Welcome to Appian World 2015!
We hope the next several days here in our Nation's Capital will provide the premier industry forum to reinvent, deliver and innovate on the promises of modern enterprise IT.
This morning our annual user conference kicked off with a keynote address from Janelle Hill, Vice President and Distinguished Analysts at Gartner Inc., on how to thrive on change in the digital industry age. Discussingthe concept of big change and how organizations like yours can succeed in the world of constant volatility, novelty, and disruption , organizations demand the modern digital business. Janelle is a world-renowned expert in applying process thinking to achieve excellence in business operations. Her research includes best practices in all the process disciplines and emerging Big Change techniques along with the roles/responsibilities of change agents and business transformation leaders.
Janell is no stranger to Appian, and has covered the modern application platform leader since the company was founded in 1999. She has had a front row seat the the company's evolution and credits the willingness to accept change that has allowed Appian to experience rapid growth.
"Appianis a culture that thrives on change," said Hill. "This is a company that embraces changes and therefore flourishes."
A major ingredient of achieving big change in competitive markets is realizing digitization of software into the business. According to Hill, this requires at fluid change approach to IT and innovation, in which modern digital technology is continuously released to an organization. According to Hill, traditional design approaches often stall, unable to keep up with the rapid-paced digital workplace. Building for fluidity allows your solutions to be "change-proof" as industry trends and customer desires continue to evolve.
"To become a master of fluid change, your organization must embrace innovation and consistently design solutions that will allow change to be introduced into your work environment," said Hill.
Another major theme of build for change is the onset of mobile business. More and more we see work evolving beyond the iPhone and iPad and on to new wearables of the Internet of Things revolution such as smart watches and drones.
"Mobile becomes more than just a device in hand, said Hill. "It becomes an environment for group interaction and collaboration around real-time information that can be broadcast in a useful manner."
Hill believes that the onset of new wearbles will increase the shared value from data and information that can be drawn from these new sources. For example in the health care space, Fitbits can extract new data sources on daily health habits, allowing doctors and patients to more easily collaborate around healthy living habits. And as Hill predicts, this is just the first wave of new smart devices, as more and more data sources will continue to surface that will increase knowledge sharing and valued collaboration.
Digital business allows mainstream organizations to customize operations around the fast-paced demands of today's modern workplace.
Hill discussed an example of Appian customer Melbourne Airport, the largest and busiest airport in Australia, and how digital solutions can be rapidly rolled out to innovate operations. Hill discussed how Melbourne has leverage the Appian Application Platform to deploy a Live Incident Management application, allowing Melbourne field workers to collect data and records related to safety, compliance and security management. All actions and tasks can be accessed via a mobile device so that actions can be taken quicker to resolve incidents facility-wide.
In closing, Hill encouraged all attendees to strive for change, expressing that organizations must allow technology to reach levels never seen before.
"Challenge traditional assumptions to initiate change," said Hill. "When something new comes out, I encouage you to give it a try and see where it takes you along the journey to redefining your business."
-Mike Ingrisano, Media Relations Manager
