Enterprise digital asset management: The complete guide

In today’s digitally-driven business landscape where most large companies operate online and use digital assets to push their marketing messages, having a system in place to effectively store, manage, organize, and share these digital assets is essential. This is where an Enterprise Digital Asset Management (DAM) system comes into play. 

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An enterprise digital asset management system allows large businesses to better control all of their digital assets in one single platform. With the right system, businesses can streamline their workflows, create better customer experiences, boost employee productivity, and even gain some advantages over their competitors. 

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And as businesses become more digital, a DAM system will help them become more organized and efficient so they can reach their business objectives faster. 

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In this article, we learn everything about enterprise digital asset management. From the role of digital assets in business, how you can choose the right enterprise DAM system for your business, down to real-world case studies on companies using digital asset management. 

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Let’s get started. 

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The Role of Digital Assets in Business

Digital assets are any form of data or content that is stored in a digital format. It can include anything from images, videos, audio, documents, spreadsheets, websites, slide presentations, and logos. 

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For businesses, digital assets can also include

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• Marketing materials: brochures, flyers, infographics, social media posts, white papers, emails, newspapers, etc.
• Customer data: contact information, demographics, purchase history, customer feedback, etc
• Financial records: balance sheet, income statement, invoices, purchase orders, bank statements, etc.
• As well as any other digital content that is important to the business operation. 

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Digital assets are valuable in today’s modern business operations because they can be accessed and shared from anywhere in the world, making them highly convenient and scalable. And since creators of digital assets can include usage rights or place certain restrictions on how their assets are used or shared, businesses can protect their intellectual properties and brand reputation. 

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Example use cases of digital assets in business

Digital assets are an essential part of modern business. They offer a lot of benefits that traditional assets like billboards and direct mail do not offer and can be used for many purposes. Let’s take a look at some use cases of digital assets in business. 

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• Marketing: Digital assets such as images, video, and audio can be used in pushing a brand’s marketing message. By using digital assets in marketing campaigns, brands can easily capture the attention of their target audience. Rich media content like interactive images or videos also helps increase audience engagement. 
• Sales: Sales teams can use digital assets such as brochures, product demos, pitch decks, customer testimonials, and case studies to demonstrate your business’ value proposition to potential customers and close deals. 
• Record-keeping and storage:  Digital assets can be used to store important company information such as contracts. By storing essential company data as digital assets, businesses can reduce the risk of data loss or damage while streamlining their operations. 
• Collaboration: Team members can share and collaborate on digital assets such as marketing materials without having to be in the same physical location. 
• Intellectual property: Intellectual property assets such as trademarks or patents can be protected as digital assets. Businesses will be able to establish proof of ownership and monitor infringement. 
• Training: Businesses can use eLearning modules, video tutorials, and handbooks to train employees and onboard new customers. 

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These are just a few examples showing how useful and versatile digital assets are in business. By leveraging digital assets, businesses can improve their operations, make their business more competitive, and unlock new growth opportunities.

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Challenges of Managing Digital Assets

While digital assets are essential and offer many benefits to businesses, they are certain challenges you can face when managing them. Here are some of the common challenges of managing digital assets:

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• Digital asset storage: As a business grows, they create more and more digital assets. It can be challenging to find a secure location to store all these assets in one place – hence the need for an enterprise digital asset management solution. 

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For example, Wedia’s Digital Asset Management system helps large organizations to efficiently manage, customize and deliver their digital assets. You will be able to manage a large volume and variety of assets. From rich media assets like photos, 3D, and video to marketing content like flyers, ads, and point-of-sale materials. 

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Manage your enterprises’ digital assets with Wedia. Book a free and customized demo now.

