Digital Asset Management
Implementing an Efficient Digital Asset Management System
Over the last few years, we have all seen an increased focus and greater importance being placed on remote working, file sharing, communication, and security. At Filecamp, we’ve noticed that companies are under more pressure to improve operational efficiencies as well as employee productivity.
Efficient Digital Asset Management
How does a digital asset management (DAM) solution fit into this ever-changing landscape? In short, it boils down to a few key factors which allow brands to more effectively manage their digital assets:
Safe Cloud Storage
When we think about efficiency, we rarely consider storage which has become increasingly cheaper through the advancement of technology. However, the time, knowledge, and resources required to implement a robust storage solution for your digital assets are quite expensive. To be more efficient, businesses should rely on third party solutions designed for their needs. Through the use of a DAM, the responsibility and ongoing maintenance of the end-to-end storage capabilities falls on the solutions provider.
Luckily, at Filecamp, we have years of experience and a proven track record in storing digital assets for the world’s leading brands. Our platform is designed specifically for digital asset storage thereby eliminating the costly implementations, length approval processes, and complex infrastructure challenges. These benefits allow brands to focus their resources on other aspects of the business.
Unfortunately, consumer offerings such as Dropbox or Google Drive are not an effective DAM solution, and not meant to serve as storage solutions for businesses. While those platforms can gather assets in a central location, they cannot provide a broad spectrum of functionality, accessibility, and backup retrievals that a DAM offers.
IMPROVED EFFICIENCY FACTORS
- Saves Time
- Saves Money
- Simplifies Processes
- Enhances Security
- Ensures Accountability
- Eliminates Redundancies
Centralized System of Record
Like most people, we’ve all found ourselves looking for an updated version of a file or logo across disparate systems. When an asset can potentially reside across multiple locations, it creates a lack of certainty and prompts team members to ask for confirmation on what is to be considered the latest approved asset. This is an all-too-common problem that not only reduces employee productivity but consumes substantial time.
That valuable time could be better spent growing the business, executing critical tasks, or interfacing with customers. Multiply such occurrences across all employees and throughout an entire year and it becomes evident that the nominal cost of a DAM solution offers tremendous value to the organization.
For greater efficiency, a DAM platform like Filecamp can serve as the single system of record (SOR) for digital assets. This not only ensures data integrity but also consistency in representing your brand with the one and only accurate source at all times.
IMPROVED EFFICIENCY FACTORS
- Saves Time
- Saves Money
- Simplifies Processes
- Enhances Security
- Ensures Accountability
- Eliminates Redundancies
- Improves Communication
- Boosts Collaboration
Versioning & Audit History
Time and time again, we see designers, developers, and marketers scrambling to answer seemingly easy questions:
- What version of the file is the latest?
- Who made the last update? When?
- What changes are pending for this asset?
- Who is responsible for making the update?
- If needed, can we go back to an earlier version?
These types of questions are heard almost daily. In such cases, a DAM solution would not only resolve these questions as the absolute source of truth, but would also provide greater auditable history for everyone on the team. Imagine how many countless hours are recouped and how many days of rework are eliminated that translate into thousands of dollars saved.
IMPROVED EFFICIENCY FACTORS
- Saves Time
- Simplifies Processes
- Enhances Security
- Ensures Accountability
- Eliminates Redundancies
- Improves Communication
- Improves Product Quality
Seamless Communication
How many conversations about digital assets have happened undocumented? Never again.
Similar to how most brands are already using Slack or Microsoft Teams for instant messaging, the DAM is the equivalent tool for digital asset collaboration and communication.
This ensures all team members see exactly the same information. With all of your communication and assets in one place, team members will be more productive regardless of work location.
- A common use case is online proofing to get feedback on creative projects. A DAM solution offers teams a collaborative platform for commenting, editing, and reviewing assets.
- Another use case is the being able to invite the right team members to prepare, review or approve an asset. The DAM solution removes the hurdles and risks common in traditional systems.
Better communication, better collaboration, and better tracking of assets saves time. All businesses know that time saved translates into money saved.
IMPROVED EFFICIENCY FACTORS
- Saves Time
- Saves Money
- Simplifies Processes
- Enhances Security
- Ensures Accountability
- Eliminates Redundancies
- Improves Communication
- Boosts Collaboration
Ease of Use
At Filecamp, our team is picky. We gravitate towards solutions that are easy to use. Internally, our team loves Slack for communication. We love Zoom plans for conferencing. And we love Gmail for our email inbox. People like the laser-focused approach to solving a critical need offered by all these solutions.
So it’s no wonder that customers want their digital asset management solution to be just as easy to use, and just as focused on the needs of users. Common requirements are permission-based access to assets, brand guidelines, templates, and collaboration tools for the creative process to ensure all collateral stays on-brand.
At Filecamp, these are the most popular features that help our customers effectively manage their digital assets:
Onboarding & Offboarding Users
No need for HR or IT Operations to get involved and trigger a multi-day operating procedure. Simply add or remove users with only a few clicks.
