Wonder why the current administration’s new federal CIO is so committed to cloud computing? The current federal IT infrastructure’s utilization rate is less than 30 percent.

Blogger Ann All in IT Business Edge commented recently about the spiraling federal debt and the runaway problems of redundancy in federal procurement. Ms. All cites a recent Federal Cloud Computing Strategy paper by federal CIO Vivek Kundra, which points to a raft of odd procurement practices. The Department of Agriculture, for example, apparently has 21 different e-mail systems. Cloud BPM can fix federal procurement, and save taxpayers real money along the way.

More »

Tags: , Appian, Appian Cloud, BPM, BPM for Federal Acquisitions, BPM for Government, BPM in the Cloud, BPM software, Business Process Management, mobile BPM, SaaS BPM, software-as-a-service

China Martens of Forrester Research published a great paper last week titled, “Put Process at The Heart of ERP”.  Here’s my favorite quote – “Today’s ERP applications are still too complex and inflexible. Organizations continue to be plagued with customization and upgrade headaches as a direct result of the software’s rigidity and poor match with real-world business processes. Help may be at hand, however, with the emergence of next generation [software applications].”

I applaud Ms. Martens’ work but believe she missed a key point by suggesting solutions are just starting to emerge.  This makes me think of Samuel Beckett’s famous play, Waiting for Godot, where two actors kill time while they wait expectantly and in vain for someone named Godot to arrive.  The capabilities ERP users want, so aptly described by Ms. Martens, won’t unfold the way Ms. Martens’ suggests, and in fact are already available today through BPM software.

More »

Tags: , Appian, Appian Cloud, BPM, BPM in the Cloud, Business Process Management, Enterprise Resource Planning, mobile BPM, SaaS BPM

Mike Beckley, co-founder and CTO of Appian, was interview recently by newscaster Morris Jones on the television program Capital Insider. The discussion centered on how BPM software is  helping drive efficiency in the federal government.

Mike explained that the imperative in government is not just to trim budgets, but also to improve service. What government does is shared across agencies, whether the process is procurement, human resources, or even security processing such as background checks.

More »

Tags: , Appian, Appian Cloud, BPM, BPM for Government, BPM in the Cloud, BPM software, Business Process Management, Government and Efficiency, Process Improvement for Government, SaaS BPM, software-as-a-service

Gain leading-edge insights into business process excellence in Financial Services. Join FSOkx and CME Group (Chicago Mercantile Exchange) for a free webinar on March 1, and a live event in Chicago on March 10, 2011.

You’ll hear a distinguished panel of experts, with a deep-dive on how CME Group is using Appian’s business process management software to transform its business. More »

Tags: , Appian, Appian 6, Appian Cloud, BPM, BPM for Human Resource Management, BPM in the Cloud, Business Process Management, CME Group, FSOkx, SaaS BPM, software-as-a-service

Appian is hosting the “BPM Just Got Better” webinar on February 22 at 11:00am Eastern Time. In less than one hour, you will learn how to leverage BPM, cloud technology, social collaboration and mobility to drive market success.

Forrester Research Vice President Connie Moore will outline the new technology imperatives for process improvement, and how industry leaders are using them to drive value. She will also pay special attention to the emerging model of available on-demand.

Ben Farrell, Director, Corporate Communications

Tags: , Appian, Appian 6, BPM, BPM for Case Management, BPM in the Cloud, Business Process Management, Case Management, Cloud Computing, Forrester, mobile BPM, SaaS BPM, software-as-a-service

In December, when I vacationed in Costa Rica, I brought with me a secret. On my iPad and iPhone (I travel with both) I carried an app that integrated me back to my office better than anything I’d ever used. Its interface was a simple scrolling list, filtered to my preferences, of things happening at work. It included items for my approval, process alerts from various applications, messages from my employees, data reports and more. I could comment on any item and be sure those comments were heard by the right people. I could extract data from remote systems to draw my conclusions. I could fill forms and make approvals in every application in the enterprise. It was native – and beautiful – on all my mobile platforms.

It was the new Appian 6.5, code name Tempo.

It’s a revolution of new functionality, and because it is so novel it has undergone an unusually long testing and acceptance cycle. We’ve run our company on it for nearly six months now, and it’s been in development for more than a year. We took our time because in an uncertain market, we wanted to get the concept exactly right.

Our intention was to set the new standard for mobile and social BPM.

More »

Tags: , Appian, Appian 6, BPM, BPM in the Cloud, BPM software, Business Process Management, mobile BPM, SaaS BPM

Research firm IDC has published a very interesting case study on how solution vendor psHEALTH is using BPM in the cloud to drive rapid development of custom solutions for healthcare providers in the UK. There is increasing awareness of how organizations are using BPM to speed internal application development – particularly via the cloud. IDC’s paper is particularly interesting because it highlights a new and growing trend of Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) leveraging a BPM Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) for accelerated solution deployment to their customers. More »

Tags: , Appian, Appian Cloud, application development, BPM, BPM in the Cloud, Business Process Management, Case Management, IDC, OEM, psHealth, SaaS BPM

Here’s another sign that the BPM train continues to gain steam: next week’s Gartner Symposium ITxpo 2010 in Orlando will feature an entire track of content dedicated to BPM and business process improvement. Gartner has an established focus on process issues and BPM Suite technology, of course, but this is the first time the topic has risen to Symposium-level mainstream awareness.

Appian is a sponsor of the event, which runs October 18-21. We will be on-site giving demonstrations of our Appian 6 platform in Booth #320 throughout the conference. Please stop by to see one, or to schedule a private one-one demo.

More »

Tags: , Appian, Appian 6, Appian Cloud, BPM, BPM in the Cloud, Business Process Management, Gartner, SaaS BPM

Appian has set the date, booked the facility and opened the registration for the 3rd and largest Appian global user conference, Appian World 2011!

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. More »

Tags: , Appian, Appian 6, BPM, BPM for Government, BPM in the Cloud, BPM Methodology, Business Process Management, Forrester, Gartner, Implementation, IT, SaaS BPM

The financial services industry has been a leading adopter of Business Process Management suite technology for many years. When the global recession hit, BPM spend in the sector maintained, because BPM’s promise of cost reduction and process control and optimization was precisely what the industry needed. With a little cautious optimism now beginning to creep back into U.S. markets and across Europe, financial companies continue to focus on process improvement as they prepare for a hopeful return to more stability.

There are several “BPM for financial services” industry events happening over the next few weeks, both in the U.S. and across the pond. Appian customers will be presenting at many of them. More »

Tags: , Appian, Appian 6, Appian Cloud, BPM, BPM in the Cloud, Business Process Management, SaaS BPM