Sunday, March 17, 2024
HomePIMWhat Digital Asset Management? DAM Software, Uses and Advantages

What Digital Asset Management? DAM Software, Uses and Advantages

DAM encompasses the methods, procedures, and software used in the control, organization, retrieval, storage, and transformation of digital assets & media assets. Mostly, digital assets get referred to as media files, and we can never fully understand the depths of DAM in 2020 as a discipline without incorporating the term “metadata.” Metadata gives greater insight and description into what a particular digital asset is and what it can offer as well; that is to say, that it helps estimate the real value of the digital media — metadata aids DAM in managing digital assets. DAM displays digital media in the best resolutions with the best color displays, and if they are media files, it represents them in the best sound quality. It serves as a storage platform where they can get easily organized, are made more portable with easy access, and allows for tracking of digital processes carried out on various devices across the world on certain digital assets.

shutterstock_1240768657 (1)
shutterstock_86016178

More importantly, DAM software centers on providing the right digital assets to the right people, and it incorporates several processes for its management that include security and access control. It also makes for transformation and manipulation, checking the validity of digital assets, organizing them, and the careful presentation of a digital asset in a formation where they have monetary values.

Where can I use DAM?

Due to the sole reason that digital asset management serves a variety of purposes, it sees use in various instances.

  • Brand management: Brand management is one essential tool in the running of a Business Enterprise. Brand management drives advertisement, which in turn brings for maximum profit returns. With the help of DAM, organizations and firms can more easily create logos and designs that would appeal to a broader range of clients. DAM software uses its various tools and software applications to ensure that the process of brand management is made more readily and gets done in very little time. It organizes media files, transforms, and manipulates them into much better versions that can be easily relatable and are better accepted and appreciated by clientele.
  • Repository: DAM also sees use as a form of deposit in that it can and carefully store digital assets in a format that allows them to be easily retrievable whenever the need arises. The problem faced by most companies as regards digital assets is the problem of retrieving old assets that have not received access for over a long period. As a result of this, when there is a need to make a reference using such an asset, one has to take a very stressful and wrangling process to retrieve it amongst thousands of other digital assets. DAM, however, eliminates this problem as it organizes many digital assets in a format and pattern that makes them easily retrievable as the need arises. It also incorporates security access control where only personnel permitted to view such assets are allowed.
  • Production management: The work of production in any capacity at all is stressful yet rewarding; it is even more stressful and less rewarding when carried out in the absence of the DAM. DAM sees use in production management as a platform and a means of organizing live video feeds. They see significant use in gaming applications where characters have to be expressed intricately and delicately for an enjoyable gaming experience. It handled and organized the assets that code for these feeds and displays then in high-resolution quality.
  • Digital distribution services: As said before, the Digital Asset Management in 2020 is also concerned with the distribution of digital assets to people who require them. It ensures that at any point in time and any place or with any device used, digital assets get passed on to the people who need them regardless of location, time, and method used.

Advantages of DAM

The benefits of digital asset management are numerous, especially since their functions are indeed limitless. They play a vital role in the success of every business enterprise, and so they can never be overemphasized.

  • Live feeds: For events and occasions, DAM fosters extensive coverage of media where images and videos are captured and used as live feeds. The activities are limitless; they could be fundraising events, sporting events, or even seminars. DAM can organize their metadata and produce live feeds of the happenings.
  • Accessibility: An asset not easily accessed is stupid and serves no purpose. DAM ensures that the digital assets contained in it get stored in a pattern that allows them to get located and identified when they are needed. It uses the metadata to ease the tracking process of these digital assets. Thanks to DAM, all kinds of media files can be accessed in the blink of an eye and in the most convenient way.
  • Security: Digital Asset management adorns protection on assets contained in it; it uses a set of encrypted codes to make sure that only personnel with authorized access can view the data provided in them.
  • Portability: One of the most appealing benefits of DAM in 2020 is its ability to incorporate various elements of digital assets into a single database. With DAM, you wouldn’t need to have your company’s digital assets all scattered around the web as it places them in a single database.
  • Quality: DAM has the productive ability to be able to derive asset with the best quality from assets with multiple versions. With DAM, you wouldn’t need to have various versions of a single digital asset as it would incorporate them all together and bring out the one with the highest resolution for use.
  • Monetize: In the business world, digital assets management isn’t just a term; it is a way of life. DAM can transform and manipulate numeric data into information that can now be said to have a monetary value.
  • Storage: DAM systems can store digital assets for very long periods. They can stay till the end of time except if they get deleted from the system.
  • Enrichment of media files: DAM systems are also able to enrich assets with face and also visual object detection that improves the quality of these assets and makes them serve a variety of purposes.

