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As
if suddenly being shaken from a deep, dreamlike state, the marketing
organizations of companies throughout the country today find themselves
thrust into a new order that now requires full accountability for
marketing expenses. For most, it's a shock to the system. Two key
factors have prompted this purge. One factor is an expanding trend
towards the globalization of marketing through the marcom supply
chain, which comprises various vendors such as printers, ad agencies,
graphic design firms, photographers and any others that can affect
a marketing initiative. The trend translates into a desire on management's
part to integrate the marcom supply chain into the global marketing
arena while making it run cost efficiently-and, with a return on
investment.
A second factor is the increasing flow of technology that companies
must manage. It has become overwhelming for most. For years, a corporation's
marcom supply chain was the epitome of creative output in an analog
world. Advertisements, photographs, printed pieces, you name it,
all were manually generated over months and stored in scattered
locations among a legion of vendors. None of these analog "assets"
was centralized or easy to retrieve. Yet, this approach seemed to
work fine for decades. But then, of course, companies had to compete
more fiercely, fight for market share, and go global with products.
The inability of so many companies to adapt to these changes
quickly now has come home to roost. They are awash in a "Who's
on First?" syndrome with managing their creative assets. For
those who could adapt, their marketing operations have morphed into
turbo-charged creative machines where product launches must be accomplished
within weeks, not months, and the creative assets are needed immediately
by both domestic and international offices.
Use, Share Centralized Assets Instantly
Since these changes, and the complications they have presented
for creative asset management, are here to stay, there is hope…and
a solution. A new technology called "digital asset management
(DAM)" has emerged that will address these problems head-on.
Through DAM, hundreds of marketing digital assets (the electronic
files of a business enterprise), such as, again, advertisements,
photographs, brochures, posters, direct mailers, PowerPoint presentations,
or any other electronic files that marketing operations management
(MOM) might decide to be a mission-critical asset, are hosted on
the internet and centralized on a secure server to help end-users
access, use and share immediately.
Just within the last five years, some major forces have catapulted
digital asset management to the top of many companies' priority
list so they can stay competitive and tightly manage their marcom
supply chain. These forces are:
- The rapid adaptation of broadband by small and medium-size
businesses. Since the Internet, and e-mail, are now embedded in
every business office around the world, businesses are adapting
DSL or cable, for example, because they must to keep up with current
technology.
- Today's marketing function in business is changing, again, thanks
to technology. Marketing for decades has operated in an analog
world, creating the physical tools still used today-print ads,
brochures, direct mail pieces, etc. But with the evolution of
broadband and all of the electronic programs now available to
marketing professionals, analog workflow has now converted to
an automated, digital workflow. The result is that these marketing
professionals have become more efficient by organizing their creative
assets in a central location, making them easily accessible by
the company's divisions, employees, vendors, and channel partners.
Such efficiency has translated into a stunning statistic: a company
can save itself 65 percent of the time it normally takes with
analog workflow by automating this workflow digitally.
- The lure to automate has now spurred companies to rent software
rather than buy it-a trend called Software as a Service (SaaS)
that has led to the emergence of major digital asset management
players.
Hosted Solution Appealing
Through it services, D-BAM helps marketing operations organize
their electronic files and host them on a secured central repository
accessed via the Internet. The firm takes a marketing organization's
projects and breaks them down to manageable and easily accessible
digital assets. The rentable or "hosted" solution that
D-BAM and other digital asset management entities offer is a trend
here to stay for several reasons:
- Companies are finding it more cost-effective to have a hosted
DAM solution because it doesn't require that a formal IT infrastructure
be in place.
- They like rentable software because it means they don't have
to pay for software updates; they only pay for the license that
they use. So, if there's a company layoff, management can reduce
the amount of license and, thus, reduce their cost.
- Businesses have more control and more flexibility in getting
a product repaired and their employees trained with respect to
digital asset management by having a rented solution. And, the
rented solution gives a business greater accessibility to the
sales channel, their channel partners, resellers, distributors
and their employees. But a hosted DAM solution also yields two
other benefits: the ability for channel partners to customize
their marketing projects, and the ability to deliver multi-lingual
access to approved marketing materials within a global marketing
supply chain.
By applying digital asset management and automating it in the vendor
supply chain, marketing organizations of businesses around the world
will realize tremendous cost and time savings, higher efficiency
with the access and use of their digital assets, and streamlined
marketing such as they have never experienced before.
More:
If Brand Consistency
and Messaging are flagging, Digital Asset Management could be a
Solution
Allan Linden is CEO & President of Digital Brand Asset Management
(www.d-bam.com),
a San Jose based Application Services Provider (ASP) that offers
a managed service helping marketing operations organize their electronic
files, and hosting them on a secured central repository access via
the Internet.
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