When companies grow, so do their requirements, teams and volumes of content. There soon comes a time when regular storage solutions are no longer adequate for meeting your businesses demands – that’s when enterprise digital asset management comes into the picture.  

But what is enterprise digital asset management exactly and why is it essential for big business? Let’s take a look.  

What Is Enterprise Digital Asset Management?

An enterprise is typically categorised as a ‘for profit’ business or company.  

Enterprise digital asset management (or DAM) is a system typically used by larger, sometimes multi-national businesses dealing with hundreds, if not thousands of employees and digital assets. These employees can be scattered across different states, countries and time zones, therefore a flexible, agile and easily accessible solution to store, share, organise and manage assets is essential.  

In a nutshell, for big businesses, DAM means digital assets of all formats are securely stored and organised in one centralised location.  

How Does DAM Differ From Traditional Asset Management Systems Like Google Drive And Dropbox?

Digital asset management systems go head to head with traditional cloud storage platforms like Google Drive and Dropbox. However, these traditional systems often fall short when looking at what an enterprise might need in terms of complex search and organisation functions for thousands of digital assets.  

Let’s take a look at what benefits DAM can bring to your organisation that these traditional platforms cannot.  

DAM Makes Search Simple

While platforms like Google Drive and Dropbox are great for personal or small business use, when it comes to large businesses, they just don’t fit the bill. Browsing and locating assets on these platforms can be challenging, as every department often has different naming conventions, folders and access permissions.  

With a DAM solution, storing and finding assets is simple. Thanks to features like intuitive search functions and metadata, assets can be found by any employee, from any department within seconds. This eliminates the time consuming process of requesting access, awaiting approval and not to mention finding the asset in the first place! 

Quick Tip: The real value in a DAM solution comes from the ability to find your content and be agile with it, not just store it.

DAM Keeps Assets Up To Date

Platforms like Google Drive rely on users uploading the correct version of a file and replacing it once outdated. However, almost any employee knows that this is an unrealistic and time consuming task to stay on top of, especially when dealing with thousands of assets on a daily basis. The result is a content library riddled with outdated or duplicated assets.  

DAM platforms, on the other hand make maintaining a consistent and up to date library of assets easy. With features like expiry dates and passwords, businesses can ensure only on brand and up to date assets are accessible across all teams and departments. This is particularly important for enterprises where consistent messaging and imagery is crucial for maintaining brand integrity.  

DAM Supports Integrations For A Seamless User Experience

Unlike traditional asset storage systems that purely act as a home for files, an effective DAM solution not only houses assets but integrates with existing software and workflows. 

This is where DAM software really stands out, boasting an impressive selection of integration capabilities.  

Some DAM providers seamlessly integrate their software with your existing CMS’s, MarTech stacks and ECommerce plugins like Adobe InDesign, Illustrator and more. The result? A custom platform that fits into existing workflows, reducing the learning curve for employees and allowing businesses to remain agile and consistent. It’s a win-win. 

What Benefits Can DAM Bring To Enterprises?

DAM helps enterprises better manage and distribute their company material across all touchpoints, streamlining workflows and improving productivity. How? Let’s take a look.  

It’s Scalable

Big businesses can’t afford to adhere to a limit on storage. Instead, they require an agile asset storage solution that grows as they do. 

Cloud based DAM systems can scale storage to your organisations requirements and expand as the business grows. Some DAM providers even offer an additional offline storage facility for large, raw and complex files.  

For enterprises, this means the ability to easily manage asset lifecycles securely and at the lowest possible cost.  

Quick Tip: The Collaboro offline archive is a highly secure, highly stable media focused library capable of hosting assets of all sizes and formats.

It Reduces Admin Tasks 

Enterprises require more than just DAM software, they need ongoing support and maintenance as well in order to truly reap the rewards DAM has to offer. Without help for maintenance tasks like uploading, tagging and transcoding, your DAM system can quickly become an unorganised mess.  

Some DAM providers alleviate these admin tasks by providing post-implementation and ongoing support alongside their software. This means they work with you to continuously upload and tag new assets as well as onboard and train new employees.  