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• Difficulty retrieving assets: Large enterprises usually have a large pool of files and data that have been created. It can be difficult to easily retrieve these files especially when your employees aren’t in the same location or work across different time zones. Without a proper search and retrieval system in place, getting the right asset when you need them can be difficult. 
• Collaboration: Collaboration between large teams and external stakeholders can be complex, especially across regions. It can be time-consuming to share and update digital assets. Without proper communication, mistakes occur and information can be lost during transmission. 
• Version control: As digital assets are shared and updated, multiple versions are created. Because of this, it can be difficult to maintain consistency across different channels. It will also be harder to ensure that the right version of the asset is used to maintain brand consistency. Implementing version control ensures that any mistakes or updates will not result in damage to your brand’s image. 
• Distribution and marketing: Digital assets can be distributed on a variety of channels like email, social media, or advertising platforms. The problem is that each channel usually requires specific sizes and formats for optimal visibility and responsiveness. The more fit the digital asset is for a specific channel, the higher the chances of audience engagement. 
• Security: Digital assets when stored or shared online are subject to cyber threats like hacking and duplication. Businesses need to deploy security protocols such as access control and encryption to ensure digital asset protection and data privacy.  

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These are some of the challenges with effectively managing digital assets. To overcome these challenges, businesses will need careful planning and also make use of the right tools. Let’s then look at the best tool for managing digital assets.

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Overview of Enterprise Digital Asset Management Systems

Enterprise digital asset management systems allow businesses to manage their organization’s digital assets – starting from creation, organization, distribution, down to archiving. 

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Here is a breakdown of how an enterprise DAM system generally works:

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• Ingestion of files and data: The first step to using an enterprise DAM system is uploading your digital assets to the platform. Depending on your DAM system of choice, you can upload the files manually, use an API to automate the process or connect your system to an external data source.
• Organization: The uploaded digital assets can then be classified into categories using predefined metadata tags like file type, author, the date the file was created, or the campaign they belong to. Enterprise DAM systems attach metadata to each asset to make it easy to manage and find these assets. 
• Storage:  After organization, the digital assets are then stored securely in the DAM system. The system will ensure that not only are your assets stored, but they are safe from unauthorized access. DAM systems use firewalls, access control, and other security protocols to keep files safe. 
• Retrieval and distribution: By using the search functionality in the DAM system, anybody with permission can easily and quickly locate required assets. And with its collaborative features, you can share or export files in different sizes or formats with team members and people outside your organization.
• Reporting and analytics: Generally, DAM systems will allow you to analyze and report on metrics that will help you optimize the use of your digital assets and identify any issues. For example, outdated assets. Some of the metrics you can measure include “usage metrics”  that track the number of views, downloads, and shares of your digital assets; “user metrics” that measure how users interact with the asset management system; “content lifecycle metrics” that measure the lifecycle of digital assets in your enterprise, and “compliance metrics” that measure if digital assets are in compliance with your branding guidelines or any licensing restrictions. 

Core Features of an Enterprise Digital Asset Management System

Let’s take a closer look at some of the core features of a DAM system and examples of how these features work in practice,

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Digital asset ingestion and metadata management

The main function of an enterprise DAM system is to make it easy to store digital assets as well as manage the metadata associated with each asset. With metadata, you can easily create a searchable catalog of your digital assets.

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How it works in practice: For instance, if your marketing team wants to create a quick ad campaign, they can easily find the specific image they want to use for the campaign since each asset has a metatag or an object tag. Object tags help you describe the visual content of an asset – such as people or objects in an image, a scene from a video, or even colors used.

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Access control and permission management

An enterprise DAM system must also control access to your digital assets. This will be done by offering user permissions. So depending on the permissions a user has, they can either view only or be able to edit, download, and even upload to the DAM system. This allows for better management of digital assets and prevents unauthorized access, usage, and distribution. 

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How it works in practice: For example, your marketing team has created a video ad for a campaign that requires the client’s review and approval. The video can be shared with the client securely via the enterprise DAM. The client will be assigned specific permissions so they can only view and comment on the video without downloading it.

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Collaboration and workflow management

This feature allows teams to work together efficiently on digital assets and projects. Team members can add comments, notes , and even make edits to assets. And through the use of approvals, you can track the changes made to assets. Not only does this improve team workflow, but you will also be able to track the lifecycle of assets.

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How it works in practice: When designers create assets for the various teams in your organization, members of the teams can include their feedback and track the progress of the edits. After the team is satisfied with the design after review, the designer can then publish or present the assets to the team in charge. This ensures that projects are completed efficiently.  

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Brand management

Because of access control and user permissions, an enterprise DAM ensures that your branding is consistent across all channels. 

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How it works in practice: For example, you can create a custom portal in your DAM systems for your legal department. Here, they can approve the use of your brand’s logo and ensure that all branding guidelines are followed before digital assets are shared or distributed.

