When a project manager needs to deliver a project on time and on budget, project management, and productivity tools that include calendar, scheduling, and workflow capabilities are a priority. And when it’s a creative project, these tools need to connect to a library of all assets, visuals, content, and media that are used in the project.

Using a digital asset management system that connects with your workflow and project management tools creates a single source of truth for media that helps streamline team collaboration. This saves valuable time spent searching for assets and, ultimately, gives project managers peace of mind that the team is enabled with the right assets at the right time.

4 Benefits of a DAM For Project Managers

A digital asset management system can dramatically improve project workflow and assist with common project challenges. By giving self-serve access to assets with a DAM, anyone on the team will be able to find assets more quickly and efficiently, while moving projects along.

Here are 4 benefits of a DAM for project managers:

1. Increased efficiency for internal processes,

2. Enhanced team collaboration,

3. Improved time-to-market, and

4. Easily protected and managed creative content.

If your organization is ready to start its DAM journey, the first step is to fully assess your current workflow. This will help determine your core business needs, and which vendors can help you achieve them.

4 Signs You Need a DAM

Between competing priorities and budget, timing is everything. While most organizations plan to migrate to a DAM eventually, here are 4 sure signs that you need to prioritize a DAM solution:

1. Your projects involve creative teams,

2. Your teams are geographically spread,

3. You work with multiple clients, partners, or vendors, and

4. Factors to consider when determining the right DAM solution.

Once you have determined that your workflows would benefit from access to a centralized DAM and a corporate asset library, it’s important to review DAM solutions to determine which will be the best fit. Here are 4 important factors to consider:

1. How many users will need access to the DAM?
   DAM pricing structures can depend on the number of users or administrator users, that have access to the platform. If you expect the number of DAM users to increase over time, or to expand DAM to other internal teams or external users, that pricing consideration needs to be included in your vendor comparison.
2. What other platforms does your team use?
   Do you currently use project management software like Wrike or Workfront? Are there other platforms that need a centralized DAM library? If so, it’s important to select a vendor which can integrate with these programs. Ensuring your DAM system works in harmony with your existing tech stack is crucial to a successful implementation.
3. What other departments or clients could benefit from the DAM?
   Will the solution be expanded to other departments or divisions, or will future clients need system access? Choosing a vendor that offers unlimited training and support will be crucial in expanding the use of your DAM system.
4. What are your organization’s security requirements?
   It’s important to determine if a DAM vendor will meet the level of asset security and IT standards for your organization. In particular, companies who need to store assets in specific geographies should select a vendor that can back up and replicate copies of data within specific geographic data centers.

Ready To Get Started?

While it seems, there’s a lot to consider during a DAM project, it’s proven that adopting a crawl, walk, run approach can ensure success for your implementation in the short and long term. Check out this blog post for a step-by-step outline and expert advice for your journey.

MediaValet is a leader in cloud-based digital asset management that helps organizations manage, organize and share their digital assets, improving productivity and increasing ROI.

Digital asset management initiatives often originate within marketing teams, yet have the potential to deliver significant benefits to multiple departments.

A DAM has the power to accelerate major organizational initiatives, preserve the company’s legacy, remove organizational silos and reduce legal risks. While this can put a DAM initiative into the line of sight of the company’s key top executives, they’ll often view the project through the lens of their core responsibilities and focus.

When you’re building a business case for these executives, it’s important to address questions that align a DAM initiative with their primary goals. Here are some examples for each c-level executive:

• Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
• Chief Information Officer (CIO)
• Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
• Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)
  

Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

CEOs need to understand how a DAM initiative will affect organizational compliance, efficiency and brand value. Highlight how a DAM will impact the CEO’s goals using the questions below:

1. Is there a risk of being exposed to litigation for improper usage of licensed images or the release of intellectual property? Has the company incurred legal fees for image rights infractions with the current content management practices?

