Your business strategy and the DAM revolution

The strategic business cases for implementing digital asset management software to support your communications and bottom line

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Empower your digital media. Copyright 2012 Widen Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved.

Your business strategy and the DAM revolution

The strategic business cases for implementing digital asset management software to support your communications and bottom line

Your business strategy and the DAM revolution

The strategic business cases for implementing digital asset management software to support your communications and bottom line
Theres an old saying that goes, the revolution will not be televised. However, quite the opposite is taking place in todays business arena, where signs are growing of a wave of revolutionary business transformations that definitely will be televised and those transformations are being driven by video. For any companys leadership, its a question of whether an organization leads the charge now or plays catch-up later. These sweeping changes are closely connected to the convergence of such developments as the expanding role of social media, the growing consumption of media (especially video) on mobile devices, and the impact of big data capabilities, all developments that marketers and C-level leaders should be keeping their eyes on and adapting to. A key factor in enabling these revolutionary transformations is the increasingly sophisticated use of digital asset management (DAM) systems that can effectively deliver video in ways not previously possible. Savvy marketing executives, brand managers, and CMOs are putting it all together and recognize the marketing implications of these DAM-driven changes. In addition, the broader strategic implications of DAM are beginning to also get attention from C-level executives and senior management. For example, many see the DAM-driven changes as fundamentally re-engineering the digital supply chain a transformation that is anticipated to trigger even deeper and broader changes than those caused by the re-engineering of the tangible supply chain that radically re-shaped the business arena beginning in the late 1980s and early 1990s. A variation on this theme has been voiced by Ernst & Young consultant Peri Shamsai, who coined the phrase, the mediafication of business, to describe the DAM-related changes that are under way.

It is all about exploitation of content and the world becoming digital. Companies are going from tape assets for television to digital assets and streaming online. Without having digital asset management systems in place, you cannot do any real kind of scale in your digital business.
Ernst & Young consultant Peri Shamsai In a related vein, a report from Forrester Research released earlier this summer emphasized that, given the amount of video and images on the Web or in marketing content now versus just five years ago more and more organizations understand the importance of a cross-channel rich-media strategy to improve customer experiences, [and] DAM for customer experience is experiencing a revival in interest across verticals beyond traditional rich-media-heavy industries such as marketing, advertising, publishing, and entertainment. And a

Copyright 2012 Widen Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved.

Your business strategy and the DAM revolution

The strategic business cases for implementing digital asset management software to support your communications and bottom line

Gartner report explains that digital asset management is regaining attention in organizations. This is because its getting easier for employees to capture multimedia objects (such as still images and videos) for work purposes, and because the channels for employing them are multiplying. For a quick illustration of the clear impact DAM can have, here are examples from three very different organizations Motorola, a medical device supplier, and UNICEF that point toward the far-reaching implications that similar initiatives have for marketers and business leaders across virtually every business sector and geographic region. First, consider the capabilities that Motorola Mobility has rolled out in the last few months for managing video. Their DAM system is enabling the company to more effectively address the complex marketing and customer-support challenges that face the global supplier of a multitude of mobile phones marketed by numerous telecommunications service providers. The core of Motorolas DAM system is its digital asset library, which is designed to address the companys multi-channel publishing needs. Basically, this Motorola library contains approved versions of companys digital assets, and Motorola oversees the authorized access to those assets. It might seem like a mundane mission. However, consider a couple of the benefits DAM software brings Motorola.

It enables Motorola to much more effectively manage the companys growing library of model-specific
how-to videos that explain various features of the phones that it markets. This includes managing videos that explain everything from How to use email to How to use Smart Actions. The DAM system not only stores the how-to videos, but it also makes sure that the right digital assets are delivered to the right users, e.g., distinguishing between those users who need Smart Action videos for Motorolas Droid Razr Maxx for Verizon versus those who need the videos for Motorolas Atrix 2 for AT&T.

Easy delivery of videos that are optimized for specific viewing and user experiences. This includes not
only optimizing videos for the specific viewers device and format including phones, tablets, iOS, Android, Macs, PCs, various web browsers, and in-store kiosks for POS demo but the DAM system even can resize the videos to reduce the bandwidth they use so that they are more appropriately displayed. For instance, the digital asset that is delivered can be optimized based on the last mile of the access so that the version of a video sent to a viewer in Taiwan (which has lots of bandwidth for viewing video) is different from the version sent to Brazil (where the bandwidth is drastically more constrained). Overall, Motorola is reaping enormous benefits from its DAM system, including:

Copyright 2012 Widen Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved.

Your business strategy and the DAM revolution

The strategic business cases for implementing digital asset management software to support your communications and bottom line

Significant cost savings Improved speed and quality of service Greater marketplace agility through drastic reductions in the time that it takes to distribute digital assets
and to roll out new initiatives in a controlled way to multiple users globally

One of the ways Motorola Mobility understands the value of digital asset management is through Net Direct Benefit calculations. These will help you understand the value of your assets, which in turn will help you understand how to invest in protecting and managing them. Here's how Motorola did it:
ROI Metrics: Net Direct Benefit Average value per image = $500, $250, $125? Number of assets in system & added over 1 year of time For example purposes: 2010 total assets added to the system = 10,000 1 years imagery value = Avg value per image x number of total assets added in 1 year 1 years imagery value @$500 = $5,000,000 @$250 = $2,500,000 @$125 = $1,250,000 Number of yearly downloads = Example value = 80,000 Assume 50% usage (or whatever you are comfortable with) 40,000 Cost avoidance = 50% Yearly Downloads X Average value per image Cost avoidance @$500 = $20,000,000 @$250 = $10,000,000 @$125 = $ 5,000,000 Net direct benefit = cost avoidance - 1 years imagery value Net direct benefit @$500 = $20,000,000 - $5,000,000 = $15,000,000 @$250 = $10,000,000 - $2,500,000 = $7,500,000 @$125 = $ 5,000,000 - $1,250,000 = $3,750,000
For more guidance on ROI calculations, contact Widen at marketing@widen.com
Another example that illustrates a different facet of the DAM-enabled revolution is the way in which vendors of medical equipment and supplies are looking to use DAM to enhance pre-sale marketing and post-sale customer support.

