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'Huge' expansion opportunity in A/NZ for Appian and its partners. 28 Aug 2026 6 mins Plans to launch new partner programme at the end of September. The Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ) region has the potential to provide process automation platform Appian for a "huge" expansion opportunity. In turn, this provides the vendor's partners with the chance for their own growth. According to the vendor's senior vice president of global partnerships, Scott Van Valkenburgh, the A/NZ region presents Appian with the right environment to gain more specialty resellers and reach. Before he joined the vendor in August last year, Van Valkenburgh said Appian had limited its reach to large clients and key partners. "When Appian grew up, a lot of those partners were more of the experts at delivery versus selling," he said to ARN. "In Australia and New Zealand, the ecosystem around that's quite healthy, and there are plenty of awesome partners that know orchestration and automation, but [they] may not know Appian. "So, the first point of business would be bringing that experience and enablement for them to drive traditional reselling, and in addition to that, that alternate channel approach." Part of that includes the development of a new partner programme, which has been designed with greater flexibility than previous iterations, has no upfront commitment on revenue, and is due to launch in New Zealand at the end of September. "We get paid when they get paid," Van Valkenburgh said. "We collect in arrears, and then the financial infrastructure to do this is fantastic. "For example, if they do a subscription-based, variable-based model, or outcome-based model, we map the platform and the revenue and the value exactly to how they're going to go to market." In addition, Appian is simplifying its reseller framework to offer clearer and more predictable margin opportunities, as well as expanding incentives past new customer acquisition to include customer growth, renewals, and satisfaction. According to Van Valkenburgh, the latter is measured by quantitative adoption usage, pipeline, growth, and net promoter and customer engagement scores. Appian laid the groundwork for what the vice president is currently calling it the vendor's "Partner 2.0 Programme", including the launch of contract frameworks, infrastructure, and initial discussions, which took place in January this year. Meanwhile, the full launch is expected soon, which will also include incentives around new deals, renewals, expansion, support, and a push for the adoption of AI in the form of Appian's own products and its connectivity to external AI solutions. "As we launch and stand that up this year, you'll see, as we get into 2027, a big investment in expanding the partner ecosystem," he said. "We're going to do a lot more recruiting, we're going to look at distribution, especially around [Asia Pacific and Japan] and how can we touch a lot of the customers that could value Appian being in their environments but living with and through and driving that with partners." Rethinking Appian's approach. When Van Valkenburgh joined Appian, his first focus was to reimagine its approach to driving reach, relevance, and revenue. "I spent a lot of time across the world with our partners, clients, and our leadership, really trying to get the good, bad, and ugly about where Appian was in the partner ecosystem, and then the changes to reimagine that," he said. "I've been focusing under that reach, relevance, and revenue in three key areas. One is how... we move big partners into big partnerships in both repeatable scale and revenue. "The second was introducing something quite new to Appian, which was alternate channels, so new revenue models, new approaches to work with and through our partners. "Lastly, how do we build out to scale in the efforts for not only the partner experience and enablement, but the programmes we do?" When Van Valkenburgh came onboard, the vendor was only measuring whether deals were registered or not, which the vice president equated to driving a car without its fuel gauge. "What I wanted to do was give the company and our partners more visibility and open the door for further collaboration to help both our bulk joint customers win," he said. "So, we broke this down in an overall measurement called partner contributed revenue and included in that was partner source and partner influence measurement. "It allowed us to get a much greater, more granular visibility of the impact of partners within the ecosystem and the deals and outcomes with clients we were driving. "The other piece [was] recognising that in this modern world of alliances and channels, ecosystems matter. So, we went from only one partner being recognised to multiple partners can be recognised on deals." The vendor also moved to be more granular in the type of work it was doing. As an example, in terms of partner sourcing, it not only now looks at deal registration but also whether partners initiate deals without it being registered, including a partner on a request for proposal (RFP), and alternative channels. In addition, it also began looking at opportunity planning to target key accounts without defined opportunities. "What I think Appian was missing in the first version of this... [was] the opportunity of expanding its growth within the clients," Van Valkenburgh said. "Also, really bringing more of a centre of gravity back to the relationship with the partners, and moving from a transactional to a strategic level." While the vice president came into the role looking for change, he's looking to shake things up even more, particularly to align the company to AI. "As the AI boom came into flux, Appian was in a position to really change the way that it's moving and working," he said. "As clients have been experimenting with partners as well, doing projects based on AI, and the capacity for them to move to production has been very limited - lacking controls, AI, and process." This, he added, presented Appian with the opportunity for "a rebirth of the imagination with our partner communities" on driving AI with C-suites and selling value-based larger enterprise-based transactions with and through partners. Don't miss a thing Join the Reseller News mailing list for daily news on the IT channel, covering business, technology, products, and services. Sasha Karen is a nationally recognised highly commended senior journalist at ARN. With a decade's worth of experience, Sasha serves the local channel community with news and inspiration about channel partners.

