What You Need To Know Before Selecting The DAM For Your Business?
Digitalization has caused tremendous changes in the shopping pattern. The customers prefer checking product details, comparing across the channels, and finally making the purchase.
To stay ahead in this competitive world, the product-based enterprise should provide the best and accurate product details to their customers to gain their confidence. It is essential to share the digital assets that include the product image, videos, audio, or any other graphical content to provide a clear picture of the product.
What is a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system? How does it work?
The different files under the digital asset include documents, spreadsheets, images, audio clips, videos, animations, graphics, media files, presentations, etc. A proper system or solution is essential for the management of all these assets. Using the Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution helps in streamlining asset management. It allows in optimizing the production of rich media that is essential for the sales and marketing of the product.
Using the DAM solution, the organization can create a centralized system for the management of digital assets. For the growing digital competition, the enterprise should have high visibility of the assets across the different channels.
To get exclusive insights about Digital Asset Management, don’t miss reading An Ultimate Guide to Digital Asset Management (DAM).
The different steps involved in the working of the DAM solutions include:
Creating asset
Standard templates and formats are available that allow in preparing the digital files for encoding. This standardization provides ease of searching and documents retrieval.
Encoding and indexing
Metadata allows the identification of digital data through different attributes as asset types, versions, media types, technology, etc. These identifiers allow indexing, grouping assets having common tags for improved search.
Workflow
It allows for task and process automation.
Version control
This ensures that the latest and updated assets are accessed for review and use.
Governance through permissions
It allows access to only those users who have permission to access the particular section of the data. This helps in protecting the crucial data from theft, accidental erasure, or corruption.
Auditing
Internal audit helps in evaluating the effectiveness of the DAM and identification of areas for improvement.
Benefits of DAM for Business
Elimination of cost due to lost or misplaced work
For the updated marketing techniques it is essential to keep the product data updated with new data. An increased number of files can lead to misplacing some important files using DAM for Business eliminates or reduces the chances of misplacing the files.
Improves creativity and production cycles
Different DAM tools help efficiently in creating the content, version control, workflow approval, etc. this reduces the time and thus allows in expediting the creative production.
Better resource allocation
Centralized storage of the asset information and managing the details reduces the work duplication. Having an adequate DAM for Business leads to saving valuable resources like time and money. This encourages allocating the saved resources in other areas of greater importance.
Streamline distribution
DAM helps by providing the essential details to the different teams like the content collaborators, manufacturers, sales and distribution team, external partners, etc. Proper integration with the different teams can lead to an automated and smooth process of distribution across the different channels.
Reduce workflow redundancies
DAM allows providing a clear overall picture of the product. It facilitates cross-term collaborations with the different teams and thus reducing the chances of miscommunications.
Maintain brand consistency and integrity: The DAM for Business ensures that all the teams within the organization are using the same files for the product. This consistent use of accurate and updated content helps in creating a better brand image for the customers.
Permissioned access
The different teams within the enterprise that play a crucial role in the product management chain need to access different types of product details. The governance tools of DAM allow giving permissions to the different teams to access the particular set of data thus having improved security. It also provides limited privileges for downloading the files thus protecting the sensitive data.
Proper tracking of the return of investment (ROI)
DAM for Business includes the analytics tool for tracking access to the assets. This data can be useful for system optimization and influences the decisions related to the content strategy.
Improved organizational transparency
DAM for Business allow in providing a clear and comprehensive view of the digital assets important for content planning and execution. It improves collaboration with the stakeholders by improving transparency.
Improved customer conversation and retention
DAM allows in personalizing the customer experience, establishing and nurturing a stronger bond with the customers. This helps to gain customer confidence and retain the customers for the longer term.
Do you want to avail above-listed benefits by automating various media asset management processes for your business?
What should you look for when selecting a DAM for Business?
While selecting the DAM solution for the enterprise, one should have a proper strategy in place for the selection, purchase, and deployment of the DAM solution. There might be different reasons for purchasing a new DAM solution like selecting a new DAM solution, replacing the old one, or upgrading.
For any of the above-mentioned reasons for buying a new DAM solution, one needs to follow the checklist for selecting the right type of DAM solution for their business. The different steps needed for selecting the best DAM solution include:
Initiate the DAM selection process
Basic and enterprise are the two types of DAM solutions available. These solutions vary based on their usability, scalability, capability, cost, and extent of customizability. The basic DAM solution is user-friendly, easy to use, uses a simple classification and categorization scheme for organizing the digital assets.
The enterprise type of DAM solution is useful when complex assets are available. It helps in engaging the emerging technology, optimizing processes, applying artificial intelligence, etc. Organizations can select the type of DAM solution based on their needs and availability of the assets.
Ensure DAM alignment with the organization
It is important to check the type of DAM for Business selected is in alignment with the organization and the people working in it.
The solution selection should consider the cultural language used for the communication in the company, the method of interaction between the teams within the organization, etc. The organization needs to have a team for managing the DAM initiative and understand its functioning.
Ensure alignment with the technology
The DAM solution should align with the technology used in the organization for the business. It is important to access the current technology and operations and how they can be used to relate to DAM. It is important to properly select the different features and capabilities of the DAM for Business.
