Here at Appian, we are gearing up for our biggest global user conference yet.  This is the 4th Appian World conference, and the first to feature a multiple tracks that cater to the diverse and growing audience expected to attend this April.

For Appian World 2012, we will be featuring a BPM Beginner, Appian Developer, and Business track featuring.  Each track will feature a variety of customer case studies, 3rd party analyst / BPM expert perspectives, and learning sessions to ensure success in your BPM endeavors. More »

Tags: , Appian World, Appian World 2012

I enjoyed Adam Deane’s recent post on “BPM: Priorities.” He points out how limited typical BPM systems are in dealing with the complexities of how work actually gets done based on the often chaotic nature of how business and task priorities constantly change. In my opinion, this is where Social BPM capabilities become so critical.

The problem is, most BPM software vendors (and frankly, many industry pundits) have a limited view of what Social BPM really is. They relegate it to collaborative process design – making it easier for a handful of pre-designated people to work together in developing a process diagram. This is, at best, a single. The grand-slam homerun happens when Social BPM is applied to real-time collaborations across all employees (and customers) while business processes are being executed.

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Tags: , Appian 6, BPM for Case Management, Business Process Management, Social BPM, social technology

As reported in Federal Computer Week, a January 19 report from the Defense Business Board (DBB) states that “pursuing IT efficiencies could save DoD between 25 and 50 percent on annual expenditures, while also improving mission effectiveness and achieving return on investment even ahead of schedule.”

The report outlines a four-step approach of “normalizing, standardizing and rationalizing applications; rationalizing and consolidating data centers; rationalizing data and security; and then migrating appropriate components to the cloud.” The DBB urged the department to act decisively in these areas, warning that the consequences could otherwise be disastrous.

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Tags: , BPM for Government, BPM in the Cloud, Business Process Management and Government, Cloud Computing, defense business board, Government 2.0

There’s nothing like an initial public offering (IPO) to get people to sit up and notice a company.  IPOs are only possible when companies are delivering novel solutions that offer great value and facilitate strong revenue growth.  That’s the case with Guidewire, a software company that’s built enterprise applications to support the core systems of property & casualty (P&C) insurers.

But a closer inspection of Guidewire, made possible through their IPO regulatory filings, shows their solutions are novel only in comparison to the ancient IT systems and paper-based processes used extensively by P&C insurers today.  Guidewire is a big advance over those, but only a few steps in the BPM direction.

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Tags: , Appian, BPM for Insurance, Business Process Management, Forrester

Earlier this week we announced Appian’s results for 2011. In the immortal words of Frank Sinatra, “it was a very good year.” The numbers speak for themselves: 90 new-name customers, a 219 percent jump in license orders over 2010, and nearly 40 percent of total orders coming for Appian Cloud.

The story behind the numbers is testament to how enterprise mobility, social collaboration and cloud computing are reshaping the IT landscape. Appian’s Mobile BPM, Cloud BPM and Social BPM address the broken state of enterprise software today.

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Tags: , Appian, Appian 6, Appian Cloud, BPM in the Cloud, mobile BPM, Social BPM

BPM software is key to how federal departments and agencies are going to cope with the unrelenting pressures to increase agility, transparency, accountability, cost reduction and constituent service.  If you work in the public sector and have a focus on process improvement, you can’t afford to miss Appian World 2012. The conference (April 15-17 at the Reston Hyatt outside Washington, D.C.) is free, and in addition to great content and networking, it is the only place you can hear Kenneth Percell, former CIO of the U.S. Air Force Material Command, deliver his “Confessions of a Federal CIO.”

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Tags: , Appian World 2012, BPM for Federal Acquisitions, BPM for Government, Business Process Management and Government, Kenneth Percell, Process Improvement for Government

It’s no secret that the business of insurance is getting more and more competitive.  Thanks to numerous comparison sites on the internet, it’s easier than ever to quickly find just what you need.  As consumers, we’re all benefiting from more options, easier selection, and lower prices.  But for insurance companies, all of this transparency is another matter.

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Tags: , BPM, Business Process Management, competitive advantage, Insurance, process improvement for insurance

Forrester analyst Craig Le Clair has published an excellent report called “Stuck In Cement: When Packaged Apps Create Barriers To Innovation.” In his related blog post, he frets that “concrete” is the more apt, but less poetic analogy. Based on the research findings, I suggest “Packaged Apps Are the Concrete Shoes Pulling Business Down.” That’s how dire a picture Craig paints, but he offers a ray of hope by positing that BPM Software is the answer.

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Tags: , application development, BPM software, Enterprise Resource Planning, Forrester, mobile BPM, Social BPM

Gartner’s Jim Sinur recently predicted that 2012 will be “The Year of Intelligent Business Operations (IBO),” and stated that Intelligent Business Process Management Software (iBPMS) is the central enabling technology. Appian customers are among the vanguard of “leading edge organizations” Jim mentioned that are making IBO a reality today. This is because the innovations Appian has pioneered (Mobile BPM, Social BPM, Cloud BPM, real-time event architecture, in-memory analytics, extreme ease-of-use) are all crucial components to enacting an IBO strategy.

Click here to read a paper by Appian Principal Consultant Glenn Smith on “Intelligent Business Operations: BPM & Analytics in the Event-Driven Enterprise.”

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Tags: , BPM in the Cloud, Gartner, iBPMS, intelligent business operations, mobile BPM, Social BPM

Happy 2012..

Appian recently released our biggest update yet to the Google Android platform.  We have seen interest in Android surge from our clients and we are happy to announce that our Android mobile client is now at parity with our Apple iOS mobile offering.

For clients who use Appian’s Android version, you will notice that the interface is different from the Apple release and optimized to be friendly and familiar for Android users.  In addition, Appian Forms support has been updated on Android to support all the great features Apple users have enjoyed, such as intelligent pickers and rich media capture from the mobile camera and mic.

Appian has seen interest in Mobile BPM continue to surge with a growing list of expanded use cases and potential for process optimization.  Some Mobile BPM examples we are currently implementing include:  field engineering support, break-fix, field inspections, at home healthcare and nurse management, and mobile spend requests and approvals.

Demand for mobile access to critical business processes will grow for many more years as we all come to depend upon our mobile devices to perform more and more tasks previously only possible on our desktop/laptop computers.

For Appian customers, you can download and start using the latest version of the Appian Android mobile client from the Google Android Market.  For just the curious, try signing up for a free Appian trial and explore the Appian BPM Suite as well as this Android mobile client update.

Thanks,

Malcolm Ross

Director, Product Management

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