Technology companies are fond of partnering. These are the formalized structures that contemporary IT organizations establish to engender, extend and enhance their partner network operations are not taken lightly.
It’s almost like some kind of unwritten understanding even among those tech vendors who claim to offer so-called ‘end-to-end’ total platform solutions that there will always be a need to form strategic unions across the total market universe.
Why companies partner
We know that tech companies partner to form symbiotic technology unions, we know that tech companies partner to engage in joint customer support activities in variegated distributed computing environments (perhaps caused by previous organizational mergers, but often simply due to the fact that IT departments have a tendency to fork, skew and sometimes even form shadow IT zones), we know that tech companies partner because they want to engage in joint go-to-market initiatives… and we know that tech companies sometimes partner simply to enable to smooth migration of customer workloads between brands when that reality inevitably sometimes happens.
Known for its software that automates business processes and its capabilities in the low-code software market, Appian used its 2023 partner award sessions its Appian World conference in San Diego to detail why it is calling out a specific set of winners and lauding their collective technology efforts.
This company says that this year’s winners have demonstrated the ability to create innovative and impactful business solutions on the Appian Platform for end-to-end process automation and that they have done this while exceeding customer expectations and maintaining a high level of excellence in service delivery.
“We are thrilled to recognize our exceptional partners who have demonstrated their commitment to driving innovation and delivering unparalleled value to our customers,” said Mark Dillon, senior vice president of global partners organization at Appian. “The Appian Partner Awards celebrate the outstanding achievements of our partners and we are proud to have such a strong global community of dedicated and talented professionals.”
Energized enterprise ebullience
Behind Dillon’s energized enterprise ebullience (which he has to voice for this event, clearly) there are developments among the organizations highlights by Appian that may illustrate where some of the key enterprise software market developments will surface next.
Among the Appian partner impact & excellence awards, the firm this year gives its value award for customer success to WNS Vuram, a global hyperautomation services company specializing in low-code enterprise automation. Appian says that this award recognizes WNS Vurum’s achievement in applying Appian best practices and methodologies in customer service, project delivery and ongoing support to ensure high-value service delivery for customers. It might sound like we’ve heard those terms before, but perhaps not always in the same sentence i.e. service+delivery+support should almost perhaps come as a triumvirate standard.
The delivery award for speed and project excellence this year went to Ernst & Young (EY). This plaudit was intended to recognize the extent to which EY has demonstrated achievement in leveraging the Appian Platform for high-quality, rapid delivery. In six months, the EY Appian team has created a new Appian ecosystem at a large asset manager and designed and implemented a framework to manage fund lifecycle using agile methodology.
According to Appian’s Dillon and team, “The framework uses a template and case structure, allowing the business users to define their own workflows without having to go through an entire development cycle. Fund Management LifeCycle, the first implementation using this framework, replaced manual workflows and emails, enabling users to keep track of all the information and pending tasks for action in one centralized system. The framework is built to be flexible enough to be utilized for other workflows, cutting down time to market for any future applications.”
Impactful innovation
The innovation award for an impactful solution went to Accenture for creating a branded service known as ‘Innovation Factory’, an Appian-based solution. Created by a team of Accenture and Appian experts this past year, this solution includes high-value industry use cases and customer journey innovations that drive large-scale strategic business outcomes for customers.
The growth award for Appian practice went to RSM. As a provider of audit, tax and consulting services focused on the mid-Enterprise, RSM US LLP has been awarded the growth award in recognition of outstanding achievement in the alignment, development, and growth of its Appian Practice.
The transformation award for strategic business outcomes went to: KPMG and KPMG LLP is recognized with the highest Appian partner award for results in global strategic program delivery on the Appian Low-Code Platform. This past year, KPMG kicked-off multiple transformational client engagements globally, delivering impactful solutions to improve customer experience, transparency, efficiency, and compliance. As it happens, KPMG continues to lead something of a charge here by having among the largest number of globally certified lead developers.
As well as a sales channel partner award for Washington, DC-based Ignyte Group, Appian gave its technology partner of the year award to Guidewire. The company says that in less than one year, Guidewire became one of the most valuable technology partners for Appian by investing time and resources to support technology integration and go-to-market efforts.
Beyond the backslapping & bonhomie
Although there will always be an element of backslapping & bonhomie associated with these types of annual award ceremonies, there’s also a good deal of real world development practice happening at the coalface of not just enterprise software development, but also deployment.
So then, bent piece of glass, anyone?