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Analytics and reporting

An enterprise digital asset management system provides detailed insight into asset usage metrics like downloads, views, and shares. You can also track user behavior, ROI of specific digital assets, and evaluate which one needs enhancement or should be deleted. With the DAM, you will be able to high-performing digital assets for future use. See how you can track your marketing content with Wedia’s DAM solution.

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Integration and Scalability

An enterprise DAM system should be able to integrate with other business applications like customer relationship management (CRM) systems or inventory management platforms. And as your business grows and you create more digital assets, the DAM system should be able to accommodate the increasing data. 

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How to Choose the Right Enterprise DAM System for Your Business

There are several factors you should consider when choosing a DAM system. Let’s take a look at a couple of them.  

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• Features: Look for DAM systems that match your enterprise’s needs. We’ve already seen the core features you should consider above.
• Integrations: Make sure that the DAM system integrates with the platform your business uses frequently. For example Content management systems like WordPress, social media platforms, or editing tools like the Adobe Creative Suite. 
• Ease of use: The DAM system should have a friendly user interface and be easy to navigate. The point of the DAM system is to save you time, so its features and design should be intuitive and not confusing.
• Security: Robust security is a must to ensure that your valuable assets are protected. It should have security protocols such as role-based access control, encryption, user authentication, watermarking, backups, disaster recovery, and auditing.
• Scalability: Choose DAM systems that can support your business as it grows and your content storage needs expand.

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If you are in the market for an effective enterprise digital asset management solution, then check out Wedia’s solutions.

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Case Studies

Let’s take a look at real-world examples of successful enterprise DAM implementations in different industries.

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Automotive industry – Volvo

Volvo is a premium car brand manufacturer with over 2,300 dealerships and 43,000 employees worldwide. Volvo Car France was looking for an integrated platform that would allow them to provide their dealers worldwide with marketing materials. They also needed a solution to centralize, find and share all of their digital assets.

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Volvo turned to Wedia to help them implement a self-service Digital Asset Management platform. The self-service platform was personalized for Volvo with the filters, menu items, and widgets adapted to the needs of local dealerships. Files could also be retrieved by status, theme, media typer, or car model. 

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With Wedia’s DAM Volvo Car France’s dealership network can autonomously personalize and adapt marketing content to fit the needs of their local clients. 

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Read more on how Volvo Car France uses Wedia Dam.

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Pharmaceutical industry – Bayer AG

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Bayer AG is a German multinational pharmaceutical and life sciences company involved in areas such as consumer healthcare, pharmaceutical, seeds, biotechnology, and agriculture. With approximately 100,000 employees operating in 83 countries on four continents, Bayer needed to implement a single source of truth for their digital assets that will be accessible by their employees as well as external partners like press agencies. 

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Wedia created a new marketing solution called Media Pool that is accessible to all 100,000 Bayer employees. Just by using their email address via an automated registration process, the employees can autonomously access the solution. And thanks to the AI functionality of Wedia’s DAM, the platform offers advanced search, image, and video management capabilities like smart cropping, keywords, automatic subtitles, etc.

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Read more on Bayer’s single source of truth library. 

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Cosmetic industry – GW Cosmetics

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GW  Cosmetics is an Austrian manufacturer of hair, face, and body care products. To grow its brand, the company partnered with different global brands and distributors, distributing its products in over 50 countries. GW wanted to upgrade its existing Web2print solution with the aim of creating a central repository that will support full asset management and multi-channel publishing. 

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GW Cosmetics chose Wedia because of its friendly user interface, multi-media library that supports various digital formats, quick offline content creation, fine rights management, and availability in both German and English, among other reasons.

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Using Wedia has allowed GW Cosmetics to create a consistent brand identity across all channels and countries. 

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Get more Digital Asset Management case studies like this for many more industries.

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Conclusion

Enterprise digital asset management systems are very essential for today’s modern business operations. With an effective digital asset management solution, large organizations can streamline workflow, ensure consistent brand messaging across various platforms, increase collaboration, guarantee security against unauthorized access, and provide insights into the usage and performance of digital assets. 

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Overall, enterprise DAM systems are essential for businesses that deal with a large number of digital assets regularly.

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Ready to get started? Try out Wedia.

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