Appian and Mega Partner to Bring Together BPM Tools and Enterprise Architecture Software

Yesterday I wrote about this partnership between these two companies on this post on our Evolve EA blog, and I figured I share the news along here as well. eBizQ reports in this article that Appian, a provider of BPM techonology, and Mega, a provider of EA technology, have entered in agreement to join the BPA and EA capabilities of the MEGA Modeling Suite with the Appian Enterprise BPM Suite and the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)-delivered Appian Anywhere platforms.

This new partnership is aimed to improving enterprise success in process innovation and building on existing deployments of software with joint customers such as Enterprise Rent-A-Car, AXA Investment Managers, General Dynamics, and the Department of Homeland Security. Users will be able to perform archectiture and process design on the Mega Suite and then export processes directly to the Appian BPM platform to map out direct management of operations.

Lucio de Risi, president and CEO of MEGA mentions:

"The combination of MEGA's powerful BPA, simulation, and optimization functionality with Appian's robust and scalable BPM platform will unite business users and analysts with enterprise, technical, and information architects in the common goal of creating adaptive, process-driven organizations."

Appian and MEGA Partnership

MarketWatch reported today that Appian and MEGA have decided to combine the BPA and EA capabilities of the MEGA Modeling Suite and Appian Enterprise BPM Suite as well as the SaaS platform by Appian Anywhere. As summarized by MarketWatch

The partners say the aim of the agreement is to accelerate enterprise success in process innovation and build on existing deployments with current joint customers such as Enterprise Rent-A-Car, AXA Investment Managers, General Dynamics, and the Department of Homeland Security. The partnership will be supported by product integration, as well as shared and coordinated sales and marketing activities.

Novak Provides $10 Million in Funding for Appian

Appian, a global provider of BPM, announced that they are receiving $10 million in funding from Novak Biddle Venture Partners as announced in their press release. Jack Biddle, partner at Novak and an Appian board member, had this to say:

"With analysts predicting a significant growth pattern for the industry over the next several years, Appian is well positioned to emerge as the leading pure play BPM provider. Their ability to bootstrap the business to this point is a strong indication that Appian's product offering and market strategy - implemented by an experienced management team - are meeting organizations' complex and diverse needs."

Industry insiders, as pointed out in this blog post are excited by this news. The feeling is that this will help increase the use of the SaaS model since according to company executives, Appian is increasingly becoming more “SaaS-oriented”. As the post mentions:

Appian is one of very few BPMS leaders actively pursuing the SaaS model, and they believe they are ahead of competitors in both the “vision” and the technology.

Also, we're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Business Process Management, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolvebpm.blogspot.com/

BPM Vendors Use of Internal Products

Appian, recently posted a report regarding some of their cost savings techniques. Specifically they mentioned that they estimate a cost savings of $500,000 a year attributed to use of their own products by eliminating licensing and support costs. Also mentioned is how by using their own products they feel they are able to provide better service to clients by discovering new uses for their products. As stated in the report:

Many other of our BPM applications are cross-functional, demonstrating the new possibilities our technology offers. For example

- Our Human Resources department uses Appian to manage many of their day-to-day administrative responsibilities and process integrations with other departments, such as handling departmental transfers, promotions and reassignments. Our Recruiting team uses Appian for managing the complete lifecycle of recruiting from prospect intake through interview through offer. Appropriate handoffs are then automatically made to HR, where Appian makes on-boarding fast and easy by providing all benefits and employee handbook information in the context of their associated processes, with status-tracking.

While some may feel that it is obvious that BPM vendors should use their own products, this blog post on Column 2 poses an interesting question to BPM vendors by asking them to release reports on use of their own company’s internal products. What is your opinion on the subject of BPM vendors maximizing use of the products they offer?