As with previous Appian user conferences, the event is completely free to Appian customers, partners, and those simply interested in learning more about Appian and Business Process Management. Whether you are a business or IT professional, a process improvement expert or a BPM newbie, with a commercial organization or working in the public sector, this is a must-attend event.

At Appian World 2011, BPM industry luminaries and leading practitioners will share the insights you need to drive business value through process improvement. Analysts from firms such as Gartner and Forrester will discuss where the BPM market is today, where it is headed, and how BPM suite technology will support it. People on the front-lines of BPM use in government and commercial markets will share their success stories, lessons learned, and tricks of the trade. From the visionary to the practical, the speakers will help you understand how to make the most of a process improvement program, and how to drive maximum value from a BPM technology investment.

Appian World 2011 is also a one-stop shop for learning everything you need to know about the on-premise Appian BPM Suite and the SaaS BPM Appian Anywhere. Day 1 of the conference features multiple training tracks where you can get the basics through a BPM 101 tutorial, get hands-on with the latest Appian 6 platform, discuss BPM value measurement, learn about proven methodologies for program success, and more. The training continues on Day 3 with dedicated product and methodology tracks.

In between, the focus will be on industry experts and real-world case studies, with plenty of networking time with other participants and Appian executives. Approved Appian partners are invited to attend a comprehensive Partner Forum dedicated to enablement and success best-practices.

Early-bird registrants will receive a complimentary copy of Empowered, the new book by Josh Vernoff and Ted Schadler of Forrester Research, and can take advantage of discounted rates at the beautiful Hyatt Regency Reston.

Don’t miss out! Register for Appian World 2011 today.

-Ben Farrell, Director of Corporate Communications

The vital first step, of course, is getting your BPM initiative off the ground by building a solid business case. Our customer CME Group is hosting an exclusive lunch presentation on just this topic at the conference. A BPM business case involves much more than just doing an ROI calculation. To set a BPM program up for success, you must secure executive sponsorship, get both IT and the business side on board, assemble the right cross-functional team, think about issues of change management and their impact, and more.

At the presentation, Connie Moore, Vice President and Research Director at Forrester Research will set the stage by discussing exactly what a BPM business case entails. John Verburgt, Director of Business Process Management at CME Group, will then walk through the successes, pitfalls and lessons learned during CME Group’s BPM Program implementation.

This will be highly informative for anyone who is serious about achieving the transformational benefits of BPM within their organization. CME Group’s approach is an excellent example of how to get BPM started right.

The lunch presentation will begin at 12:30pm on October 7. To request a spot at this invitation-only session, please email events@forrester.com, with “Appian Lunch RSVP” in the subject line.

Hope to see you there!

Ben Farrell, Director of Corporate Communications

IT departments are tasked with two primary, and sometimes competing, objectives. The first, driven by executive management, is to make IT transformative to the business through new and innovative services. The second, driven by the realities of complex technology infrastructures, is to fight the daily fires and do the maintenance and upgrades required just to keep the lights on. With fewer and fewer resources available (the result of cost cutting across the organization), managers on the IT front line know they are often lucky to meet SLAs for the services already available, let alone develop, deploy and maintain new services. 

Business Process Management technologies are emerging as the common solution to both the executive mandate, and the IT management nightmare. BPM lets IT create, document, execute, manage, and modify standards-compliant processes to ensure consistent execution. This process standardization and automation in IT Service Management (ITSM) leads to more efficiency and increased productivity in what IT is already doing. More importantly, it enables a redirection of IT resources to focus on strategic projects that can move the needle for the business.

Success happens when both IT and the business harmonize, using appropriate technology underpinnings to support a process-centric mentality that looks for and eliminates waste and inefficiency. Using BPM for ITSM is a single solution that solves both of IT’s primary challenges, thereby enabling transformative new IT services with unlimited potential for the business.

Appian will be a sponsor at the Gartner IT Expo in Orlando from October 12-16. If you’re going to be there, stop by our booth so we can talk about the team effort required to make the shift in IT mentality from one of managing assets, to one of delivering valuable and high-quality services.

Ben Farrell

Director of Corporate Communications

]]> http://www.appian.com/blog/2008/10/03/the-business-of-it-delivering-transformative-services-requires-process-improvement/feed 0 http://www.appian.com/blog/2008/08/26/bpm-centers-of-excellence http://www.appian.com/blog/2008/08/26/bpm-centers-of-excellence#comments Tue, 26 Aug 2008 20:53:27 +0000 Malcolm Ross http://www.appian.com/blog/?p=37 Many organizations ask leading BPM companies like Appian how to really enforce process change and focus on process throughout their organization.  We continuously drive our customers towards what we call a Center of Excellence around business process management.  We have seen many organizations adopt variations of this approach and even seeing CIO’s and COO’s morph into Chief Process Officers responsible for driving process effiencies across an organization. 

One of our local services experts, Glenn Smith, recently wrote an article on How to Establish a BPM Center of Excellence for BPM Enterprise.com.   This is a great overview on how to get started with a company’s first foray into a business process management endeavor.   Glenn provides some basic starting steps on what to consider in defining the roles and make-up of the Center of Excellence team.

Malcolm