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

Software applications have become the central nervous system of large companies.  Everything those companies do to deliver their goods or services is governed by or assisted through software.  A company’s success in the marketplace is therefore a function of how refined and capable their software is, and how quickly they can adapt it to changing needs in the market.  Companies that “play to win” have found ways to make their software a key asset.  Companies that don’t are merely “playing not to lose.”

Which type are you?  Read on to find out.

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Tags: , Appian Cloud, BPM, BPM in the Cloud, BPM software, Business Process Management, mobile BPM, Social, Social BPM, software-as-a-service

Clay Richardson at Forrester Research has just published a great research paper on “The ROI of BPM Suites.” Clay puts forward some very exciting market data demonstrating the enormous business value of process improvement through BPM software. He also gives insightful prescriptive guidance on how to plan, measure and maximize BPM suite return on investment. According to Clay’s data, “implementing a BPM suite produced an expected return on investment (ROI) of 58% and a net present value (NPV) of $1,585,457 over three years via an on-premises deployment.”

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Tags: , Appian Cloud, BPM, Business Process Management, Forrester, Nokia Siemens Networks, ROI

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

I was in a meeting last week with an Appian client who wanted our professional services team to help with some enhancements.  This client had already achieved great success using our business process management software in financial operations for an order-to-cash process.  That success allowed their team to get approval from their CFO to expand the use of Appian to cover other financial operations processes such as purchase-to-pay and capital expenditure requests.  With so much going on, work demand exceeded their internal team’s capacity so they asked us to help with enhancements to the original order-to-cash application.  I looked at their list of enhancement requests and the first thing that popped into my mind was the MTV show “Pimp My Ride.”

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Tags: , BPM, BPM software, mobile BPM, order-to-cash, Social, 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

Most people think that getting a signed contract is as good as having money in the bank.  Those who have ownership for their company’s “Order-to-Cash” process beg to differ. Many of them are discovering the value of BPM software in speeding this process to close.

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Tags: , BPM, Business Process Management, Deductions Management, Financial Operations, order-to-cash

FSO Knowledge Exchange held their “Financial Services Industry Transformation and Outsourcing Strategies Forum” last week in London. Appian was on-hand for the event because financial services institutions (FSIs) make up a large segment of our customer base, and our BPM software is all about achieving organizational transformation. So it was a natural fit.

Edward Hughes, our VP of Worldwide Sales, participated in a panel discussion on “Driving Process Excellence Through Innovative Platforms and Solutions.” He outlined the three crucial elements that FSIs must focus on to achieve business transformation: business and IT collaboration, customer service excellence, and hitting the ever-moving target of regulatory compliance.

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

It’s a matter of “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” Federal agencies and other organizations need to capitalize on the value of social media, according to Jesse Wilkins, director of systems engagement for the Association for Information and Image Management. In a recent NextGov wrapup of the info360 information management conference in Washington, D.C., Mr. Wilkins said, “We shouldn’t stand in front of the steamroller.” He added that trying to prevent employees from using Facebook, Twitter or similar social media sites “is just not realistic.”

With Appian’s mobile BPM and social BPM software, there’s no need to fight the inevitable. Appian grounds a familiar Facebook-style interface in a business context – using business processes and events to harness social business action and collaboration that drives real business value for government and commercial organizations.

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Tags: , Appian 6, BPM, Business Process Management, Government 2.0, mobile BPM, Social BPM

Conventional wisdom says that government can’t attract the best talent and get new hires up-and-running quickly. Mountains of paperwork cause long delays. Lack of flexibility and visibility into the hiring/on-boarding process gets in the way of fulfilling critical hiring goals. The whole experience can be frustrating both for federal hiring teams and the people who wish to devote themselves to public service.

It doesn’t have to be this way, and BPM software can help. Come to tomorrow’s Human Capital Management Federal (HCMF) Recruitment & Talent Management Strategy Day to learn how.

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Tags: , Appian, BPM, BPM for Government, BPM for Human Resource Management, Business Process Management, Government 2.0