From DAM Becomes EssentialBy Cassandra Carnes
The goal of every technology investment is to streamline processes. In DAM’s case, productivity is enhanced when assets are easily located, retrieved, and formatted. Once efficiency is established, organizations can then advance towards strategic growth, taking advantage of the time and resources gained through DAM implementation.
DAM touches many aspects of the business process. “The first step is simply collecting, aggregating, and identifying all of the essential digital files in one place. Next, DAM provides a degree of automation in creative and distribution workflow where it never existed before,” says Duhl.
“After familiarity is gained and quality improves, we typically find customers experimenting with entirely new processes, eventually it’s not just about doing things differently, it’s about doing different things,” says Damian Saccocio, VP solutions marketing and strategy, Digital Media Group, Open Text.
Improved procedures and processes are possible when DAM systems are used to their full potential. Leading DAM and MAM solutions allow sales teams to organize personalized kits to address the specific needs of the customer. Additionally, sales staff can provide feedback to marketing departments on which assets are most effective. “I foresee the trend toward more customization of materials by sales to address specific customer needs and problems,” says Scott Richardson, president/CEO, Longwood Software.
DAM also plays a critical role part to targeted content on Web sites that need to be deployed in multiple languages and support new paradigms such as gadgets and user-generated content. “New types of digital assets continue to emerge for an increasing variety of mobile devices and Web deployment scenarios in which these assets need to be used,” predicts Loren Weinberg, SVP of marketing and product management, FatWire Software.
DAM extends beyond IT automation. Its implementation provides a powerful solution that affects productivity on many levels within an organization. However, it requires executive oversight and proper training in order to fulfill its potential. “It’s about the willingness of participants to optimize business processes, review them, and possibly change behavior,” says Pieter Casneuf, CEO, ADAM Software.
Often, DAM implementations solve more than one issue within a business process. Sometimes these issues are not even realized. Scott Seebass, CEO, Xinet, notes a number of situations where customers didn’t realize the amount of money spent sending marketing literature. He offers an example, “you spend a lot of money making a marketing piece and it only gets to ten percent of its indented audience. With DAM, you’ve actually made that piece much more efficient and cost-effective because it’s dispersed to 90 percent of the indented audience through easy accessibility.”
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