2. Is the company at risk of loss of company legacy and high value digital assets?

3. Is the company able to engage effectively on the same digital channels as its customers?

4. Does the company have a future-proof strategy to use and re-use the content, assets and knowledge being created?

5. Could team efficiency decrease over time, as the volume of content and assets continues to grow? Are we getting the maximum return on the content investments already made?

6. Would teams know how to find and access business-critical digital assets if the current operations or creative personnel left the company?

7. How does the company’s digital technology stack compare with best-performing organizations in our industry? Are there lost competitive advantage because of legacy infrastructure and inefficient/non-existent digital asset management practices?

8. Are there delays in products and solutions hitting the market due to inefficient practices of content and creative asset production?

Chief Information Officer (CIO)

CIOs will question how a DAM initiative will affect IT support SLAs (Service Level Agreements), align with the overall technology roadmap and impact departmental efficiency and collaboration. Highlight how a DAM will impact the CIO’s goals using the questions below:

1. Are marketing-related storage costs (media, content, photography, digital archive) growing faster than the IT budgets, as large volumes of video and media content is consistently added?

2. Are IT support SLAs and support teams being stretched with marketing demands for new media format support, management and sharing?

3. Do users have an optimal experience previewing, sharing and collaborating on business-critical content? Are there technology-related bottlenecks preventing users from being productive?

4. Is total cost of governance increasing as new content and digital assets are being stored across personal storage and unverified cloud systems? What’s the impact of asset loss?

5. If the company’s digital assets contain sensitive information, are they managed and governed in a compliant manner? Are the company’s content and asset storage systems compliant?

6. Do you have redundant digital files (videos, media, images, content, PPTs, PDFs) across multiple hard drives and storage? How does this affect storage costs?

7. Is there anything preventing organization from using cloud-based solutions? Is there a preference on the type of cloud platform?

8. Which cloud platforms, AI vendors and integrations best align with the overall IT strategy?

Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

CFOs will look to understand how a DAM initiative will affect the company’s operational costs, legal compliance and risk of value loss. Highlight how a DAM will impact the CFO’s goals using the questions below:

1. Is the company wasting resources on producing new digital assets, media and content because of lack of discoverability?

2. Is the company running a risk of increased legal fees and litigation costs because of lack of image rights compliance across our corporate content? Do current rights related legal fees outweigh DAM project costs?

3. Are IT storage costs growing exponentially to keep up with growing business demands for video and media content? Are there more efficient ways to manage these assets and secure the company’s digital legacy?

4. Is the company at risk for not being compliant with industry regulations when it comes to storing, managing and sharing digital assets (such as using marketing content with customer information or imagery)?

Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)

The CMO needs to evaluate and understand the high-level impact of the initiative on marketing goals and the overall business case. They’ll also likely decide on the scope of the project, determining whether it will be a single-team roll out, a multi-department system or a cross-organization implementation. Highlight how a DAM will impact the CMO’s goals using the questions below:

1. How does the company’s marketing tech stack maturity compare with the best-performing organizations within our industry?

2. Is the team creating future-proof ways to leverage content we are spending marketing budget on?

3. Can revenue-generating teams and partners (sales, resellers, agencies) find and leverage content and brand assets created by our team? If not, is there an impact on sales efficiency and generated revenue?

4. Are the design and creative production teams enabled to meet the growing demands for content delivery? Are project timelines jeopardized because of delays in content and creative production?

5. Is the brand at risk with the current content and visual asset management practices? Can we ensure that all content and channels are upholding the brand’s visual and messaging standards?

6. Can we meet investor and board accountability requirements on content and creative budget allocation? Can we report on content and creative usage?

7. Are we at risk of high-value asset loss with our current asset management practices? Is there a risk of deleting or losing files?

8. Are we protecting our content investment and making content easily available to relevant teams? Have we experienced duplicate resource creation and unnecessary additional spending on content?

Building the Business Case for DAM

While these questions may get digital asset management to the table for your c-suite, you need a strong business case to prove the impact of your DAM initiative and drive the project home. To better understand the strategic benefits of a DAM and how it can impact the bottom line of an organization, use this Digital Asset Management ROI Calculator.

