allows financial firms to deliver innovative capabilities cost-effectively to any desktop or mobile device, and why FSIs should consider new BPM delivery methods.

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Tags: , Appian, BPM for Financial Services, BPM in the Cloud, Business Process Management, mobile BPM, Social BPM

What do these three things have in common? I need to set the stage appropriately before I explain.

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Tags: , Appian, BPM, BPM software, Business Process Management