I had the opportunity to get a sneak-peak at iMIS 20, which ASI is releasing on December 6, 2012, at the ASAE Technology Conference, and will be available to customers for deployment in January 2013.
While this release, by ASI’s suggestion, is more evolution then revolution, it is a repositioning of iMIS as not just an AMS (association management system) but rather an EMS (engagement management system). To that end, ASI has built an EMS that includes a completely native content management system, traditional AMS functionality, community/social media tools, mobile, and dashboard tools for executive management.
According to ASI, what makes this product different is the focus on complete integration of all the disparate elements of traditional association management software systems (e.g., CRM, content management, mobile tools, social media and community tools, and business intelligence) into a single system. No longer will associations have to work with multiple vendors and products to address all of their data management needs.
I think this approach makes a lot of sense, assuming ASI can deliver all of this functionality in a single package. Given ASI’s long track record in the industry, I’m cautiously optimistic. It should make 2013 very interesting for the AMS market.
Full disclosure: EDM is an independent third-party consulting firm. This means we have no financial relationship with any of the vendors mentioned in this blog. We provide unbiased opinions on what we see.
Wes, thanks for sharing. I’ll be intrigued to see it.
Given the lack of significant change to the core functionality of iMIS since the 1990s (as opposed to bolt-ons like IQA and iParts) I would not hold my breath.
The base product needs/needed a complete reinvention.
I’d have started with a debt recovery module, a proper committee module, field level data validation rules, completely different company record screens to those for “person” records, flexible UD windows and fields for the events module …
I mean really, there is no native cell or direct phone fields predefined let alone built-in social media address fields. Instead there is a work around based on re-labelling the “toll-free” field!
The core product is still spiritually living in the mid 1990’s.