Phew! The team at OIA is back from a whirlwind road show with the iManage ANZ Seminar Series in Auckland, Melbourne & Sydney, plus OIA was pleased to present side shows in Perth and Brisbane this year too!
iManage again held Partner Forums to interact and get feedback from the feet on the ground here in AU, which again were a great success and the ever improving format is paying off for both iManage and their partners here. OIA was pleased to play an active role in these, leading discussions with the iManage partner community.
I had the chance to catch up with a lot of people from all the corners of our world and get a good picture of what's important to them and how they see the information that iManage is sharing. I had a chance to reflect on these interactions and form my own view on the key points from the seminars:
Work 10 (web & desktop) is closing the gap on Classic (FileSite/DeskSite) - In both the latest release & upcoming versions of Work 10, product features & gaps as well as resolutions to common user frustrations are clearly being addressed and the momentum of the releases/features is both pleasing and comforting. The "grid view" has been a massive winner for Work 10 user and the "tree view" that was demo'd is going to go a long way to smoothing the change management challenge faced by many long term FileSite/DeskSite users. I believe over time that "tree view' will become less & less relevant but for now it's an important tool for the transition.
Work 10 is getting easier for us to upgrade & deploy (especially around user & admin enablement) - We're finding that for 100% Work 10 sites, the Work Desktop and Work Agent has matured to a point where it really is centrally manageable & the auto-update feature is something that is being used by a number of our customers. Control Centre (web based admin tools) has matured to the point we can do away with the legacy admin tools. The publicly available docs.imanage.com & YouTube videos are giving us a head start on readying both new and upgrading users plus reducing the "how to" support load going forward. It's also aligning the individual user experience to meet their expectations.
The iManage Cloud is ready & we're ready for the iManage Cloud - It's obvious looking at the statistics that iManage customers both existing and new are opting for the cloud in numbers we weren't seeing anything close to last year. The expanded sectors who are choosing the cloud is also very interesting and encouraging - given the reluctance we have been seeing up until recently. Not only is the market ready (our customers are telling us this) but the iManage Cloud has hit a critical mass where it's the choice by default, we have a good size of proven and happy customers, we at OIA are very comfortable & confident in deploying/migrating to the cloud and to gel that all together the local iManage resources we have access to should be helping everyone feel comfortable that it's choice worth considering.
We're understanding better how the Security & Governance products integrate into the platform and how they are being leaned on by real customers - We're really able to point out the key features and use cases of both Threat Manager and Security Policy Manager in terms that our customers are able to relate to. This is good for us as we're better able to advise our customers on what they can or should do. It's also good for customers as there's a real focus on the security products being embedded with productivity tools like Work and not impeding the day-to-day life of business users. These tools are becoming an important part of the platform rather than nice-to-have add-ons.
We're starting to see a more focused picture of where AI & Machine Learning is adding the most value and cutting across various platforms - The message from iManage about the RAVN suite of platforms is shaping up into something tangible and compelling for the iManage customer base. iManage Insight (powered by RAVN) is getting some runs on the board with OIA customer implementations completed in the last 12 months, helped along greatly by iManage's investment in local AU RAVN expertise which is proving to be immensely successful. We're also seeing how Insight can be used as a base or conduit for leveraging RAVN Extract and Classify capabilities (i.e. knowledge graph, expertise locator and clause banks) by building out localised tailored implementations of these features. Something it's taken OIA significant investment & application of industry expertise to achieve but we’re in the best place we can be with these platforms now.
There was a lot of other "cool" things we got to show like PDF mark-ups on the iPad app, iManage Drive working in real use cases plus numerous important improvements to the Work 10 web interface, Work Desktop agent and Outlook integration. iManage's report on their own success, their customers' success and the growth & innovation they are driving align well with what we are able to hear and more importantly SEE in the platforms - making a great wrap up of what we've got in store for the near future. For further information about anything covered in the iManage ANZ Seminar Series, please contact us.