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.
