"Best-of-breed? It's you," declared Appian CEO Matt Calkins in this morning's keynote, setting the tone for day one of our virtual conference. AppianEUROPE20 brings together low-code experts, customers, journalists and the wider Appian community to discuss the latest developments in automation technology. Here's a few of the highlights from an action-packed day of sessions:
The keynote - and beyond
Everything depended on building new processes in 2020, including the relationships between an organization, its customers and its employees. It's never been more critical to work at speed, to build trust and protect peoples' health. The answer: low-code, Appian CEO Matt Calkins said in his opening remarks.
"Best-of-breed" has become a slogan for the conference and a touchstone for various speakers across today's sessions. It means two things: Appian leads the pack in its categories, and our technology enables customers to create their own "best-of-breed" offerings. Ultimately, it's about giving customers more choice, more flexibility, and more control over where their data lives than the pre-packaged offerings of tech giants.
That "David and Goliath" narrative continued throughout the day, with Poste Italiane's Luca Verducci declaring "we chose best-of-breed" during a customer panel on Delivering Value During Uncertainty.
Key announcements
Conferences are a natural springboard for corporate announcements, and AppianEUROPE20 is no different. Today, we announced the launch of Appian Connected Claims, a low-code, configurable way to accelerate claims settlements and improve the customer experience.
Matt also unveiled HYPERAUTOMATION, a collection of expert essays on low-code development and the future of business process automation - possibly the most comprehensive book on the subject to date. It features contributions from academics, analysts, implementers and end users, and all proceeds will be donated to the charity Black Girls Code.
The human touch
From hands-on sessions to breakout presentations, the relationship between humans and technology was ever-present. Mike Beckley, Appian co-founder and CTO, put it well in a plenary session on Accelerating Digital Innovation: "Hyperautomation is about augmenting human potential - not replacing humans with RPA or AI." Whereas the conversation about bots and automation has involved the idea of "replacing humans," Appian instead puts the human back at the center of a workflow or process. Expect lots more on this during day two.
Change is the only constant
Predictably, COVID-19 has taken center stage at AppianEUROPE20. In the plenary panel and breakout sessions, Appian customers talked about using Appian as a platform for change. During the pandemic, the need for agile hyperautomation - that's automation with a focus on process and speed, by definition - has been brought to the fore. For too long, tech giants have monopolized the market, creating pre-built solutions in opposition to "best-of-breeds" like Appian. But speed is essential to create applications that solve critical problems, now more than ever. That's why organizations are increasingly turning to low-code and hyperautomation to create their own solutions.
Join us for day two of AppianEUROPE20. Register now for access and to receive links to on-demand content after the conference closes.
