When Inspirant Group was acquired by 10Pearls last year, it wasn’t talk of cultural shifts or responsibility changes that stuck out most to Director of Business Solutions Ryan VanDePutte. It was the fact that the digital solutions company was finally able to build out a robust Appian team.
While the former Inspirant Group team was no stranger to Appian — the organization has been leveraging the process-automation platform since 2017 — it lacked the manpower and resources needed to bring its mastery of the tool to the next level.
For VanDePutte, the timing of 10Pearls’ Appian team expansion couldn’t be more apt, reflecting a renewed focus on meeting clients where they are, both strategically and technologically.
“Many of our clients are now scaling Appian and aligning it to their roadmap as the platform of choice to build modern, mission-critical applications that will give them a competitive advantage in their respective markets,” he said.
Given the impact Appian has had on 10Pearls’ own projects and those of its clients, VanDePutte and his peers felt that it was time to solidify a partnership with the platform provider.
“We had all these great clients and success stories, so it was more about leveraging that momentum, making a name for ourselves and establishing a market presence,” he explained.
Naturally, with this expansion comes a need to hire the right people to fulfill the company’s Appian aspirations. To ensure the organization has enough talented, like-minded people to carry out its goals, People and Culture Lead Erin Mohideen and her peers have been busy sourcing strong candidates to join the growing Appian team.
“We spent a lot of time recruiting and interviewing for various Appian positions, and as a result, we’ve established a terrific team that I know will be hugely successful as the practice continues to grow,” she said.
As 10Pearls cultivates its Appian practice, Senior Strategic Solutions Specialist Armin Azarbad is helping build out the company’s delivery playbook. Although establishing this playbook hasn’t been easy, requiring countless brainstorming sessions and close attention to detail, he and his teammates are leaning on the company’s supportive culture to carry them across the finish line.
“No matter what, teammates are there to help each other when needed with a smile or come up with creative ways to solve a problem,” Azarbad said.
For VanDePutte, Mohideen, Azarbad and their peers, 10Pearls’ decision to bolster its Appian practice is an impactful one, unlocking the potential to better serve its clients while upholding a culture defined by empowerment.
WHY APPIAN?
It’s clear that 10Pearls considers Appian an influential platform — but why? VanDePutte explained that organizations must keep up with consumers’ evolving demands, and Appian provides the business-process automations and other capabilities needed to do so. “Businesses are constantly under pressure to modernize the way they do business by automating workflows, reducing manual work and building complex custom applications in a fraction of the time, all while reducing costs,” he said. “These are just a few of the reasons why we have embraced Appian.”
Fulfilling the Vision
Mohideen and VanDePutte knew what was at stake if they didn’t find the right individuals to join 10Pearls’ Appian team.
“We needed the right teams to staff the important client projects we’d worked so hard to win,” Mohideen said.
So there they found themselves, sifting through stacks of resumes and engaging in countless conversations with promising job candidates.
VanDePutte noted that it was important for the company to find people with strong engineering, delivery and consulting skill sets to join the team. And it was equally important for the team to maintain the cohesive culture everyone had worked so hard to cultivate. He added that he learned many lessons throughout the creation of the team, and leaned on support from the organization’s leadership team along the way.
“I learned to trust my gut when making decisions on our strategy and to slow down and be more methodical with my approach,” he shared. “I also learned how to adjust portions of our strategy as we were acquired.”
Bringing 10Pearls’ Appian team to fruition has been a complex undertaking, requiring team members to rely on each other’s expertise and assistance to fulfill key goals. VanDePutte is proud of what his team has accomplished so far — and what they’ll achieve in the future.
“We have a well-established, growing Appian team at 10Pearls with plans to expand into other regions, which is truly exciting,” he said.
Given the time and effort that goes into the hiring process, Mohideen considers every new addition to the company’s Appian team a reason to celebrate.
And so far, this burgeoning team has had a profound impact on the company’s clients. Azarbad shared that the team has created highly complex solutions for healthcare clients.
“The process of taking an idea, defining the solution, developing it and seeing it being used daily shows the value the product and our team brings to our clients,” he said.
Pursuing What’s Possible
Understanding how to leverage Appian effectively to meet clients’ needs is a key component of 10Pearls’ Appian practice. But where do team members find this understanding?
According to Azarbad, they find it within each other. He believes that the company’s culture, defined by continuous learning and knowledge-sharing, empowers employees to pursue what’s possible in the Appian realm.
“Going forward, we’ll keep the same attitude we’ve had, as well as a focus on open communication, transparency, listening to others and learning to grow together,” Azarbad said.
“Going forward, we’ll keep the same attitude we’ve had, as well as a focus on open communication, transparency, listening to others and learning to grow together.”
For Azarbad, building out 10Pearls’ Appian team is an aspiration that has been in the works for years. In fact, when he and VanDePutte worked on Appian implementations together in the past, they often discussed the potential of building an Appian practice — and now, they get the chance to do just that.
The team’s promising trajectory, coupled with unwavering guidance from the company’s leadership team, makes Azarbad eager to tackle the road ahead.
“It’s an exciting and fun journey to be on,” Azarbad said.
