Archive for December, 2009

Reshaping the Way Organizations Think About Digital Asset Management

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

By definition, Digital Asset management (otherwise known as DAM) includes tasks and decisions relating to ingesting, annotating, cataloging, storage, retrieval, repurposing and the distribution of digital assets. DAM, in its earlier days, was referred to as optimizing, maintaining, thinning and exporting files. As digital libraries grew so too did the need to do more with the assets contained therein. DAM has since evolved to become an essential part of an organization’s business process for organizing rich media assets such as pictures, images, video and audio for storage, retrieval and distribution. What Digital Asset Management Can Do For YouMany organizations are integrating DAM as part of their business-critical strategy for managing digital assets. They need dedicated solutions to help overcome operational and organizational challenges unique to them. DAM provides much needed centralization, optimizing workflow, virtual collaboration and seamless integration with other digital media applications so that there is minimal disruption to existing processes while maximizing business efficiencies. It ultimately helps organizations of all shapes and size work better, faster and smarter – giving them more time to focus on other mission-critical objectives. Broadcast, Media and EntertainmentPrimarily DAM is used by creative users including photographers, video editors, marketing and advertising professionals, to name but a few. So, DAM systems must integrate with all kinds of creative applications, allowing digital data to be quickly accessed, easy to manipulate in a collaborative environment and made available via simplified distribution. Other key benefits include streamlining internal operations, as well as the entire production environment; shortening editing cycles in post production and providing an end-to-end storage and management solution. DAM plays a vital role in media and entertainment businesses in innovating new designs, generating new sources of revenue or return on investment, and ultimately, in achieving high customer satisfaction. Print and PublishingDAM also helps print and publishing businesses in managing the assets that are created in image form like graphics and scanned documents layouts. DAM solutions manage various components of digital assets like images, photographs and their description data associated with them. DAM systems are a key component in identifying the most efficient way to get images, video, audio, pdf’s, InDesign, PPT’s, Excel, Word, EPS, GIF, and SVG files from where they are created and managed to their ultimate destination. Advertising and Marketing AgenciesAdvertising, design and marketing services companies face a challenging business landscape with shorter client engagement times, lower billed revenue per account executive, reduced customer switching costs and an increasing commoditization of the services they are delivering. These changes suggest that revenue growth appears to be an impossible goal for agencies when you also consider the: It provides a powerful tool that relieves some of the throughput strain on existing creative, studio, and production staff; meets the need for tighter security for clients’ rich media assets; and enables creative teams to move faster, be more efficient and effective everyday. Educational InstitutionsInstructors are challenged with the task of integrating e-learning environments with in-class teaching programs. DAM plays a vital role in helping modern educational and training institutions promote and encourage new forms of learning and generate revenue from sources never before possible. DAM systems give them the ability to leverage a virtual ‘treasure trove’ of existing learning assets contained within libraries and instructors’ offices. The technology lets instructors cost-effectively access, repurpose and deliver them via distance-learning, video lectures and instruction, self-service portals, and collaborative curriculum development and make them available to the faculty, students, and the wider world. ConclusionThe unprecedented rise in the number of digital assets in an organization’s virtual library is one of several driving forces behind the need for sophisticated DAM solutions. In less than 10 years alone DAM has moved from a ‘nice to have’ service to a ‘need to have’ business requirement that: streamlines the creative workflow process; enables a centralized and collaborative creative working environment; provides a reliable and scalable platform that cost-effectively delivers assets across a distributed network; and finally, unleashes the revenue potential of an existing library of assets that can be easily repurposed to generate new top line growth. Innovative technology vendors and their ability to bring solutions to market are helping reshape the way organizations think about what DAM can do for them.