This is part 2 in a 2-part series on DAM considerations. Be sure to also read DAM Considerations: On-Premise vs. Software-as-a-Service.

In addition to ensuring a DAM solution will meet your organization’s immediate use case, it’s important to understand two major technology considerations that will influence how future-proof your DAM project will be:

• suitability of an on-premises platform vs. a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform
• potential for scalability

In our previous blog post, we focused on the suitability of an on-premise or SaaS solution. For Part 2, we will dive into the potential for scalability and its importance.

Scalability

DAM scalability is important for organizations facing three scenarios:

• There’s a need to create large volumes of new content, potentially at an accelerating rate.
• New users will increase as the organization grows or as external partners, including clients, resellers, and agencies, are brought on board.
• New contracts may bring on temporary peaks and troughs of work, users, and stored assets.

For organizations where any of these scenarios apply, there are two factors relating to scalability in which they should inquire when looking to purchase a digital asset management system:

• The impact of scaling on speed.
• The suitability of the subscription model.

Scale and Speed

Every organization is faced with a trade-off between their software’s security and performance. This is as true for SaaS DAMs as it is for on-premise.

Here’s why: as the number of assets and users increase, so does the number of permissions that need to be accounted for before any request for asset access can be granted. When a sizeable company uses a DAM that houses hundreds of thousands or millions of assets, this creates latency.

In the world of DAM systems, delay is a deal-breaker. DAM buyers should put a heavy weight on a solution that enables assets and speed to scale in tandem. Whether the DAM stores a hundred or a million assets, a user needs to have the confidence that an asset is going to load, render and download just as quickly every time.

Solutions to this security-performance trade-off exist. One example is role-based asset control. In this solution, users are batched in one or more ‘roles’, with each role linked to hundreds or thousands of users. When an action is taken, the system confirms each role’s permission instead of confirming each permission that exists for each individual user. This reduces the number of confirmations involved in granting permission, curtailing the impact that scale has on speed.

As there are many solutions like this that exist, it’s important that buyers inquire with vendors as to how they approach and resolve these dilemmas.

Subscription Model

The second inquiry DAM evaluators should make relates to SaaS DAM subscription models and the potential fees related to scaling.

Digital asset management subscription models are typically based on storage or number of users and each has implications if you expect to scale in any fashion.

Storage-based subscription models mean that a company only pays for the space its assets require, regardless of the number of users accessing them. To the degree that an organization has defined its content production requirements, this model provides predictability. It also allows organizations to increase the number of users and scale the DAM’s reach internally and externally without any additional cost.

Naturally, user-based pricing models are based on the number of users who have access to assets in the DAM. While you may have only a few users during the initial setup, it’s important to consider which other departments would benefit from using the system. If the DAM is rolled out to the rest of the organization, or any external parties, there will be an associated cost. It’s recommended that organizations look beyond the initial setup and consider the likelihood of expanding the system to include other departments and stakeholders.

Putting the Two Together

By reviewing these two factors of scalability, organizations will have a better understanding of their needs for digital asset management and can make the right decision to invest in a system that supports their needs and allows them to reach their business goals.

To learn more about DAM implementation for enterprise companies, download our latest eBook “Choosing the Right DAM“.

There are an overwhelming number of digital asset management system offerings on the market, and we talk to people every day who are struggling to decipher between the many options. One of the questions people ask the most frequently at the beginning of our conversations is whether they will even be able to find a vendor that can meet their business needs. The best way to answer that question is to ask the following questions when choosing a DAM vendor:

1. What’s included in my annual subscription?

Many DAM providers have multiple components to their pricing structure, such as:

• number of users,
• volume of storage,
• number of user groups included,
• photo vs. video processing, and
• integrations.

