Future Proofing Your Digital Asset Strategy. What to expect from next generation Digital Asset Management solutions

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1 Future Proofing Your Digital Asset Strategy What to expect from next generation Digital Asset Management solutions

2 Contents 3 Prepare for the future today 4 How DAM systems will be used by all departments, not just marketing 5 How DAM systems will be transformed by microservices 6 Working with dinosaurs 7 How DAM systems will future proof organisations 8 Why DAM vendors will transform into DAM integrators 9 Next generation DAM solutions today 10 Takeaways 11 About Asset Bank 2 Future Proofing Your Digital Asset Strategy

3 Prepare for the future today Digital asset volumes have doubled over the past 15 years and are set to increase in the future. It means more powerful and feature-rich Digital Asset Management (DAM) solutions will be required to handle such growth, ensuring organisations are able to continue managing assets efficiently while retaining a competitive edge over rivals. Asset Bank has created this ebook to offer expert insights into what organisations should expect from these next generation DAM solutions from the game-changing possibilities offered by microservices to bespoke front ends that can be quickly tailored to individual user groups. Critically, the ebook also offers evidence that the features of next generation DAM solutions are already appearing in offerings from reputable DAM providers. It means forward-thinking organisations are benefiting from future-ready DAM solutions today but is yours? 3 Future Proofing Your Digital Asset Strategy Demand for DAM systems Skyrocketing... as reflected by the DAM market itself, which is set to expand fivefold by $1.28 billion Value of the global DAM market in 2014 VS $5.21 billion Predicted value of the global DAM market in 2020.

4 How DAM solutions will be used by all departments, not just marketing Historically, DAM solutions have been predominantly deployed by marketing to manage their extensive assets libraries. The benefits of a DAM system to the department are obvious; a digital platform where all digital assets are managed effectively, ensuring every asset fulfils its potential both in terms of ROI and deployment. Such digital asset management capabilities though also have benefits for all departments within an organisation (see More Than Marketing boxout). But there is a problem; DAM systems are currently being rolled out by management across the entire organisation, promoted as a onestop solution for all digital asset management needs. In reality though, the system often isn t tailored to the requirements of each individual department, leading to them sourcing their own DAM solutions unofficially; it is not uncommon to find up to five different DAM platforms being used within a single organisation at any one time. Such a proliferation of DAM systems is dangerous; from wasted budgets and productivity to the implications for cybersecurity, such a disparity of solutions should be seen as an own goal for any organisation. This situation further underlines the importance of DAM providers who are prepared to work closely with clients to ascertain their departmental needs before the rollout (see the case study on Page 9). Crucially, the rollout will still see assets stored within a centralised hub but specific front ends with relevant services will be created that are tailored to each department and its needs. Such a holistic approach means that the risk of shadow IT will all but disappear in the future because the DAM solution is able to cater to the needs of all stakeholders, no matter the department. More Than Marketing It s a common misconception that a DAM solution only benefits marketing but nothing could be further from the truth. For example: Production creating sample management systems that enable designers and production teams to search and find samples based on specific attributes Training managing video content for the creation of training and learning videos that can be distributed across the organisation by Human Resources Customers setting up a searchable image database that an organisation s customers can use to source and purchase images and videos from. 4 Future Proofing Your Digital Asset Strategy

5 How DAM solutions will be transformed by microservices In layman s terms, a microservice is a small, independent software component that provides a specific function. It is plugged together with other microservices and a front-end to create a flexible, distributed software application. Within DAM solutions, such a microservice-based architecture offers organisations a range of benefits that will ensure their platform continues to grow and adapt to their evolving needs: Streamlined UX Thanks to the adaptability of solutions built using microservices, they can be designed to cater for specific business areas. Traditionally, a single application is deployed to service multiple departments, creating potentially inefficient processes that are too generalised and unfocused. Instead, a microservice-based solution allows departments to use only the services they need within user interfaces designed specifically for their individual workflows and processes. This provides rich, streamlined user experiences (UX) that enable users to meet their goals as quickly and effectively as possible. Reliable, scalable & adaptable User-authored Because new microservices can be used directly within the existing DAM platform (itself built using microservices), there is no need for the wholesale rewriting or remodelling of the platform itself (unlike monolithic applications see Page 6). Instead, the plug and play nature of microservices means they should work quickly and reliably without the points of failure and bottlenecks typically associated with monolithic applications. Organisations often have their own in-house developers who are charged with creating new apps and services. Typically, these devs have three options available to them; either develop a solution in-house, use a black box thirdparty solution or turn to their vendor to carry out customisation work. Future DAM solutions will allow developers to produce their own components as plugins, adding domain-specific functionality to their solution without the need to ask the vendor for costly customisations. 5 Future Proofing Your Digital Asset Strategy

6 Working with Dinosaurs The polar opposite to agile microservice-based solutions are monolith applications; a software application which is designed without modularity, which is often developed in one usually giant codebase. This means whenever a new service or feature is needed, it must be developed in the code of the monolith platform, which can require significant reworking of the application s architecture if the change is significant. As well as the cost implications, this approach is inherently problematic; first, the monolith application is expected to cater to all business needs and processes, which is an archaic and inefficient approach in an agile digital era. Second, as the monolith s feature sets do expand, its complexity increases. With sales teams forever asking for new features to be bolted on quickly plus the inevitable developer turnover, this complexity can soon become unmaintainable. The end result? An application that cannot be easily changed or adapted; in other words, it creates a weak foundation unsuitable for a future-facing DAM solution to be built on. 6 Future Proofing Your Digital Asset Strategy Monolith Architecture Imagine a monolith application as a game of inverted Jenga where each new feature must be pushed in between the existing building blocks of the core app, all while ensuring the entire structure doesn t come tumbling down. VS Microservice-Based Architecture Microservices are combined to create the solution s overall architecture with any new services able to be plugged in as and when required, removing the need for services to be pushed in entirely.