Shortlisting the vendors and picking front runners
Based on the needs the organization can shortlist the potential candidate vendors. Assessing their solution fit and checking for the necessary technical and functional resources expertise is very crucial. The vendor should provide a demo and assistance for launching and successful running of the DAM solution.
Selection of the vendors and initiating the purchase
While selecting the vendor, it is essential to check which vendor can provide the best value for the DAM solution. While selecting the software and the budgeting it is important to check the software licensing, the number of users having access, and other such details.
The cost should also include quality assurance, development, product, and support for disaster recovery.
Deployment of the DAM solution
On purchasing, the organization needs to prepare for the launch of the DAM solution. This requires the strategy, implementation plan, and process for using the DAM solution.
While selecting a DAM you should also look for advanced features offered by the platform. Visit Why You Should Consider Pimcore’s Digital Asset Management for Your Business? to get insights into Pimcore’s DAM and its advanced feature.
Are you looking for a technology partner that helps you in selecting and implementing the right digital asset management platform that meets your requirements?
SaaS vs. Hosted vs. Hybrid vs. Open Source DAM solution: which one is best?
Four different basic DAM delivery models have different approaches used. Each model has different features and its pros and cons.
1. Software as a service (SaaS) DAM
It is a cloud-based system, so the internet is essential for access, and for managing this type of DAM system, a third-party vendor is required. This model allows renting the software on a subscription basis instead of purchasing and hosting it locally on servers and computers. It provides flexibility for accessing the DAM solution from any location at any time.
As these services are off-site, they do not take the space on company servers or systems. The vendors efficiently handle the system upgrades, tech supports, and any other issues. Based on the enterprise requirements, the vendor can include or exclude the features for efficient working.
2. Hosted DAM
This Dam solution is installed on the company service on their promise. This DAM solution will depend on the organization’s network thus requiring a greater LAN speed for quicker access to the files.
As this DAM solution will be on-premise the enterprise should make the arrangements for the infrastructure to handle the security, IT, management, upgrades, and support for this DAM solution.
This hosted DAM is best suited for the larger organization having resources and having more digital assets.
3. Hybrid DAM
This is a deployment model that combines SaaS and hosted DAM solutions. For the user, it is a single system but while working it has both cloud-based and on-premise servers. This DAM solution suits better for the organizations looking to control the storage of their digital assets and wants to provide global accessibility & sharing just as a SaaS solution.
This allows the enterprise to keep the more confidential and sensitive data on their servers while sharing the market-ready files with the global teams and partners by using the SaaS capabilities.
4. Open source DAM
As the name suggests it has open-source code with public access rights, organizations can use and make modifications to build their own DAM solution. The organizations need some software to integrate and adapt with their needs for running this open-source DAM.
In the long run, this open-source DAM can be a costly affair. The customization will need the IT expertise in the organization and training for the best utilization of this solution.
Do you want to discuss the pros and cons of selecting SaaS, Hosted, Hybrid, and Open Source DAM solutions with the technical capabilities of each?
Reasons for SaaS DAM being the best option
Considering all the pros and cons of all the above-mentioned four DAM models, SaaS is the best option preferred by most organizations. Five main factors that make SaaS DAM the best are
Time
When compared to the other models like hosted, hybrid, or open-source, the SaaS DAM model will take less time for implementation. For any started organization, the SaaS DAM solutions are already developed and tested thus can be used readily.
Once the SaaS model is selected, it will take a few weeks for implementation and roll out as compared to others that will take months for the same. As the SaaS DAM solutions are cloud-based models.
They have a time-efficient system for creating data, sharing, managing, and digital assets. There is no competition for the SaaS DAM in terms of faster implementation and maintenance.
Support
As SaaS is a cloud-based model, the enterprise does not need to involve their in-house IT team in fixing the bugs, upgrading systems, discovering ways to grow, and improving system capabilities for DAM. SaaS DAM solution provider takes care of all these features.
They have a dedicated team for support, product, and IT. There is a dedicated team allotted by the vendor that looks after the maintenance and improvement of the software and the challenges.
Scalability
When the product develops and grows the enterprise needs to include more digital data and also the users increase. SaaS DAM solutions provide scalable options and can allow scaling immediately without much affecting the budget and resources for expanding the server infrastructure.
Accessibility
SaaS DAM solution is cloud-based thus the enterprise needs to have a good internet connection for accessing the software. This flexibility allows all the team members to access the data globally through their SaaS system.
Cost
The SaaS DAM solution providers can provide the service at affordable pricing as their subscribers share the cost burden for their services. The organizations do not have to pay separately for the servers, technology, people, hardware, maintenance, etc, as they would have to pay in case of the hosted DAM where expertise and facilities are required.
To explore more reasons for considering the DAM platform, visit Why Do You Need a Digital Asset Management Platform? [Significance, Advantages, Common Issues & Criteria ]
Do you want to know more reasons for considering the Digital Asset Management platform for your organization?
Bottom Line
An adequate DAM solution creates a centralized database of all the digital assets of the enterprise. It allows for easy access, organizing, and managing the details efficiently. It streamlines the product content lifecycle from its creation to its preservation. The workflow created by the DAM solution allows the teams to expand their products and support achieving the larger business goals.
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