Aligning DAM with the VP of IT

Digital asset management initiatives usually involve multiple stakeholders representing different organizational divisions, such as creative, marketing, and IT. In this series, we’re highlighting some of the common stakeholders we see involved in a DAM project and discussing their unique challenges and priorities.

The VP of IT is usually responsible for overseeing all technology projects within an organization and making relevant changes to optimize the organization’s ability to meet their business goals, as well as reducing business risks or downtime. They oversee the research, development, and management of technology portfolios for each department, as well as audit and track existing technologies. Ultimately, the VP of IT implements and enforces policies and procedures to ensure all executed technology will improve business processes and increase user satisfaction.

Goals and Challenges of the VP of IT

The VP of IT typically focuses on these three primary goals to achieve marketing success.

1. Introducing technologies aligned with organization-wide goals

The VP of IT is accountable for corporate-level technology vision and implementation across the organization. In addition to finding solutions that align with budget requirements, the VP of IT also needs to prioritize technologies that will drastically improve business processes, increase organizational efficiency and provide a high return on investment.

The VP of IT needs to analyze which technology will best meet the organization's needs today, and also scale in the future as the company grows and priorities change.

2. Ensuring systems meet security and compliance requirements

Typically, when individual departments are looking to implement new technology, they’re concerned with the functional components, like the usability of the platform, how features align with their use case, and available integrations. The IT department, however, is focused on critical, security-related components, like regional and industry compliance (HIPAA, FERPA, etc.) and organization-required security measures (SOC2, Single-Sign-On, etc.).

This means that in addition to meeting the functionality requirements, selected platforms need to meet IT’s security, scalability, and compliance requirements. They also need to conform to the larger organizational goals and roadmaps.

3. Increasing technology adoption and solution satisfaction

The IT department is ultimately responsible for the company’s employee and stakeholder efficiency and productivity. This means ensuring that implemented solutions are adopted to their full potential and any issues are resolved within the SLAs (service level agreements) established for the end users. It’s crucial for solution support, onboarding, and training options to align with IT’s expectations.

The VP of IT analyzes platforms based on their likelihood of achieving high adoption and meeting established SLAs, often prioritizing systems that offer their own comprehensive training and adoption programs.

VP of IT Impact on a DAM Project

While digital asset management projects typically originate in the marketing department, they still need to align with the organization’s overall infrastructure.

The VP of IT needs to evaluate how a DAM initiative will affect IT support SLAs, align with the overall technology roadmap, and impact departmental efficiency and collaboration.

Here are questions for the VP of IT to consider when making decisions about a DAM initiative:

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

2. Are IT and support team SLAs being stretched as marketing demands increase for new media format support, management, and sharing?

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

4. Is the 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 existing content 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 the organization from using cloud-based solutions? Is there a preference for the type of cloud platform?

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

Benefits of a DAM to the VP of IT

When approaching a VP of IT with the benefits of digital asset management, it’s important to think high level. Here are some benefits to consider highlighting:

Enterprise-Level Security: A DAM offers various security measures, such as triple redundancy, geo-replication, single sign-on, and more to ensure that the company’s assets are safe from loss due to human error or natural disaster.

Comprehensive Compliance: DAM cloud providers, like Microsoft Azure, deliver a large set of compliance certifications and attestations, such as FIPS, HIPPA, FERPA, and ISO 27018, and offers data residency in over 40 regions across the world.

Scalability: A DAM is able to scale endlessly and adapt to internal changes easily, as the organization grows and changes.

Support and Training: A DAM vendor typically offers support and training as part of their solution, allowing the IT department to focus on other initiatives.

Reduced TCO for Storage: A DAM reduces costs for storage hardware and removes the costs for upgrades, maintenance, and disaster recovery.

This is the second of a three-part series highlighting common stakeholders you need to get on board with digital asset management. Don’t forget to also look at the priorities of the CMO and Creative Operations.

Here’s some other helpful content, to help you build the business case for DAM project across your organization: