Owned by the Flemish government, ParticipatieMaatschappij Vlaanderen (PMV) describes itself as a “do-it-yourself and venture company that shapes the future of the Flemish economy.” As the organization and its workloads grew, ensuring documents relating to an investment were managed efficiently and tracked and secured in one place became essential. iManage Work 10 allows investment teams to work more efficiently and collaborate seamlessly across departments so they can address auditor requests with minimal effort.
The challenge
Investing in firms shaping the future of Flanders
The ability to collaborate securely and effectively is essential to PMV, but manual access to sensitive investment materials and the need to move folders efficiently between departments throughout an investment's lifecycle was causing duplication of data as well as other document management issues.
Without an easy way of managing access to investment materials, and no audit trail, maintaining compliance with the EU GDPR data protection and privacy regulations was also causing some headaches.
The company needed a document and email management system that would empower its teams to manage their growing workloads effectively.
The solution
Building on a robust and open foundation
After scouring the market for a document and email management system to aid in both collaboration and compliance, PMV rolled out iManage Work 10. “iManage came out on top in our evaluation,” said Tim Moonens, IT Director at PMV. “And we have never looked back.”
Technology partner Morae worked closely with PMV throughout the project, providing consulting, implementation, and support, including data migration and systems integration. “iManage provides us with a world-class platform,” said Moonens. “Morae provides the ongoing strategic, technical and business-change resources that help us realize the platform’s full value.”
iManage Work 10 integrates directly to PMV’s CRM, ensuring every document and piece of correspondence relating to an investment — emails, contracts, NDAs, spreadsheets with investment data and more — can be managed efficiently and is tracked and secured in one place.
iManage integrations with Adobe PDF and Microsoft Teams also contributes to the firm's overall efficiency, enabling staff members to seamlessly send documents stored in iManage Work via Teams. “iManage integration with Teams is very intuitive,” said Moonens.
The benefits
Winning back time as workloads multiply
Moving users from a departmental way of working to an investment-focused way of working is the biggest impact iManage has had at PMV. “Staff don’t need to move the files between departments — they just share a link to the investments workspace in iManage,” reports Moonens.
Using iManage Work has made a vital contribution to PMV’s ability to maintain its strong performance through a period of significant growth. A new investment can now be set up in 20 minutes rather than taking an hour and a half. An email can be saved in the correct place with one click. “We won back a lot of time with iManage,” Moonens adds.
“Knowledge sharing is easy. iManage search is fast. The filtering is easy. You input... a few keywords and get documents your colleagues have already created in just a few seconds,” said Moonens.
As PMV continues to grow, governance and compliance become ever more critical. “As our firm grows, so do security risks,” said Moonens. “Recently, when someone at PMV unintentionally released sensitive information to the press, iManage revealed the source of the leak.”
Looking ahead
Moonens has demonstrated iManage Security Policy Manager, iManage Threat Manager and iManage Records Manager to the new Compliance Officer as essential tools for ensuring the firm’s future success. “With iManage at our side, we can be assured that our documents are managed efficiently and securely. iManage is critical to our future," he concludes.