A DAM provider that takes care of these admin tasks allows enterprises to focus on driving revenue and achieving business goals without having to fuss around with technology.  

Quick tip: Collaboro streamlines admin tasks and minimises the learning curve for employees, giving you more time to focus on what’s important to your business.

It Caters For Remote Working 

The pandemic has made it imperative for all businesses, particularly multi-national corporations to have an agile and reliable storage facility for their digital assets. One that can be seamlessly accessed from any device, anywhere, by any approved user.  

By creating a centralised library for every company asset, DAM systems play a significant role in helping businesses adapt to remote working. When assets are stored in one central cloud storage system, they’re easily accessible to teams, departments and offices all over the globe.  

For enterprises, this means past barriers like time zones and geographical separation are no longer a roadblock for seamless workflows.  

Quick tip: DAM systems give teams the freedom to re-purpose and collaborate on readily available content no matter their location.

It Supplements Business Growth 

One of the biggest challenges organisations face when they expand into another country is effectively managing vast quantities of digital assets across global teams and external partners. They will all need access to logos, imagery, documents, digital presentations – the list goes on. 

Enterprise DAM systems cater towards this rapid growth and instantaneous collaboration in a way traditional systems cannot.  

With features like intuitive interfaces, scalable storage and rich metadata, DAM is a tool that can enable any team with the content they need and evolve overtime to accommodate your organisations changing needs.  

5 Features Enterprises Should Look For When Choosing A DAM Solution

DAM software is an investment, so when searching for a solution for your business, you want to make sure you get it right. To ensure your DAM software can solve key pain points and evolve with your business, look out for features such as: 

1. Customisations

When adopting a DAM solution, it is a given that your organisation will have unique needs and considerations for this software to be effective. That’s why the need for a tailor made asset management system is essential for enterprises to create a seamless experience for their users.  

Digital asset management systems cater for customisations in a way traditional methods cannot. They allow for a completely customised, easy to use interface that evolves with your organisation and its digital assets. This means everything from internal language functions, existing plug ins and even the interface itself is tailor made to suit your organisation and its existing workflows.  

2. State Of The Art Security

For big businesses, prioritising the confidentiality of digital assets and the privacy of users is imperative. So, when searching for DAM software, look for a solution built on a secure platform like Microsoft Azure to guarantee advanced level security for both users and assets.  

On top of secure hosting platforms, some DAM providers incorporate permission level access that can be set and designated by the organisation. This allows businesses to control what users can access, view, upload and collaborate on. For global enterprises, top level security features like this are imperative to ensure assets are secure and compliance requirements are met.  

3. Metadata

For enterprises, possessing thousands of digital assets is commonplace. So, the need for intuitive metadata tagging is crucial for allowing teams to seamlessly locate files. 

When searching for a DAM solution, look for a provider that intelligently tags each asset with file information like keywords, copyright information, object recognition and more. With this intricate metadata in place, workflows are streamlined and employees no longer waste time hunting down assets.  

4. Shareability

For enterprises with teams in different cities and countries, it is crucial for your DAM system to support instant sharing of large file types.  

A DAM solution that has easy share functions will allow approved users to easily send assets through branded portals, making it easy for teams to collaborate, re-purpose and distribute these assets.  

5. Integrations

A DAM solution with integration capabilities allows teams to view, edit and distribute assets easily within existing platforms and workflows.  

So, when choosing a DAM solution, look for a provider that offers integration capabilities across MarTech stacks, CMS’s and review and approval processes. These features allow teams to remain agile, streamlining workflows and increasing productivity without too much change to existing workflows.  

Why Choose Collaboro For Your Enterprise DAM System?

Collaboro is an Australian Cloud-based DAM solution that empowers enterprises to do more. Our DAM platform will centralise all your digital assets, making it easier for your teams to organise, find and share all your digital media files, in one place, from anywhere.  

But a successful DAM solution requires more. This is where Collaboro brings local Australian expertise and support services to provide a customised end-to-end solution.  

To find out more about what Collaboro can offer for your business, book a demo with a Collaboro solutions expert today.