Last year, iManage announced its strategic partnership with Microsoft. As part of this relationship principally, iManage announced the company’s adoption of Microsoft Azure as the global platform for the iManage Cloud, as well as its intention of extending and deepening the integration of its document and email management system (DMS), iManage Work’s, with Microsoft 365. Additionally, a connecter within iManage Work will be released within Power Automate to allow integrations with other systems to automate workflows.
It's makes complete sense. Law firms are already invested in Microsoft technologies, but the pandemic has further accelerated their investment in Microsoft 365, Office and Teams. Similarly, iManage is already the dominant DMS in the legal sector, and since the pandemic, a large proportion of its customer base has actively taken the decision to transition their on-premises DMS to the cloud.
Now, a year on, it feels like a good length of time to evaluate what this partnership has come to signify for iManage customers, in practical terms. I would go as far as to say that no law firm today can afford to not at least consider the iManage offering, with the benefits we are now seeing from the strategic iManage – Microsoft relationship.
Let me explain why:
1. iManage is the only Microsoft partner in legal to be a member of its Cloud Storage Partner Program
When it comes to DMS capability, iManage Cloud is the market leading solution for professional services firms in EMEA – which has earned iManage the title of being the only Microsoft partner in the legal sector to become a member of the company’s Cloud Storage Partner Program (CSPP).
Straight off, this gives iManage access to Azure, Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure – which in turn means that iManage offers law firms and corporate legal departments all the benefits of this flexible cloud computing platform. Think about the scalability, resilience, agility, compliance capability and security that your firm can benefit from through Microsoft’s global network of data centers?
2. Security
No organisation today is immune from security risks, but of course, for law firms the challenge is much greater, due to the confidential nature of the information and content that these organisations deal with. Security has always been a major focus area for iManage. Already, iManage Cloud’s security is based on the concept of need-to-know security – i.e., only those individuals can access content who are authorised to do so. Similarly, in-built automation is based on zero trust and zero touch to create a “hands free” security environment. These concepts completely remove the “human” from the equation wherever access to customer data is possible. There’s also active threat-related monitoring, detection and management capability.
Now with this partnership, iManage is integrating its platform to provide Azure Key services and Microsoft Information Protection (MIP) to further enhance security for their customers, as well as user experience – which is especially important in a hybrid working environment. For instance, with the MIP integration, when co-authoring and collaborating on documents, lawyers will be able to apply access restrictions to content, both internally within the firm as well as externally when working with customers and other parties.
Noteworthy is that all this security extends protection to the mobile environment too, which means that lawyers can have the peace of mind that unauthorised applications will not be able to access their iManage DMS content.
3. Innovative, value-adding functionality for lawyers
iManage and Microsoft are working together to develop deeply integrated solutions that eliminate friction and enable a seamless work environment.
New capabilities such as the ability to view iManage via Outlook Web will soon be available. Lawyers will be able to perform tasks such as file and move emails, save attachments, send and file emails, add documents from iManage and links or copies, and so on. With a tighter integration with Microsoft 365, iManage has enabled real-time co-authoring on mobile devices, the web and the desktop. Lawyers will have greater options for using, sharing and managing their information, regardless of where they are working from.
With a cloud-first strategy becoming the norm in business, alongside the strength of their combined expertise, technology and innovation, the value that iManage and Microsoft can offer customers is significant.
If you are looking to adopt cloud technology for document management and would like to explore the iManage offering to understand how it can serve your business requirements today and in the future, please get in touch with us using the form below. We can share with you the roadmap of new functionalities and capabilities that are on the horizon in more detail, so that you can make an informed decision on the technological direction for document management that is best for your firm.