content management

As digital asset management is becoming more and more integral for corporate marketing teams, companies of all sizes are adopting DAM systems. With the explosion of digital content, the need for digital asset management goes beyond marketing and creative teams and can impact corporate-wide workflows. From content generation to delivery, digital asset management is at the core of the digital supply chain, spanning departments and even divisions within a company. When deploying DAM for the enterprise, there are several key features to consider. These considerations apply regardless of the deployment model: SaaS, licensed, or in-house system.

What is Enterprise Digital Asset Management Software?

Simply put, enterprise digital asset management software is a special type of digital asset management software that can be implemented across an enterprise, accessible by associates of an organization such as employees, colleagues, partners, and customers,. It’s designed to meet the specific needs of larger organizations, across departments and divisions: a large user base, workflow integration, data security, accountability, among other things.

Key Features of Enterprise Digital Asset Management Software

When exploring digital asset management software solutions for implementation across an enterprise, here is what you should look for:

• Role-based permissions: When working within different departments and divisions in a company, roles become critical. An enterprise digital asset management system provides the ability to specify permissions based on real-world roles within the digital supply chain. For example, distributors need access to retrieve content while the marketing department needs to manage the content.
• Security: In the past decade, digital files transitioned from a luxury to a mission-critical aspect of any business. To keep a company safe, enterprise digital asset management software must be the guardian of organizational data. This means providing appropriate safeguards to protect both user information and digital assets from misuse and also data backup/disaster recovery adaptable to any situation.
• Scalability: Enterprise-level companies can grow very quickly, especially in today’s 24/7 global economy. Enterprise digital asset management software must accommodate this, providing the scalability to grow with a business, whether it’s located in one building or across the world. That means the ability to handle anywhere from thousands to millions of files based on the needs of the organization. However, it’s not just processing the files, it’s also about granting access — a worldwide corporation might require thousands of simultaneous requests, and good enterprise digital asset management software must be able to handle all of it without losing availability or data integrity.
• Reliability: For any business, downtime can bring things to a screeching halt. This is amplified umpteen times at the enterprise-level– the more users, the greater potential for lost time and money. This means that an enterprise digital asset management software solution must be mature and stable, ensuring high availability and uptime. For organizations choosing to outsource, the proper research must be performed so that the selected vendor comes with a solid track record.
• Integration: Intranets, content management systems (CMS), and other core organizational systems are an everyday part of enterprise-level business. That means that good enterprise digital asset management software must flow with this, not against it; workflow integration with systems are absolutely necessary so that users get a seamless experience. To achieve this, enterprise digital asset management software often offers plug-ins to other enterprise software applications or open APIs to integrate with custom systems.

The digital business world is continuously evolving, making digital asset management software a requirement for today’s business. At the enterprise level, it can be more than just a requirement — it can be the central nervous system that binds and unites the organization’s entire workflow. Each of the aforementioned points is a key piece to the puzzle that is a digital asset management solution. And just like any puzzle, it’s not complete without all of the pieces in place.