With the kickoff of our sales year in January, Appian was once again abuzz with talk of partners. Coming into this year, the marching orders remained clear: partners are key to our go-to-market and growth strategy, they help expand our leadership position in the market, and they'll continue to have a huge impact on our ability to acquire new customers in 2019.
Since then, from the main stage at our annual Sales Kickoff conference to our investor calls with Wall Street, each story of sales success has become synonymous with that of partners. Appian has proven for years that it can automate the most mission-critical processes and applications--now we do it together. Here is an example from our CEO Matt Calkins, as told to investors in the opening remarks of our fourth quarter earnings call this past February:
We signed a major manufacturing company as a new customer in the fourth quarter. This Fortune 100 firm... needed to replace the legacy system for managing premium break requests, which are triggered when products or components need to be shipped outside their standard operating procedures.
An Appian partner successfully built this application in six weeks to support a 4,000-person division including executives who will approve requests choosing their mobile devices. The customer expects the application to save them $9 million to $10 million in the first year.
Stories like these are some of Matt's favorite to tell, and the numbers speak for themselves. With the goal of many more partner wins this year, here are three ways we have taken this mantle and run with it so far in 2019.
Gearing Up
Behind each of these partner success stories, is a wide network of support. To further operationalize our sales process, we have taken the Appian sales methodology to the classroom, hosting Partner Sales Academies. In these sessions, we bring together Appian sales leadership, product experts, and some of our top account executives to address partners on how to better align with our methodologies and accelerate their sales pursuits. Attendees learn about Appian sales stages, our newest product updates, and success stories from around the globe. So far we have hosted these days at our Reston, VA headquarters, as well as internationally in Paris, Sydney, Singapore, and beyond. Register for our next Partner Sales Academy immediately following AW2019 on May 16 in San Diego.
Going Global
This level of sales success has fueled international growth in 2019. Our global sales support programs and coverage come from our continued growth across our various partner regions. As the channel continues to mature we are seeing more and more partners joining the Appian community globally. We are up to over 200 partners operating in North and Latin America, over 150 in EMEA, and over 50 in Asia-Pacific, with more applications coming in every day. Stay up to date with the latest from our global partner community by registering for our Global Partner Summit on May 13 at Appian World.
Getting Down to Business
We all know that success stories are nice, but sometimes numbers are better. Any way you slice it, partners are increasingly influencing more of our business in 2019. Partners helped us obtain about half of our new customers last year. They also influenced about a third of the customers who ordered more than $1 million of software in 2018. These relationships will only continue to improve our already-strong customer outcomes--the engine of Appian's growth since we started the company.
How does this happen? Time and time again, we find that the leads that come in from partners are more advanced the moment they reach us, more developed and sharpened from the customer perspective. Those deals are more likely to close, and more likely to close faster. To quote Matt Calkins again, "Everything gets better with partners involved."
So yes, our partners mean a higher win rate, a better deal, and a cleaner value proposition, so we love that across the board. We love that partners will continue to spread our low-code message throughout the market, and invite you to take advantage of this momentum at our top sales event of the year. Register for Appian World 2019, May 13-15 in San Diego. See you there!
