iManage milestones celebrate customers making knowledge work

In the face of continuing adversity experienced the world over, iManage is grateful to its customers and partners for a year worthy of reflection and celebration.

Our efforts to do more, to be better, are fueled by the users of our solutions who turn up every day — from offices, homes, and other locations — to continue making knowledge work for their organizations. Both our users and the many partners who work with us to serve them drive us ever forward in these challenging times to unlock success for our customers.

Acknowledging this debt, we are pleased to share iManage milestones and moments of truth, 2021.

Cloud maturity has been a significant milestone, with iManage Cloud now the biggest part of the iManage business. Our new bookings in the cloud grew 94 percent, year-over-year. We added 397 new customers to the cloud in 2021, including AMLAW 100 firms, Magic Circle firms, large financial institutions in the US and APAC, and several Fortune 500 companies. We are delighted that iManage is the cloud of choice in our industry by more than a 3:1 margin.

Two clear takeaways behind those numbers are that: a) Cloud has become mainstream, and b) iManage Cloud is winning the business of organizations of all stripes — including some of the most complex and sophisticated cloud customers on the planet.

A recently published Bloomberg law article outlines the journey taken by Shearman and Sterling, a large, multinational, New York–based firm with a distinguished 150-year history, to the iManage Cloud. The narrative, co-authored by myself and Meredith Williams-Range, Chief Knowledge and Client Value Officer, Shearman & Sterling, underscores the view that cloud migration is a means to achieve specific goals or outcomes for the firm; outcomes that should reflect the firm’s unique needs, goals, technological maturity, and progress on the path to digital transformation.

And — although the recent ILTA survey reported that cloud mindset momentum is clearly trending to "Cloud First,” and we can surmise that 2022 may indeed be the tipping point of "when" not "if " for organizations to join the cloud migration — we are resolute in our belief that moving to the cloud should not be an end in itself, but rather a means to a better way forward.

Customer excitement spurs future investment

I’ve noticed a tangible increase in the levels of excitement that I feel from customers when they deploy our software today, compared with 10 years ago. This tells me that — when we reimagined Work 10 with user adoption in mind, betting that a seamless, intuitive experience was the key to success — the gamble paid off, for both iManage and our customers.

Our ongoing investments are also carefully considered to increase the value our end users gain from their relationship with iManage. Using Closing Folders as an example, we’ve had some significant and very large global deployments in the legal, financial services, and accounting sectors in 2021. These are organizations that enabled a hybrid workforce to work better during a pandemic — taking advantage of user receptivity to change to improve how knowledge work gets done. Expansion within our existing accounts was equally compelling, with a 28 percent increase in active users and a 36 percent increase in active deals.