Who needs a DAM?

Every establishment has a thing or two to do with DAM. We cannot say for sure that a particular establishment might have more use for DAM than another establishment, but we can say for sure that it is needed immensely in all works of life.

  • Education/ schools: Far more than we can even phantom, schools use a DAM for a plethora of reasons. They use DAM for video interface, a gathering of learning material, and tools. DAM in 2020 provides students with the opportunity to download learning materials, and it also makes for the ease of mobile classrooms where students do not have to be in the lecture hall to receive lectures. They can receive the media files and information related to their learning curriculum at any location and with any device. Schools, literally all schools, hold several events and seminars that include sporting events, intellectual competitions, and so on. DAM plays a unique role in seeing that sufficient video coverage gets carried out, and it stores the files and their metadata to ensure that over time it does not get lost or missing. Whenever there is a need to make a quick reference to a past happening or event in this school, all it takes is one swift process.
  • Manufacturing companies: if you get asked on what makes a manufacturing company survive for ages among numerous competitors, you would know that the answer is quite easy, it’s all thanks to their distributors. For this reason, the relationship between manufacturers and their distributors must get closely linked if the business is to succeed. DAM bridges the minute gap between them by providing the distributors with up to date information on the manufacturers. Whether it’s a live video feed on a new product or database containing details of products or even database containing details of their transactions to smooth things out in periods of conflict, DAM has got it all covered. DAM ensures that whatever product or information is needed, a simple keyword relating to the search would get them exactly what they need.
  • Technological companies: The thing about industrial companies is that Evey thing gets developed, the setback here is that the reliance on technology causes them to make inevitable mistakes that could hamper their progress significantly. DAM ensures that all digital assets get incorporated into a mother database; this would serve as the single source of truth for the company, and with this, they can never go wrong because, in actuality, DAM only incorporates information that it sees as valid and effective. In this way, we would see that only accurate information would get distributed among the various departments of the company. DAM would make for a speedy and more productive workflow, a feat that can never genuinely overemphasized in the makings of a successful enterprise.

What  are the features of DAM?

The features of DAM are what make DAM one of the most sought after systems in the world.

  • Manipulation: DAM allows for the ingestion of data, after which it allows for manipulation of data into a format that is better than the form that it came entered. Not many systems allow for manipulation of digital assets even where they do, the process is usually long and white bothersome. Still, DAM distinguishes itself by being able to allow for the manipulation of digital assets in the most convenient way possible.
  • Security: Apart from its prime storage ability, DAM can incorporate security encryption codes and patterns that ensure that only authorized personnel gets access to the assets contained in them. Hacking has continued to grow daily; it a plague that doesn’t see an end anytime soon, and they are especially menacing to companies when they breach their firewalls and get access to confidential information.
  • Downloads: DAM also provided methods that allow for easy download of media files. They ensure that data can be selected at desired sizes by the users and ensures that downloads can be carried out anywhere at all in the world.
  • Linkages: A key feature of Digital asset management is its the ability to link both old versions and new versions of digital assets in such a way that the relationship between the early versions of an asset and it’s subsequent versions can be linked, and information can be derived.
  • Accessibility: Digital asset management can not be what it is today without its ease of accessibility. Access should be one of it’s most appealing features; it ensures that assets stored in the system are easily accessed. Several companies face problems where they spend ages surfing through their database to find a single file; DAM solves it all. With a few keywords that include a description of the file in question, color, resolution, and entry date, the data in question would get found in very little time.
  • Storage: DAM systems keep files for extended periods and even make updates when the need arises.

