Appian has a strong product and once had a lot of potential in the market, however, the amount of damage done the past 2 years is beyond repair. As you can see in most of the reviews, a lot of this is due to poor leadership and the founders being too arrogant to step aside and recognize the faults of their own in order to fix it. Appian is nothing but a constant cycle of bad decisions made by the same leaders over and over again. This has put the company in a place where it will struggle to survive and will never achieve the position that the founders are trying to portray they will be at.
The CEO and fellow executives are completely out of touch with reality. It’s the classic case of tech minded people with no background or experience in sales taking control over a sales organization because they refuse to trust anyone that is actually qualified and experienced to do the job they were hired for. Appian now has had 3 CROs in the past 3 years and 3 different VPs of NA Sales. Leadership has made some of the most thoughtless decisions that dictate the sales organization without even considering feedback from sales management or those out in the field. This has done nothing but create internal conflict across departments, drive out top talent, and create frustrations with customers and partners. Yet, even though the sales org is aware of how each change and new policy will have negative implications when announced, their voice is never taken into account and the blame is always put on them for not executing on these senseless strategies. As a result, employees have to suffer the consequences of these bad decisions through layoffs and demotions. These mass layoffs usually happen twice a year with others silently being let go throughout each quarter. Rather than having some internal reflection in attempt to solve some of these issues, and actually work on creating a solid foundation for a sales org, there only seems to be more bad decisions as a result which continues the cycle. It’s very unfortunate to see Appian take such a drastic turn downhill when there are so many smart and talented individuals that work there. That’s the only thing that has kept the current employees present because the leadership, pay, and toxic culture has driven everyone else out and will prevent Appian from hiring any new talent. The company is truly on its last legs at this point.
