According to a recent report, the global business process management market is expected to grow from $8.8 billion in 2020 to $14.4 billion by 2025 at 10.5% CAGR. Reston, Virginia-based Appian (Nasdaq: APPN) is among the leading players in the industry.

Appian’s Financials

For the first quarter of the year, Appian saw revenues grow 13% over the year to $88.86 million, significantly ahead of the market’s forecast of $82.71 million. GAAP net loss increased to $13.6 million from $11.7 million a year ago. On an adjusted basis, net loss was $4 million, or $0.06 per share, compared with a loss of $8.2 million a year ago. The market was looking for a loss of $0.14 per share.

By segment, Cloud Subscription revenues grew 38% to $39.1 million. Total subscriptions revenue, which includes SaaS subscriptions, on-premises term license subscriptions, and maintenance and support, increased 26% to $63.8 million. Professional services revenue fell from $28.4 million last year to $25.1 million. Cloud subscription revenue retention rate was 118% at the end of the quarter.

Appian expects to end the current quarter with revenues of $77-$78 million with an adjusted loss of $0.26-$0.23 per share. For the year, Appian forecasts revenues of $171-$172 million, with a net loss of $0.68-$0.65 per share. The Street was looking for revenues of $79.12 million for the quarter with a loss of $0.23 per share. For the fiscal year, the market expects revenues of $345.65 million and a loss per share of $0.63.

Appian’s Product Upgrades

Appian recently released the latest version of its Low-code Automation Platform that introduces low-code data, a new code-free approach to unifying enterprise data. The latest version of Appian also expands on AI capabilities and features enhanced AI-driven Intelligent Document Processing (IDP), new design guidance and developer collaboration features, and enhanced DevSecOps capabilities.

The low-code data capability will simplify the ability to integrate data from anywhere, without needing to migrate it. By visually combining, extending, and modeling relationships between varied data sources, the solution will be able to optimize data sets for performance, without coding or database programming. The AI capabilities will deliver efficiency gains through native Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to extract data from documents without third-party software or services. Its RPA capabilities will allow Appian to centrally manage and monitor bots and end-to-end processes to increase scale and performance.

Appian is also expanding its partner network, and recently announced its partnership with Ellucian, a leading provider of software services for higher education. The partnership allows Appian to become part of the Ellucian Partner Company, and in turn, makes its solution, Appian CampusPass more accessible to higher education institutions around the world.

Gartner believes that by 2023, over 50% of medium to large enterprises will have adopted low-code application platforms as one of their strategic application platforms. Enterprise low-code application platforms deliver high-productivity and multifunction capabilities to help deliver improved business process management capabilities across all functions in the organization. Appian is a leading player in the market competing against big names like Salesforce, Microsoft, and ServiceNow, and even with niche players like Mendix and OutSystems. Appian is known for its rich process-driven application development, ability to offer a low-code solution that can handle complex workflows, and end-to-end solutions. Appian has been critiqued for its proprietary expression and scripting language that does require professional developer skills.

Appian’s stock is currently trading at $124.91 with a market cap of $8.8 billion. It had touched a 52-week high of $260.00 in February and a 52-week low of $48.02 in July last year.