When does one need a DAM?

  • Inconsistent assets: Information spread out across the departments of an enterprise more than anything has to be consistent, or workflow would slow down, and losses would get incurred. In cases where the contents of specific media files have many subversions, DAM is highly needed to merge these subversions into one that has the highest resolution and one with the best quality.
  • Security breaches: while digital assets can be displayed for the world to see, there are, however, some sensitive assets that people should not have access. In cases of a security breach where unauthorized people gain access through fraudulent means to view assets, DAM sees use as it ensures that only personnel who have clearance to view certain assets are allowed to do so. It ensures that the firewalls are protected strongly to prevent invasion by viruses and hackers who would want to compromise the system. 
  • Creation of designs: Logo designers and all other forms of designers require a DAM for the natural production of models. The work of a designer is never easy and having to make references to previous works carried out ages ago is more than difficult without any extra help. DAM helps to see that the practice of designing gets carried out in the most convenient ways, and it also ensures that retrieving old designs is done in next to no time at all.

Is DAM the same as MDM?

MDM is known as master data management, and just like the name implies, it performs the role of control of data in various organizations explicitly. All organizations and enterprises require a standard organization of data to ensure that they do not lose documents and databases that are of prime importance to them. MDM provides that duplicates get merged and that only valid data coming from verified sources entered into the system. You would have probably heard of a single source of truth being associated with MDM often. Once you set up the MDM system, it creates a master database that contains all the valid information required by the company; this serves to ensure that workers take data from a single source that they know to be valid and genuinely accurate.

In terms of the organization of data, you would find that MDM and DAM are a lot similar, but it would be wrong to say that the two are the same. While DAM deals with the organization of digital assets using metadata and certain, MDM is concerned with the organization of data of all kinds and all forms, and it is also able to transform the data into information that is easily understood.

Apart from the fact that MDM organizes all forms of data and the DAM is primarily concerned with digital assets, they serve the same purposes. They both safeguard, store, manipulate, and allow for ease of accessibility of the data contained in them.

Is DAM the same as PIM?

Firstly, DAM and PIM are in no way the same thing for a couple of reasons.

PIM, short for Product Information Management encompasses all the processes involved in the management of product information to enable effective communication about products between buyers and sellers as well. PIM systems work in a way in which they can be accessed quickly and by anyone. They bridge the gap between the buyers and sellers by ensuring that clients have more than enough information on existing products, thereby ensuring that transactions get carried out on the best of terms.

DAM and PIM seem to be intertwined. Still, they cannot get regarded as the same because while digital asset management is primarily concerned with the management and organization of digital assets as well as manipulation and safeguarding of the assets. PIM controls data relating to the product’s information and specifically aids business transactions. In this way, you would find that they are not the same.

I already have an ecommerce system, do I need DAM?

Definite yes!

The key to success in ecommerce is creative advertisements, without adverts clients can’t know what it is you offer. As said before, the DAM helps to save and manipulate media files into ones with higher resolutions and better quality. Logos and all other forms and patterns of designs are a lot more comfortable when digital asset management aids the process. It would not be wrong to say that ecommerce can not thrive in the absence of DAM as it plays a crucial role in ensuring its success in the long run and also simplifies all operations carried out.

Conclusion

Digital asset management is one of the most indispensable tools in the new era, one in which we need. It is the perfect way to ensure that all digital assets are organized and arranged in a pattern sure to bring out the absolute best in them.

[templatera id=”9085″]
Alf Alferez
Alf Alferez
Dedicated writer with a strong track record of developing customer loyalty and managing general office operations. Enjoy being a part of a company where my skills and creative ideas will benefit the overall productivity of the organization. I have a strong desire to work in helping make the world a better place. Please reach out to me on alf@ecommercenext.org
RELATED ARTICLES

Most Popular