User Adoption
Immediately after onboarding, users are presented with the company’s digital assets in a library format that is searchable and familiar. This eliminates wasted time, costly training sessions, and boring documentation to review. Employees and contractors love the frictionless approach to accessing digital assets.
Search & Tagging
Your company's images, stock photos, videos, creative files, documents, presentations, and more are readily available. Powerful tagging and search features deliver exactly what you’re looking for at any time, anywhere. Through the use of metatags for better organization, team members can work more efficiently by eliminating wasted time browsing for assets.
Media Library Functionality
With a professional Media Library, you can organize, view, share and track all of your company’s images and brand assets from one central hub in the cloud. Powerful tools help you manage and control how your images are used.
That’s just a handful of the features a DAM solution offers, (see more features here).
IMPROVED EFFICIENCY FACTORS
- Saves Time
- Saves Money
- Simplifies Processes
- Eliminates Redundancies
- Improves Communication
- Boosts Collaboration
- Improves Product Quality
Eliminate Redundant Systems
Nobody likes inefficiencies yet they are common throughout most organizations. Our customers tell us that prior to using Filecamp, they had several internal and external systems with assets sporadically placed throughout all of them. After migrating to Filecamp, they saw how effective their teams became, and how easy it was to find and organize assets.
Similarly, why would you want to maintain and support multiple systems that essentially serve the same purpose. Moreover, why would you continue to use systems that weren’t designed for the modern work environment?
There’s no value in forcing file storage systems such as Dropbox, Google Drive, or Box.com to serve as robust digital asset management solutions because that’s not their primary focus. A true DAM is built for far more than just storage. Smart brands eliminate redundant systems to improve processes and reduce costs for greater efficiency.
Here are just a handful of services that can be eliminated:
- Dropbox
- Google Drive
- FTP
- Design Feedback Tools (i.e. InvisionApp)
- Google Sheets
- Brand Guideline Pages
Once you’ve centralized all your assets within a DAM solution, the benefits and efficiency gains become clearly evident.
IMPROVED EFFICIENCY FACTORS
- Saves Time
- Saves Money
- Simplifies Processes
- Enhances Security
- Improves Communication
- Eliminates Redundancies
Security & Backups
Brands shouldn’t be tackling issues regarding security, DDoS attacks, hackers, and data loss. These are highly specialized subject areas that require costly talent and engineering knowledge.
A sophisticated DAM solution eliminates the need to think about such things. For example, here at Filecamp, we are hosted and secured on the same enterprise infrastructure that Google itself uses - Google Cloud Platform.
Such a reliable infrastructure and an extremely talented team have allowed Filecamp to offer the following to all its loyal customers:
- Secure backups
- Snapshot restoration (up to 30 days)
- 99.9% uptime guaranteed
- End-to-end encryption throughout our platform
- User and file permissions
Brands can rest assured knowing that they don’t need a 100-page disaster recovery plan for their digital assets nor do they need to worry about whether or not backups are configured correctly. IT administrators don’t need to fret about annoying FTP access requests and back/forth messaging. Such burdens are eliminated through the use of a DAM platform allowing employees to spend time on more critical business operations.
IMPROVED EFFICIENCY FACTORS
- Saves Time
- Saves Money
- Simplifies Processes
- Enhances Security
- Ensures Accountability
- Eliminates Redundancies
Best Practices for Efficient Digital Asset Management
Our vast experience of over 10 years has allowed us to learn from hundreds of companies. These are the best practices implemented by the most successful brands when promoting digital asset management systems.
- Aim for company-wide adoption - the most active brands are those that have gradually adopted digital asset management solutions one department at a time, and eventually throughout the company. This ensures everyone is on the same page and the platform becomes a company standard.
- Communicate benefits frequently - Quickest adoption occurs at brands that frequently highlight the many use cases satisfied by their digital asset management, how they are using it internally, and showcase the time and cost savings.
- Document procedures - Since the company’s digital assets are used by almost every department, and externally, it’s important to document the standard operating procedures to be used for naming, tagging, and organizing files.
- Localize feedback - Companies that consistently leverage their chosen digital asset management system’s collaboration and feedback features see a faster turnaround and more team engagement on the project. Make it a point to gather all stakeholders and team members’ feedback within the platform to improve transparency throughout the asset lifecycle.
- Focus on simplicity - Most companies are guilty - including us - for overcomplicating projects or processes. This usually leads to time and budget overages and hurts employee morale. Therefore, it’s important that the digital asset management solution you choose does not overwhelm users, but rather empowers them while still being flexible and scalable for various use cases.
Digital Asset Management - Looking Forward
As more and more companies adjust to working remotely, they’ll need to invest in digital asset management. Professionals from more and more fields are finding ways to successfully become location independent, and brands are leveraging technologies to efficiently manage these shifts.
Therefore, it’s never been a better time to migrate to a DAM solution to prepare for what this new decade has in store for all of us. The steps you take today will help reduce the time your organization spends updating assets and resources, communicating changes, and responding to asset requests.
At Filecamp, we’ve spent the last 10 years developing and innovating the most advanced and affordable DAM platform used by large enterprises, web agencies, and small businesses. Start a free trial and see how you can be more effective by implementing a DAM solution for your organization.
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