Managing Digital Asset Management (DAM)
Managing Digital Asset Management (DAM)
Managing digital assets is one of the most challenging problems today’s companies have to deal with. Attempting to gain control of hundreds of thousands of files across many teams, large and small, with disparate geographic locations requires an effective digital asset management strategy with a workflow that users can easily adopt. Southpaw Technology have responded to this need by developing solutions that take advantage of a mature digital asset management platform in combination with a powerful Workflow engine.
Enterprises put great value on their data. When this data becomes large, complex and disorganized, it significantly impacts efficiency and eventually hurts the bottom line. What happens to the data if it is left neglected? Think of a company as a library and all its data as books within the library. If people were allowed to stack any book anywhere as they saw fit, it would soon become impossible to find a particular book. Imagine the DAM tool as a librarian, who would is tasked to place books in their correct aisles which would be organized appropriately. Finding books in this library has now become a lot easier. Searching and repurposing assets across organizations increases exponentially.
Another critical factor that can hamper productivity in a workplace is failing to recognize the importance of a good workflow. Good workflows save time and help maintain the integrity of the company’s data. A bad workflow is often one that is ill-defined. If no workflow is specified, users are forced to create their own file organization method which does not scale translate to other users across an organization. Recently there has been more awareness among companies identifying the need for well designed workflows and become an integral part of an effective business process management plan.
A common strategy employed by corporations looking to become more workflow efficient is to maximize software automation in an effort to not waste valuable human hours. By choosing the right DAM system based on workflow, a company puts itself in a position to do exactly this. Automating process workflows become a lot easier with the help of various DAM tools like a Workflow Editor, triggers, notifications and an open API. Without a DAM system in place, it becomes difficult for a company to organize their projects, provide accountability for each task, track projects, maintain file versioning and ensure security is met across users and groups.
Using a DAM with a defined workflow can also provide significant added value and functionality such as review/approval processes, notifications, analytics and report generation. Additionally, multinational companies regularly share data between different office locations in multiple geological locations. An existing problem in today’s industry is finding the right solution to enterprise server syncing that can automate the syncing process between data centers with minimum data replication. Using a DAM in conjunction with Workflow protects against redundant work, as it mitigates the possibility of lost, misplaced or deleted files. One of the most significant efficiencies of assembling assets and media in one location is the speed at which users can search, collaborate and repurpose assets.
The right digital asset management (DAM) system should make managing huge volumes of digital assets simple. The best DAM system should provide organizations of any size with all of the tools and technologies they need to securely store, organize, search, version, tag, track, and share digital content. Customizable themes allow organizations to interact with data in the manner that suits them best.
TACTIC Digital Asset Management solutions can:
- Map to any database
- Automatically create organized file structures
- Checkin/checkout/versioning
- Customize views for interacting with data
- Tag assets and group related files
- Define user access
How do you know if you need a DAM System? Do you belong in any of these categories:
- Are you part of a large organization with lots of legacy data that is often difficult to manage?
- Are you part of a fast growing company where the data growth is exponential?
- Are you part of a team that often has to collaborate with different teams?
If yes, then the appropriate DAM system based on your workflow will be extremely beneficial in boosting your team and company’s performance. The initial cost of configuring a DAM system will be recovered quickly, through increased automation, faster production cycles and eliminated redundancies. It is a worthwhile investment of your time and effort to match your business pipeline logic and workflow, and pursue the best DAM system for you and your team.