Critical Review: Appian (NASDAQ:APPN) and NiCE (NASDAQ:NICE)

NiCE (NASDAQ:NICE) and Appian (NASDAQ:APPN) are both mid-cap technology companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, profitability, dividends, valuation, analyst recommendations, risk and earnings.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

63.3% of NiCE shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 52.7% of Appian shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.0% of NiCE shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 42.8% of Appian shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares NiCE and Appian’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
NiCE	13.86%	15.46%	11.53%
Appian	-1.34%	-35.20%	3.64%

Risk & Volatility

NiCE has a beta of 0.76, indicating that its share price is 24% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Appian has a beta of 0.92, indicating that its share price is 8% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current recommendations and price targets for NiCE and Appian, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
NiCE	0	7	8	0	2.53
Appian	2	4	1	0	1.86

NiCE presently has a consensus target price of $132.23, indicating a potential upside of 14.94%. Appian has a consensus target price of $31.00, indicating a potential downside of 20.37%. Given NiCE’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts plainly believe NiCE is more favorable than Appian.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares NiCE and Appian”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
NiCE	$3.07 billion	2.19	$612.10 million	$6.87	16.75
Appian	$726.94 million	3.84	$1.23 million	($0.15)	-259.53

NiCE has higher revenue and earnings than Appian. Appian is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than NiCE, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

NiCE beats Appian on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About NiCE

NiCE Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, provides cloud platforms for AI-driven digital business solutions worldwide. It offers CXone, a cloud native open platform; Enlighten, an AI engine for the customer engagement market; and smart self-service enables organizations to address consumers’ needs; and journey orchestration solutions that empower organizations to connect and route customers to deal with the customer’s request, and connects them using real-time AI-based routing. The company provides smart self service solutions that empower organizations to build intelligent automated conversations based on data; and prepared agent solutions and tools enable contact center agents to guide and alert them in real time; provides solutions that help organizations to record structured and unstructured customer interaction and transaction data; and NiCE Evidencentral, an digital evidence management platform for public safety emergency communications, law enforcement, and criminal justice helps agencies. In addition, it offers X-Sight, is an open and flexible AI-cloud platform for financial crime and compliance; Xceed, a cloud platform for comprehensive AML and fraud prevention for small and mid-sized organizations; data intelligence solutions that enable organizations to turn raw data into comprehensive actionable intelligence to prevent and detect financial crimes; AI and analytics technologies to detect and prevent financial crimes in real-time; money laundering and fraud prevention solutions that help organizations adhere to capital markets compliance and anti-money laundering compliance regulations; intelligent investigations solutions; and self-service solutions that provide organizations with customization and self-development capabilities. The company was formerly known as NiCE-Systems Ltd. and changed its name to NiCE Ltd. in June 2016. NiCE Ltd. was founded in 1986 and is headquartered in Ra’anana, Israel.

About Appian

Appian Corporation, a software company that provides low-code design platform in the United States, Mexico, Portugal, and internationally. The company's platform offers artificial intelligence, process automation, data fabric, and process mining. It provides The Appian Platform, an integrated automation platform that enables organizations to design, automate, and optimize mission-critical business processes. The company also offers professional and customer support services. It serves to financial services, government, life sciences, insurance, manufacturing, energy, healthcare, telecommunications, and transportation industries. Appian Corporation was incorporated in 1999 and is headquartered in McLean, Virginia.