Digital Asset Management Europe

DAM: Industry Landscape

The major vendors in the pure play DAM segment include North Plains, Media Beacon, and Adam Software

Vendor Landscape

On-premise (Proprietary) and On-demand vendors (SaaS)

• Many major DAM vendors like Northplains and Autonomy offer both the highly customized proprietary version (on-premise) and the less commoditized cost-saving enabling cloud-based solutions (SaaS).
• But mid market players like Extensis predominantly offer On-premise based on the demand of on-premise solutions.

Acquisition of enterprise-friendly open source DAM vendors

• Open source vendors, who have started using SaaS model as a monetisation strategy, are eating into the revenue of major DAM vendors because of the cost advantage.
• So to avert this threat, major vendors are trying to acquire enterprise friendly (having prominent enterprise customers) open source vendors to reduce the impact of these open source vendors to their existing market.

Niche specialization focus by small vendors

• Smaller vendors will focus on special niche areas, such as video, print or audio assets. Some vendors may also specialize on parts of DAM system, like transcoding* or metadata* instead of a complete product. This trend of specializing is due to the increasingly commoditized cloud-based solutions in the market.

Buyer Landscape

Effect of macroeconomic factors

• Public sector is one of the major DAM markets in developed nations. With fiscal tightening policies in Europe and almost over stimulus programme in the US, government institutions are turning toward open source technologies for cost savings in their IT budgets
• The emerging regions, like China, India, and South America, which are returning to solid growth will be the next focus areas for many DAM vendors for expansion of their customer base. On the technology end, this trend will cause DAM industry to move toward fully localized interfaces and metadata support

Improving awareness about benefits of DAM

• There is a shift in organizations from considering DAM as just a storage technology to a more productivity enhancing marketing automation tool. The organizations where progress is yet to be made beyond share folders and e-mail are seen as good opportunity by DAM vendors

DAM: Key Trends 

Open Source Vendors

• It is expected that more enterprise friendly, open source software in the DAM market in the coming years
• Nuxeo and DayDream are some of the enterprise friendly, open source vendors in the market. Public sectors with tight IT budgets are increasingly adopting open source solutions. Although the standards of open source DAM solutions are rising, the issues of scalability, security, and support level need to arise to standards of major proprietary (on-premise) software vendors

DAM Integration with WCM, ECM Solutions 

• The latest DAM solutions from DAM vendors have improved in their gamut of assets handled from traditional assets, like print, video, etc., to the more modern online assets, like websites, social media, e-mail marketing, etc. The increasing number of ECM*, WCM*, and other content management vendors now offering DAM modules in their product suite is seen as a reason of the DAM vendors extending their product features

DAM & Mobile Assets

• Increasing convergence between camera and mobile devices is benefiting DAM technology improvement. Mobile devices are increasingly being used for asset capture and also for easy cataloguing of assets at the point where they are recorded or originated

Video Asset Management

• DAM systems for video assets are in need of improving the technology to handle the growing High-Definition HD video content. As infrastructure improvements happen in content delivery networks, cloud solutions and other technologies, the use of HD content will become more practical among corporate users

Need for Consultants in DAM Projects

• A number of small DAM implementations are successfully implemented without the use of consultants, the use of experienced DAM consultants plays a vital role in implementations in global companies with multiple regional users
• DAM consultants can facilitate better collaboration between stakeholders, determining the structure of metadata model & defining other workflow processes and managing technological solutions to provide a comprehensive solution
• Experienced DAM consultants, being expert on workflows, schemas, taxonomies and graphic file management, can offer tried-and-true solutions
• Axyon Consulting, NetXposure, Earley & Associates, DPCI, WAVE, etc., are some of the major DAM consultants

Benefits for Usage of Asset Management System

 The short-term, mid-term, and long-term benefits like productivity enhancement, savings in data logistics, brand consistency are some of the drivers of increasing usage of DAM system.

Benefits of Usage of DAM System

• Savings in Data Logistics: Organization migrates from physical storage (like sending CDs and DVDs of marketing collateral to partners) to enabling access of centralized digital to concerned marketing professionals
• Faster Access to Digital Assets: A well-indexed repository of all marketing assets, which are already formatted and converted to appropriate formats (like converting a 30 MB file to 200 KB file) reduces the cost of search time and of lost or misplaced work
• Workflow Optimization: An integrated asset management with fast content discovery, role-based access control to assets, team-informed version control (marketing collateral versions) of assets enables an efficient workflow process that minimises expenditure and time caused by incorrect, out-of-date, or incompliant content
• Brand Loyalty & Brand Consistency: The shift in working style of marketing departments in an organization from isolated, disparate entities to an enterprise wide consistent marketing and branding initiatives

There are also benefits of owning digital assets by the clients, such that there is no loss of brand and collaterals while switching agencies. 

Cost Areas in a DAM System Procurement

• Software Costs: Software cost varies widely between installed & SaaS delivery models, depending on the scale of system and features required. There is no software cost for open source vendors
• Technical Infrastructure Costs :Technical infrastructure cost for computers, networking, storage, etc., depends on scale of system, number, type and size of assets
• Deployment Costs( Installation, Configuration, Customization and Integration):During initial deployment, vendors charge for metadata definition, user interface configuration, specific customization needs, and integration
• Training – Initial and On-going Costs: Initial training charge involves training for different job roles going to utilize the DAM system. On-going training costs include training for additional DAM features purchased or changes to the existing metadata model
• Maintenance: Business and Technical Support Costs: Maintenance charges for technical support (vendor provided and internal) include fixing software glitches, installing product upgrades. Large organizations with multi regional users also need business support apart from technical support for better DAM system utilization
• Upgradation Costs:Depending on contractual agreements and type of vendor (on-premise or SaaS), software upgradation costs vary
• Migration Costs:This is a one time cost and varies depending on the complexity of the existing and desired metadata models and the volume of existing assets or files. Video can take a lot of time to prepare and may need to be staged over a period of time
• Other Costs: There are also hosting costs for servers for SaaS vendors. Account management or project management costs with these DAM vendors are also to be considered