Crawford & Company Purchases Appian BPM Suite

ATLANTA, Aug. 4, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Crawford & Company (NYSE: CRDA; CRDB), the world's largest independent provider of claims management solutions, has purchased the Appian Business Process Management (BPM) Suite, a market-leading technology platform that will radically alter the way the company develops software applications.

"The Appian BPM Suite, with its mobile and social capabilities, is truly an enabler that will change the way we work with our business partners and ultimately how we service our clients," said Brian Flynn, Crawford's global chief information officer. "Initially, we will use it to drive operational efficiencies, but ultimately we will use it to help us develop new services and solutions."

Appian was first introduced to Crawford during development efforts for repairNet, the Company's managed repair service in the U.K. "We decided to acquire Appian for global deployment after reviewing the success of the repairNet project," Flynn said.

BPM helps information technology and business users jointly build applications that effectively integrate people, process and information. With effective BPM, an organization can manage and improve processes that involve human interaction, multiple applications and complex rules and work flows.

The Appian BPM Suite increases efficiency by:

• Using a business rules engine to automate processes
• Enabling better collaboration among employees and clients by using a familiar and intuitive social media "feed" interface
• Modifying and updating legacy applications
• Replacing aging modules, and
• Rapidly deploying innovative solutions to mobile devices, such as smart phones and tablets.

Appian (www.appian.com) is a leader in mobile, cloud and social BPM. The Appian BPM Suite can be accessed on all major mobile devices and through a Web browser. The company offers multiple deployment options, including on-premise and cloud, with seamless migration between the environments.

"Appian delivers a new, faster, more flexible way to create and extend enterprise applications, and our mobile and social BPM leadership increases the number of people who can directly interact with key organizational processes," said Matthew Calkins, president and CEO of Appian. "We are excited to help Crawford build an enterprise-wide BPM program based on our initial project success together."

In the past three years, Crawford has developed a global systems roadmap that unifies BPM, applications and data into a standard global enterprise portal. In conjunction with that plan, the Company has increased investments in advanced technology to help feed the growing appetite among insurers and self-insured businesses for data that helps them manage risks and reduce costs.

Significant technology advances include Crawford's revolutionary Command Center, designed to further improve service to clients by providing up-to-the-minute information on claims status and key performance indicators. The Company also has implemented RiskTech™, a new claims system, and Dmitri(SM), a new risk information management system, for its workers compensation clients, and added new functionality to the Crawford Claims Management System (CMS). In addition, it also released a global, cloud-based Enterprise 2.0 social networking program branded "Crawford Innovates," which allows employees to brainstorm solutions to issues.

For its innovative use of information technology throughout its global operations, Crawford has been named to the InformationWeek 500 for the last two years.

About Crawford

Based in Atlanta, Ga., Crawford & Company (www.crawfordandcompany.com) is the world's largest independent provider of claims management solutions to the risk management and insurance industry as well as self-insured entities, with an expansive global network serving clients in more than 70 countries. The Crawford System of Claims Solutions(SM) offers comprehensive, integrated claims services, business process outsourcing and consulting services for major product lines including property and casualty claims management, workers compensation claims and medical management, and legal settlement administration. The Company's shares are traded on the NYSE under the symbols CRDA and CRDB.

About Appian

Appian is the global innovator in enterprise and cloud-based business process management (BPM) software. Appian's combination of simplicity and power provides everything business users need to drive transformational process improvement - on the desktop or via mobile devices. Commercial and government organizations around the globe use Appian to increase agility and collaboration, and accelerate business performance. Appian empowers more than 3 million users from large Fortune 100 companies, to the mid-market and small businesses worldwide. Appian is headquartered in the Washington, D.C. region, with professional services and partners around the globe. For more information, visit www.appian.com.

SOURCE Crawford & Company