That’s why it’s important to ask if they charge by user, storage or both, and ensure that as you look at different solutions, you compare “apples to apples.” If you represent a large conglomerate, you need to ask yourself if you want to keep your DAM solution within one department, or if you want to enable your entire organization with access to your assets to ensure brand consistency. If the latter is the case, then evaluating DAM systems that offer unlimited users and charge by storage will likely be more cost-effective than a solution that charges a per-user fee. Also, take into consideration any additional teams that can benefit from the solution, and pay attention to extra set up charges and additional fees. Some vendors charge for additional training, support or even batch uploading. Make sure you understand the complete cost of the system, including add-ons and support, before you commit to a selected DAM vendor.

2. Can the vendor meet my use-cases and top priorities?

There are many different use-cases for a DAM system at various companies and no two conversations are ever the same. A major step in choosing a DAM partner is outlining your unique use-case and understanding what you need in the solution in order to be successful. Here are some things to think about when deciding your DAM priorities:

• What level of DAM expertise does your team have? Are they new to DAM and will they need access to support?
• Will you be bringing on new teams or team members throughout the year?
• Will you need training beyond initial onboarding?
• Could any extended user groups benefit from the DAM system?
• Is it more important to have a large number of features or an easy-to-use interface?
• Is user adoption one of your project KPIs?
• How important are integrations into the systems you already have?

Every DAM system has unique offerings, and being able to evaluate them based on your top requirements is important, so you can weigh any potential trade-offs and recognize key features you need. For example, if you have large sales team, having a DAM that allows for the quick viewing, editing and sharing of Microsoft Word and PowerPoint documents may be a key revenue driver for your company. Being able to clearly outline your priorities based on these questions is key in choosing a DAM vendor that works for you.

3. Does the vendor offer an Open API? If so, what’s the feature coverage?

Integrations, integrations, integrations! This is a topic that people ask about daily. For companies that are heavily invested in their digital transformation, a DAM initiative is often dependent on integrations with other technologies. Some of the integrations I’m most frequently asked about are Adobe Creative Cloud, Drupal 8, Hootsuite, and Office 365.

There are, however, sometimes systems that are unique to your specific environment and don’t have a pre-built integration. In this case, a robust API that you’re able to review and test is a key requirement. It allows your development team to test the API and make sure you’ll be able to achieve your outcome. It’s also worth asking if the company has a fully-featured and documented API, or if the API is only for specific features. Are they using it on their own platform? If yes, double-check there!

4. Does the vendor backup my assets?

This is a question you should ask every single DAM vendor your company speaks to. If an employee goes in and deletes assets that aren’t meant to be deleted, can you recover them? This happens more than we all would like to admit. When looking at a digital asset management system, you should ask how your assets are backed up. Make sure that your assets are replicated to reassure yourself that you won’t lose your assets. We all know the pain of not being able to find an asset, let alone losing it for good! Additionally, if you’re looking at an on-premise solution, it’s important to understand how you maintain the server and what to budget for it (both time and money).

5. Can I set up metadata to fit my business needs?

Metadata includes the general attributes, keywords, descriptions, and information embedded in an asset during ingestion. This metadata is incredibly different for businesses across various industries, so it’s important to make sure the DAM provider you’re looking at has easy searchability based on your particular metadata structural needs. How can you find your assets? Do they have Boolean-style search? Can you filter your assets by star-rating, upload date, and more? These questions are necessary to consider when choosing a DAM system, to ensure the solution is easily adoptable and your employees will use it.

Taking the time to understand your unique DAM requirements and asking these questions will help you get started with a DAM initiative. Thinking about these topics and issues will also help you evaluate each vendors’ scalability, reliability, ease of adoption and determine what will be a perfect fit into your existing infrastructure.

We often interview our customers and ask them what advice they would give to organizations in the process of choosing a DAM, and repeatedly, they echo what Tiffany Dodson, Marketer at Atomic Design said:

“…be sure to do your research – know exactly what you need in a DAM by looking at a range of vendors and then creating a prioritized list of what individuals and teams across the company need…”

I would advise the same: take your time and make sure the vendor you choose is the right fit as that will ensure a smooth transition and a successful DAM initiative.

Have some questions of your own? We’d love to chat! Give us a call, or submit a Contact us form.