Why invest in Digital Asset Management (DAM).

If you work in marketing more than once you have dealt with this topic, perhaps you have already tried several, without finding the one that fully meets your needs. The choice is not easy because it involves multiple departments.

It involves marketing, and generally this is where the demand for a communication management system starts. It involves the IT department, especially if the DAM is installed in the company. Finally, being by its nature an organizational project, it involves the whole organization of the company, with tasks or tasks that must be distributed among the staff and sometimes with the creation of new figures.

What does a DAM system consist of.

DAM is the activity of archiving, indexing, maintenance and distribution of digital assets, where assets are: images, video, audio, documents, in other words, everything that can be digitized. A digital asset has its own life cycle that can be divided into: creation, evaluation, use, archiving. Its use can create added value for the organization that owns it, for this reason, the importance of DAM is greater the more assets in the company.

The basis of this system is a dedicated hardware and software architecture. After a careful analysis, in which the roles of the people involved are established, the procedures governing the management and distribution of assets, you can choose between two modes:

• on-site installation: the software is purchased and installed on the customer's servers. This choice allows you to maintain complete control over your digital archive. It is a choice with higher set-up costs and you must have an IT department able to manage the system and security aspects.
• SaaS: the hardware and software architecture is provided by the person who developed the software and therefore does not need to be installed on a server and an IT department within the company. It is a choice that involves lower set-up costs but higher management costs.

But what is a DAM in the company for?

The DAM allows you to organize your digital archive and use it more efficiently throughout its life cycle. In addition to internal management and consultation, a Digital Asset Management system is essential to transfer any type of asset to clients, suppliers, employees and other figures outside the company.

What are the main features of a DAM?

• archiving: files are stored in a single database in the highest quality available and protected with back-up and disaster recovery systems. The user chooses which format to download it in according to the use he has to make of it;
• indexing: the files are associated with metadata (categories, technical data, keywords, attributes) that optimize the search;
• management: the organization of the files in the database is subject to updating and maintenance. Users access it with different privileges, depending on their job. Workflows can be implemented with automatic sending of messaging, validations, internal information exchange.
• distribution: files can be searched, organized, sent and shared both internally and externally via web protocols;
• analisi: access, file usage and user behavior can be monitored.

A company can stay without DAM?

The volume of digital content continues to grow and, according to some research, over 30% of the content that a person manages during the working day is composed of multimedia assets. In the absence of a management system the problems are well known:

• personnel cost who has to recover a file by searching through servers, PCs, flash drives, cd-rom. The search is also expensive because the file is not indexed as it can be in a DAM;
• duplication cost: files are often duplicated and copied several times, resulting in waste of time and memory space;
• cost for loss: the absence of a DAM makes the danger of losing files due to technical failure, carelessness, lack of organization constant;
• legal costs: the images purchased have limited periods of use. Sometimes, because the shared information is missing, it is used even after the time expired;
• sending costs: sending files via media, in addition to having a shipping cost, involves the cost of finding the files and the media itself, in addition to the time spent

In conclusion

The adoption of Digital Asset Management is an increasingly necessary choice. Almost always it is a customized project, tailored to the company, possibly able to interact with the production system of catalogues and price lists, therefore able to replace images or product sheets automatically.

A true Digital Asset Management must not be a closed system but a solution capable of dialogue and expansion, growing together with the company.