A digital asset management solution is a software and systems solution that provides a systematic approach to efficiently storing, organizing, managing, retrieving and distributing an organization’s digital assets.
Digital asset management (DAM) can refer to both a business process and a form of information management technology or a digital asset management system. DAM functionality helps many organizations create a centralized place where they can access their media assets.
The digital asset is a key component of the DAM process. It is any file type of value that is owned by an enterprise or individual, comes in a digital format, is searchable via metadata and includes access and usage rights. There are many types of digital assets, including but not limited to:
A DAM solution streamlines asset management and optimizes the production of rich media, particularly within sales and marketing organizations, by creating a centralized management system for digital assets. It enables brand consistency through automatic asset updates and reinforcement of brand guidelines, providing a single source of truth within businesses and a more consistent user experience to external audiences.
Modern digital content management teams and marketers also rely on DAM to repurpose creative assets, reducing unnecessary production costs and duplicate workstreams with its invaluable search features.
Given the high visibility of brand assets and marketing assets through digital channels, such as social media, brands must remain consistent in imagery and messaging to build brand authority and generate business growth. As a result, it’s no surprise that digital asset management platforms are becoming critical components of digital transformation efforts.
Demo Book a live IBM Aspera demoLearn how IBM Aspera can help you move data of any size across any distance at maximum speed.
How DAM software worksSeveral steps are involved in the use of a digital asset management software:
Organizations can implement a DAM solution on-premises, in the cloud or in a hybrid topology. Cloud-based asset storage, management and delivery can be a cost-effective, secure, scalable and flexible option for organizations of all types and sizes.
Reduced production costs and better resource allocation
The centralization of assets within a DAM system enables organizations to find and reuse assets, reducing production costs and duplicate workstreams. Reduced costs encourage the allocation of resources in other areas of the business. The resulting efficiency gains help to bring assets and solutions to the market faster.
DAM provides users with a clear, comprehensive view of digital assets, creating a positive impact on project management, content planning and execution. It can increase collaboration across various stakeholders or introduce more impactful workstreams through the elimination of redundant projects.
When businesses organize content appropriately based on the user’s stage of the buyer journey, they can serve on-brand content and marketing materials at the right time for their target audiences. DAM enables organizations to personalize the customer experience, establishing and nurturing stronger relationships. This process helps move potential customers and existing customers along the buying cycle faster and more effectively.
DAM helps to ensure that messaging, positioning, visual representation and other means of brand adherence are consistent. With DAM, functional areas and business units can re-use creative files and other assets to gain efficiencies and present a single truth to the market.
Licenses, legal documentation, archives and other assets can play key roles in meeting industry-driven or governmental regulatory compliance demands. The ability to organize and rapidly retrieve these materials can save organizations time and money and mitigate the disruption of core business processes.
The emergence of desktop publishing in the late 1980s enabled printers, publishers and advertisers to digitize text, graphics and photography. Too large for most internal hard disks, these files were transferred to external media with simple metadata labels. They were placed in simple, hierarchical files and folders.
In 1992, Canto Software released Cumulus—one of the first DAM systems. It was an on-premises, stand-alone solution, featuring thumbnail previewing, metadata indexing and search capabilities. While early DAM solutions made assets easy to find, verify and retrieve, files were still not easy to share.
By the early 2000s, server-based DAM enabled file-sharing over the internet. Shortly thereafter, cloud storage offered another way to store, manage and distribute digital assets.
DAM quickly evolved into integrated libraries able to deliver content to various devices, systems and repositories. Application programming interfaces (APIs) enabled assets to plug into different applications and meet specific requirements quickly and efficiently.
Now it is common for AI capabilities to be embedded into DAM—intelligently tagging and cross-referencing assets, including video recognition and voice recognition. Using machine learning, DAM systems can anticipate content needs and make recommendations to users. These marketing tasks are performed within minutes or less, enabling organizations to respond in near-real time and gain a competitive advantage.
When looking at DAM platforms, it is important that organizations evaluate whether the solutions they select provide capabilities that support both current and future needs. A successful DAM solution provides the following capabilities:
The benefits of digital asset management are visible across industries anywhere digital assets are involved. Here are two examples of the use of DAM:
Patent offices typically manage large volumes of digital assets in various stages of completion. As updates are made through the asset’s lifecycle, transferability, version control and access rights features are critical for maintenance. Other features such as search functionality also enables processes within patent offices to scale effectively.
Technology companies use DAM in many different departments, often across multiple locations. DAM centralizes the assets for access and use. Functional areas within an organization use DAM for different purposes. Some examples include:
Many team members across these organizations need to access, use, edit and track the assets, making access permissions critically important. Access control might be based on business unit, functional department and role. They can restrict access of some assets to internal employees.
Permissions can also extend access of other assets to external constituents such as partners or customers. For example, an organization might provide access to logos and engagement proposals that can help support partnership and ecommerce.
Related solutions IBM Cloud Object StorageStore data in any format, anywhere, with scalability, resilience and security. IBM® Cloud® Object Storage is a highly scalable and resilient managed data service on IBM Cloud, offering an alternative to block and file storage.
Explore IBM Cloud Object Storage Enterprise content management solutionsDeliver superior customer experiences by accelerating content management and governance processes.
Explore enterprise content management solutions Resources White paper IBM Aspera FASP High-Speed transportRead a critical technology comparison to alternative TCP-based transfer technologies.
Read the white paper IBM Research AI for Asset Management
We’re creating AI that fuses noisy sensor data, images and text from operator logs and repair manuals to enable intelligent workflows with natural-language explanations. Explore IBM Research today.
Explore IBM Research Case study American Airlines
Learn how American Airlines worked with IBM to deliver better customer value.
Read the case study Topic What is latency?
Network latency is the amount of time it takes for data to travel from one point to another across a network. A network with high latency will have slower response times, while a low-latency network will have faster response times.
Read the topic page Blog What is cloud cost optimization?
Cloud cost optimization combines strategies, techniques, best practices and tools to help reduce cloud costs, find the most cost-effective way to run your applications in the cloud environment, and maximize business value.
Read the blog Topic What is FinOps?
FinOps (or cloud FinOps) is an evolving cloud financial management discipline and cultural practice that aims to maximize business value in hybrid and multicloud environments.
