Appian Corporation (NASDAQ:APPN) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Mark Matheos: We’re certainly not looking to increase it exponentially or do anything in terms of accelerating our path here. We’re on a steady path, we’re happy that we’re over-performing. But it’s not on purpose that we’re beating those numbers necessarily. It’s just the way we’ve shaken out so far. But we continue to be pleased with that. And I think it’s one of those problems that we’re happy to keep.

Joe Meares: And then, I’m just curious, with bringing Randy Guard on as the Chief Marketing Officer, are there going to be any shifts in the marketing strategy? And then, could you remind us what the split is in that sales and marketing bucket between sales and marketing spend? Thanks, guys.

Matt Calkins: First of all, Randy is a real pro. Very pleased to have him on board. It’s been a pleasure working with him already. He comes in with a lot of great ideas. That said, we’ve got a high degree of continuity between he and founder Mike Beckley, who has been running the marketing department on an interim basis. And so, I don’t expect any discontinuity. I just expect a evolution toward effective new priorities and ideas that Randy brings to the table. And as the cost issue, want to say anything…?

Mark Matheos: We don’t disclose that breakout. But safe to say our sales is larger than our marketing.

Matt Calkins: This is true.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Raimo Lenschow of Barclays.

Raimo Lenschow: Matt, a quick question. When you talk about case management, how do you think this will play out? Because obviously, there is a large vendor in your space as well that kind of makes a lot of noise around that. How do you think customers will kind of look and then add more into the individual capabilities, or do you think they’re going to be like segments? Like, they will do IT, case management, et cetera, while you do all the other cases? How do you kind of position yourself against them? Thank you.

Matt Calkins: Yes. That’s right. It’s a great question. Case management is a broad tool. As I was saying in that earlier answer, it really applies to quite a lot of our business. And it applies to quite a lot of other people’s business as well, right? There are many products, not just one, but many competitors, many products that are implicated in a case management situation, depending in some cases on what specific case we’re talking about. And so, yes, it invites a lot of competition. And yet I’m quite optimistic about it, because I believe that it’s powerful product. We have a really strong platform that can be turned capably toward new use cases. And our solutions enterprise is an exercise in realizing the advantage that we believe we will find in new use cases if we just put our mind to it and customize the platform a little bit.

So, I recognize that competitors will have their strengths, incumbency, scale, name recognition. But I think that in many cases, if not all cases, that we’ll have something to say on the feature side that gets the customers’ attention.

Raimo Lenschow: And then one follow-up for Mark. Mark, I’ve got a few guys still kind of asking about the guidance a little bit. So do I think about it just in case there’s government shutdown that kind of the guidance becomes true and in case there’s not, it’s going to be completely different or are there other factors that we should consider there?

Mark Matheos: Yes. I wouldn’t expect a significant difference either way. It’s definitely a factor in our guidance, but I wouldn’t look for a material difference.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Fred Havemeyer of Macquarie Capital. Your line is now open. Fred, can you hear us? We are not hearing, Fred. For some reason, we are not able to hear Fred. So, at this time, we want to thank you so much for your participation in today’s conference. This concludes the program. You may now disconnect.

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