Copyright 2012 Widen Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved.

Your business strategy and the DAM revolution

The strategic business cases for implementing digital asset management software to support your communications and bottom line

Pre-sale, the vendor can use DAM software to empower doctors, nurses or other health professionals to
easily find informational video (their preferred medium) that can help them to better understand the value of a new product or service.

Post-sale, the vendor can use its DAM system to effectively store, manage and deliver videos that provide
customers with self-managed, timely support for their queries. In particular, the popularity of iPads and other tablet devices among medical professionals means that, for example, a healthcare company dealing with complex surgical devices can make media more useful and accessible (for example, animations that demonstrate to surgeons how these products actually work). Using these videos, the vendor can provide visualizations that illustrate the inside of the brain, heart, or artery, and show how a device actually augurs plaque in those areas serving as a very powerful marketing tool for the product. An example of a somewhat different flavor of DAM applications comes from UNICEF, which uses its DAM system to support operations in 200 offices located in 191 countries and territories around the world, along with its fundraising partner organizations in 36 industrialized countries. The agency uses professional journalists and photographers to report from crisis locations around the world where children are affected, and it has found that video is not only effective for communicating complex stories and engaging audiences, but it also has enormous power as a medium for viral distribution especially via social media. UNICEFs DAM system enables the agency to effectively store, retrieve and distribute the video files. This makes it possible to quickly find videos and make them available directly to journalists and news organizations (and, to a growing extent, to make them available for sharing in social media). As these examples illustrate, DAM systems enable organizations to successfully address a variety of challenges and opportunities that are arising as the line between the management and the publishing of digital assets blurs and disappears. In effect, web-based DAM software becomes a digital media publishing solution that makes it easier to publish and share digital assets on multiple platforms from a central location. Particularly important benefits of a well-designed DAM system include the ability to

Keep track of approved and updated standard versions of files, thereby maintaining message consistency
and version control,

Easily customize on-demand, user-managed delivery of the right format for the job offering tremendous
time savings and cost efficiencies,

Deploy and track video that connects with social media initiatives more nimbly

Copyright 2012 Widen Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved.

Your business strategy and the DAM revolution

The strategic business cases for implementing digital asset management software to support your communications and bottom line

Check out our recorded webinar on Managing Video Assets in the Resources section of www.Widen.com.
In the same way that the Web has made everyone a publisher, the more recent explosive advances in digital video have meant that all organizations have become media producers. Coca-Cola, P&G, and Kaiser Permanente might not be media firms, but each of them now is producing as much video as comes out of many big media organizations. All these videos represent increasingly important assets that need to be managed by those firms. Down the road, DAM systems can enable organizations to effectively capture, store, and deliver their knowledge in ways that previously had not been possible, thereby opening new opportunities to create value for customers. As a result, an increasing proportion of the assets and value of organizations are represented by their intangible assets often as knowledge that is captured in digital form. Through savvy use of their digital capabilities, organizations can make entirely new uses of previously latent assets. They can, for example, weave digitally delivered knowledge into their products and services so that this knowledge component becomes a key part of the value that the company is delivering potentially creating entirely new business models for an organization. At the same time that DAM capabilities offer exciting new opportunities, there also are major challenges. Here are a few tips for organizations that want to begin to tap the potential of the new DAM-powered capabilities:

Copyright 2012 Widen Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved.

Your business strategy and the DAM revolution

The strategic business cases for implementing digital asset management software to support your communications and bottom line

Consider starting small.

It can be a good idea to begin your DAM implementation with a small, well-defined initiative (perhaps in support of a new product that is being launched or in support of a silo within the company). Typically, as a DAM system begins to become established and others in the organization see what it can do, they start to recognize ways in which they could benefit from the ability to better manage and deliver digital assets. A common response is, I did not know that DAM could do that. Where can I sign up? If a DAM system is done well, it brings new business opportunities to your organization. The right DAM system should become like the popular kid in the class, with everyone wanting to spend time with it.

Do not think of a DAM system as a project.

Any project has a beginning and an end. In contrast, a DAM system will be an on-going, evolving capability that needs to be integrated it into your company as a living, breathing part of your organization. For example, a lot of organizations do not realize that a DAM system is something that needs to be managed and that it is important to have staff that is responsible for the management of the digital asset management system.

Put an emphasis on learning that can help your DAM system change and adapt.
The capabilities of DAM software is evolving rapidly and the opportunities to apply those capabilities are growing explosively. This makes it crucial to explicitly build a learning component into any DAM initiative. Make sure to constantly monitor what you have learned so far, so that it can help guide you to where you are going next.

Copyright 2012 Widen Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved.