More and more companies and even individuals are relying on the internet and digital technologies, which is why data is now the most valuable asset for many companies.
Now, a secure storage and distribution solution for data and digital assets is a necessity, no longer a luxury for rich enterprises and giant tech companies. In short, you need a Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution.
The global market for digital asset management is expected to grow to $6.9 billion by 2024, a massive growth from only slightly more than $1 billion market size in 2018.
A Digital Asset Management solution provides a more intuitive way for organizations to securely store, organize, distribute, and collaborate on digital assets over the cloud. As a result, organizations can get more value from their digital assets while improving their efficiency and productivity.
What Is Digital Asset Management?
Digital Asset Management (DAM) can refer to the discipline or effort of storing and managing digital assets. However, in practice, the term DAM is more often used to refer to a software solution that provides a centralized space for storing, organizing, retrieving, and distributing digital assets.
What is a digital asset?
In short, any digital files that have some form of value can be considered digital assets. They can come in various forms: scanned documents, images/photos, videos, audio files, 3D modeling files, etc.
It’s crucial to note that hand-made items (like written documents) can be considered digital assets when converted into a digital format (i.e., scanned into a digital PDF) and possess some value. On the other hand, not all digitally generated files are digital assets since they are valuable for the business.
A Digital Asset Management solution like Aproove ensures these digital assets are easy to upload, store, find, retrieve, and share securely. Digital Asset Management will also enable a Single Source of Truth practice, so everyone in the organization (and external parties) has access to the same information and file to eliminate confusion and misuse.
Why Is Digital Asset Management Important?
After all, can’t we rely on our hard drives and SSDs to store files and then use email and services like Dropbox to share assets?
This is a valid argument. If you work in a relatively small team and only deal with a small number of clients, email-based file-sharing might be reliable enough for distributing your digital assets. You can also rely on services like Google Drive to securely store your files digitally.
However, if your workflow involves more people and more complex processes, a more structured Digital Asset Management is necessary.
We don’t have a dedicated index/search function with email-based or other unstructured distribution methods, so it can be time-consuming and confusing to search for a specific file. Have you been in the situation of spending hours searching through an email thread to find a particular file from weeks ago to clear a dispute? This is where a DAM solution can significantly help.
A Digital Asset Management solution can provide a centralized, structured space to systematically store, manage, and distribute your digital assets, which in turn can produce the following benefits:
- Streamlining the process of storing, accessing, and sharing digital assets. By making the whole steps and sequence more streamlined, we can ensure efficiency in using the digital assets
- Ensuring tasks related to the digital assets are assigned to the right staff member with the right competencies. This will facilitate better communication and collaboration in using the digital assets.
- Improved transparency and accountability. Every authenticated member can monitor the usage of digital assets in real-time, and how it is used. This can help prevent data leakage and protect the integrity of digital assets.
- Providing a visible audit trail. Proper DAM solutions can automatically create a record of how digital assets are used, who last accessed the file, whom it was shared with, and so on.
- Allowing easier content distribution to various destinations, including posting on social media, third-party marketplaces, and more
- Maintaining consistency and integrity of the brand by enabling a Single Source of Truth
Key Features of Digital Asset Management Solution
While different DAM solutions might offer other features and functionalities, all of them should provide the following core features:
Centralized file access and sharing
Centralized file storage and library, offering an easier time accessing and sharing digital assets from any time, anywhere, and on any device (mobile friendly). This will eliminate the need to use unsecured emails to send files, sending physical storage (USB drive, CD, hardcopy document, etc.), and using unsecured share servers to share your assets.
We can also further reduce the risk of security vulnerabilities by configuring different configurations for different team members, stakeholders, and external parties.
In short, we can provide access to only the right people at the right time.
Intuitive organization of assets
With a Digital Asset Management Solution like Aproove, you can manage all your digital assets in a single software with an intuitive, easy-to-use user interface. This allows us to manage and organize digital files according to our needs easily.
The fast and accurate search function
An intuitive and fast search function is a mandatory feature in any DAM solution, so you can quickly locate the digital assets when you need them. The DAM solution should offer an advanced filtering function to specify file types and narrow down the results as required.
Easy file distribution
The DAM solution should offer easy ways to distribute digital assets to various destinations like CMSs, social channels, and third-party destinations as needed.
Conclusion
A Digital Asset Management solution like Aproove offers an easy and affordable way to store, organize, access, track quickly, and share all of your digital assets in just a single software solution.
With a DAM solution, you can improve your team’s efficiency and productivity in making the most of your digital assets in achieving your organizational objectives.