Appian's cloud subscriptions jump 23% to $131.7M on AI demand. SaasRise - Aug 14, 2026 Appian Corp. posted Q2 2026 cloud subscriptions revenue of $131.7 million, up 23% year-over-year, as AI-enhanced workflow automation gains traction. The growth lifted total revenue 19% to $203.3 million and pushed adjusted EBITDA to $16.2 million, well above the $5-$8 million guidance. Why it matters. Appian's Q2 performance validates the hypothesis that AI-enhanced low-code platforms can drive both top-line expansion and margin improvement. For SaaS operators, the data underscores the importance of integrating generative AI into core product value propositions to boost attachment rates and accelerate ARR expansion. Investors will likely recalibrate valuations for other low-code vendors, rewarding those that demonstrate measurable AI adoption and disciplined capital allocation. The strong cash generation and share-repurchase program also signal confidence in the balance sheet, allowing Appian to fund further AI R&D without diluting shareholders. This financial flexibility could enable the company to pursue strategic acquisitions in the AI-orchestration space, further tightening its moat against pure-play low-code competitors and cloud giants. Key points. * Cloud subscriptions revenue $131.7M, +23% YoY, driven by AI usage up 20-fold * Adjusted EBITDA $16.2M, surpassing $5-$8M guidance * AI attachment rate 85% of new customers; net ARR expansion 115% * Professional services revenue $45.6M, +20%, led by U.S. public sector * FY2026 cloud subscriptions guidance $525-$529M, implying 20% growth Analysis. Appian's results are a textbook case of a SaaS firm leveraging AI to transition from a pure product-led growth engine to a hybrid model that blends high-touch sales with AI-driven expansion. The 20-fold increase in AI usage indicates that customers are moving beyond exploratory pilots to mission-critical workflows, a shift that typically translates into higher net retention and lower churn. This deepening of AI integration also raises the barrier to entry for competitors, as replicating a deterministic AI orchestration layer requires substantial data, engineering talent, and cloud infrastructure. From a market-structure perspective, Appian's ability to sustain a Rule-of-40 score of 36 while expanding at a 20% clip challenges the conventional trade-off between growth and profitability in the low-code segment. It suggests that AI can act as a lever for margin expansion by enabling higher-value contracts and reducing the need for extensive custom development services. For investors, the combination of strong cash flow, disciplined share buybacks, and a clear AI roadmap may justify premium multiples relative to peers that have yet to monetize AI at scale. Looking forward, the key risk lies in the macro-economic environment and the FX headwind flagged by CFO Tanjga. A stronger dollar could compress reported growth, especially in overseas markets where Appian is gaining traction. However, the company's diversified revenue mix - spanning cloud subscriptions, professional services, and large public-sector deals - provides a cushion. If Appian can continue to convert AI adoption into higher-margin subscription revenue, it will likely set a new performance benchmark for the broader low-code and workflow automation market.