Finding The Right Asset Management System

Monday, December 14th, 2009

Do you have a lot of assets that you need to maintain? If this is the case, you may need an asset management team to help you. Before we get into that, you are probably wondering what exactly asset management is. Asset management is a structured and system that is used to maintain your fixed assets on a day to day basis. This system is used through all phases of the asset’s life cycle. This includes when the asset was first acquired until it is retired or no longer of use. It can be used to manage an individuals assets or a business and all of its assets. In order to maintain your assets, you must know what the asset you own is, when you got the asset, how much the asset cost, how much it will cost to maintain the asset through the asset’s life cycle, where the asset is located, and what the asset will or can be worth.
Effective asset management systems have one specific goal that is always to be met. This goal is to reduce the costs of owning the asset and investing the asset in order to achieve the maximum and significant results. For this goal to be met, the asset management system should incorporate different functions, policies, resources, and procedures that help maintain the asset in a cost efficient manner and still leave you with significant results.
Most commonly, people use an asset management system to take care of their assets for them. There are many available. But before you choose one, you should make sure that the asset management system they use is the best one for your assets. It should include:
1. Various technologies to maintain and track your assets individually, meaning that it always knows where your assets are or where they can be found.
2. Uses a software system that is constantly updated.
3. Reduces your direct cost of owning the assets.
4. Controls shrinkage and/or other losses of the assets.
5. Seeks out information on a daily basis to lower the cost of maintaining the assets.
6. Follows a constant budget when maintaining the asset to reduce over head costs.
7. Provides a maintenance history on all costs of maintaining the assets.
8. Reallocates any assets that do not seem to be achieving goals so that they can meet these goals.
9. Lets you know when it may be advantageous to you if you disposed of the asset either through selling, trading, etc.
10. Makes the most of the potential of assets by ensuring they are appropriately maintained and used at all times.
11. Reduces the demand for new assets, thus saving money through demand management techniques.
12. Always tries to achieve greater value for your money through economic evaluation of options that take into account the asset’s life cycle, full costs of the asset, and with value management techniques.
13. Reduces any unnecessary acquisition of assets or new assets. This is done by making any organizations that use your assets pay for the full costs of using and/or holding the asset itself.
14. Has all attention focused on gaining results.
15. Assigns responsibility of maintaining all aspects of your assets to the right departments.
If you find an asset management system that incorporates all of these items, you are sure to have an easy and effective means to managing your assets. Sometimes it is very difficult to do this yourself, especially if you own a large business, large corporation, or if you just have a great deal of assets to begin with. The right asset management system can make your life a whole lot easier and turn your assets into a much more profitable endeavor.

Asset Management Uk: Maximize Your Profit Through it

Saturday, December 12th, 2009

Now, what an asset is? An asset can be defined as anything owned by an individual that has a cash value. It may include property, goods, savings, and investments. Therefore, we can say that asset management is the management of the assets by money managing teams. Asset management UK includes management of physical assets such as money, equipment and property and also the non-tangible assets such as information and the workflow processes.

Also, in any commercial set up asset include the monetary investments, plants, infrastructure and its human resources. So, asset management can be defined as a process that aims at the optimum utilization of resources for maximum returns at the minimum investment or costs. Now, the first job of an asset management UK team is to identify the company’s ‘assets’ or resources.

Once the assets are identified the asset management UK team focuses on the business process and understands the functioning of the tangible or non-tangible assets. Property, plant, and various equipments are the tangible assets of any company. Asset management involves the analysis of these assets in terms of their depreciation value. This analysis helps the asset management team to arrive at a decision whether to repair or replace the equipments in order to reduce the cost or not.

Also, one of the important aspects of asset management UK is preparing the monetary investment portfolios. It gives a clear picture of the income- expenditure ratio, as well as the financial status of a company. Based on this study the asset management team can remove investment deficiencies. It also can modify the investment structure to maximize returns.

Furthermore, asset management UK may include fix asset management, digital asset management, enterprise asset management, industrial asset management, physical asset management etc. And the asset management is required to ensure that the assets which you have employed in your business are incurring profit and not loss.

Asset Management Uk: Make Your Assets Work for You

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

An asset can be defined as anything owned by an individual or a company that has a cash value. It may include physical goods, property, savings and investments. Therefore, we can say that asset management is the management of physical goods, property, savings and investments. Asset management UK includes management of assets such as money, equipment and property and also the non-tangible assets such as information and the workflow processes.

In any commercial set up an asset include the factory, monetary investments, infrastructure and its human resources. We can say that, asset management is a process to gain optimum utilization of the available resources for maximum returns at the minimum investment.

Lots of homework is required for any asset management UK company to complete this job. At first, the asset management company aims to identify the assets or resources of the company under scrutiny. The identification of assets is very important as sometimes a particular division of a plant is not working so it is not an asset.

Now, after the identification of the assets, the asset management uk team focuses on the business process for understanding the functioning of the tangible or non-tangible assets. Property, factory, and various factory equipments are the tangible assets of any company. Asset management involves the analysis of these non-tangible assets in terms of their depreciation value.

This analysis helps the asset management team to arrive at a decision whether to replace or repair the equipments in order to reduce the cost or not.

Moreover, one of the important aspects of asset management UK company is to prepare the monetary investment portfolios that provide a clear picture of the income- expenditure ratio, as well as the financial status of a company.

The asset management team studies it and assist in removing the investment deficiencies, if any. It can modify the investment structure to maximize returns.

Furthermore, asset management is a very broad term. Asset management UK may include fix asset management, enterprise asset management, physical asset management, industrial asset management, digital asset management etc. So, for ensuring profit from your assets try asset management UK.

What Are The Popular Systems In Asset Management And Facilities Management ?

Monday, December 7th, 2009

As the title mentioned,I want to know more about Asset management and Facilities management.
I am looking for more detail about these two area.
Please list 5 or more popular systems in these two management area each. . . .
Thanks

Are Asset Management Firms Good Places To Work For Accountants?

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

I’ve been working in the entertainment industry as an accountant and am debating if I should transition to work in the asset management firms.
I’ve heard really good reviews from my friends who work in asset management. However they work in the IT and portfolio control departments which makes it difficult for me to determine if the accounting department in asset management firms are a good place for accountants (work environment, managment, potiental for growth)?
Thanks in advance