7 How DAM systems will future proof organisations The increasing use of microservices and flexible front-ends will enable new and emerging technologies to be integrated into a DAM solution much more easily, in effect future proofing the system. For example: Machine Learning Reporting File Types Blockchain Advanced AI will become embedded in almost everything, and DAM solutions are no exception. The technology will offer enhanced auto-tagging features and the ability to forensically examine how images are being searched and deployed by different departments. The microservice-driven nature of DAM platforms will mean that any new machine learning capabilities created in-house or by a third party can be plugged in and leveraged quickly. Future reporting powered by advanced AI will enable organisations to dive deeper into their data, offering a wealth of advanced insights to act on. From which groups or regions are using the DAM system the most efficiently and why through to which photographer and images are most popular across the organisation, department heads will be able to identify any strengths and weaknesses within organisational workflows. This in turn will help inform how time, resources and budgets are allocated. New visual mediums will emerge in the years ahead, inevitably introducing new file types that DAM solutions must be able to store and display effectively. For example, as technologies such as Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality continue to push their way into the mainstream, organisations will expect their DAM platforms to be able to support them. Again, the modular architectural approach will help integrate new file types effortlessly within existing digital assets libraries. This system of record technology is still in its infancy within the DAM sector but offers huge potential for the future. In theory, it will allow for complete and verifiable lifecycle reporting of every stored asset; the ultimate in asset supply chain management, all elements of an asset will be embedded directly within the file. From when and where the asset was created through to how it is being used, blockchain-driven DAM systems will provide a secure and tamperproof assets ledger, critical to organisations such as charities and the police. 7 Future Proofing Your Digital Asset Strategy

8 Why DAM vendors will transform into DAM integrators The shift towards a modular approach means that DAM providers are increasingly acting as integrators. They are working hand in hand with organisations to create solutions that tie together a mix of prebuilt, third-party and bespoke components to meet the client s exacting requirements. Typically, while 90% of a DAM s functionality is offered out of the box, it s the remaining 10% that matters most to organisations wanting to tailor DAM systems to their operations. The best DAM providers already cater to this need, conducting meetings with the client and performing analysis to uncover the organisation s pain points. Once the research phase is complete, the 10% can then be adapted for specific user groups, integrated with existing legacy services and, critically, allow for the introduction of bespoke functionality required by the organisation. The latter often sees the DAM provider using the agile process to analyse a requested feature before either sourcing a third party solution or custom developing the functionality. The future will see this integrated approach deepen further as the product itself becomes less important and the need for a DAM provider to act as an embedded partner grows. 8 Future Proofing Your Digital Asset Strategy

9 Case study Next generation DAM solutions today Client High-profile entertainment and technology company. Brief To create a DAM solution that was able to distribute all the digital assets created at the client s London-based music festival. Needs Solution To support the four main user groups who were charged with managing a substantial amount of digital assets in real-time during the festival: An out-of-the-box DAM system alone would not have provided an optimised user experience for the four groups. Instead, bespoke front-ends were created that interacted with Asset Bank s DAM platform and enabled the four user groups to complete their workflows as quickly as possible. 1. Uploaders who needed to add their pictures and video footage to workflows as soon as possible after each artist had finished performing onstage 2. Approvers who needed to approve or reject the uploaded digital assets quickly because of time constraints; approvers included the company s PR team, representatives from the record labels and occasionally, the artists themselves 3. Music journalists/other users who needed to view and download the approved assets so they could include them in their publications and social media feeds 4. Festival organisers/other company employees who needed to ensure assets were archived and accessible all year round for ad hoc purposes and auditing. 9 Future Proofing Your Digital Asset Strategy Workflow examples The user experience for the approval stage was designed so approvers could review assets on ipads backstage quickly and easily. Once the approval and distribution workflows were finished, assets could then be accessed by users from the company via Asset Bank s standard front-end; this provided the rich functionality needed for managing such a diverse range of assets.

10 Takeaways The next generation of DAM solutions will transform asset management strategies in several key areas, enabling organisations to: Realise DAM s potential for aiding all departments, not just marketing, which will allow every stakeholder to benefit from optimised work processes that are simpler, faster and more efficient Partner with a DAM provider who will offer more than just the platform itself, instead helping to rollout and embed its solution across the entire organisation Leverage the potential of microservices, which offer huge reliability, scalability and reusability benefits, all while maximising ROI and transforming work processes Benefit from an increasing powerful suite of services that, in some cases, are already being offered by cutting edge DAM systems today. Reject monolithic systems that threaten productivity because of their inflexible architecture 10 Future Proofing Your Digital Asset Strategy

11 Asset Bank is a Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution created by UK software development consultancy Bright Interactive. Launched in 2005, Asset Bank has continued to lead in the DAM sector by offering an outstanding service at competitive rates. The platform is currently used by over 700 organisations across the globe including Unilever, ITV and Deloitte, and is acclaimed by users for its award-winning ease-of-use coupled with Asset Bank s excellent customer relations. The beauty of this software is the ability to customize exactly to your needs. Support is excellent from our friends across the pond and just rate this A Kathleen Barry, UMC

12 To discuss DAM s potential for your organisation, contact us on +44 (0) or at info@assetbank.co.uk If you re an existing client and would like to discuss getting the most out of your Asset Bank, please contact Support at support@assetbank.co.uk For further information about how Asset Bank can transform your digital assets strategy, visit: assetbank.co.uk