How can so many companies be so wrong about DAM?

Industry reports suggest that digital asset management (DAM) has been adopted by only a small fraction of the number of organizations that could benefit from its practice, with some estimates putting the adoption rate near only 20%.

It's not that DAM is too new a concept for widespread acceptance-Canto Cumulus, for example, has been available for nearly 20 years. Moreover, the need for DAM is clear: virtually every business has lost files, released erroneous versions, or found themselves on the business end of a prosecution for content misuse. And none of these disasters comes for free.

Then there are the success stories.

Global giants like Lufthansa and Saab are so enthusiastic about their DAM successes, they've told their  stories in case studies. Less visible are countless similar successes, such as those at Disney, Honda, Apple, Siemens, Sal. Oppenheim and many of the world's governments and major universities.

So why, then, are so many organizations so quick to dismiss DAM?

Lost a delivery truck? No problem, just buy another!

When assets are thought of in terms of physical properties, no one fails to see the benefit of properly managing them. You think FedEx doesn't track every delivery truck every minute of every day? You think Dell assembly facilities just guess at which components are on hand?

And what about financial assets? At payroll time, does Microsoft just write checks, close its eyes and hope for the best?

Physical and financial assets are managed and monitored 24/7, without question or excuses, because executives can understand and measure their value.

But how much is a digital file worth?

Therein lies the problem: a single digital file is seen as worthless. Why? Any file of value has been backed up, archived or otherwise "managed" to ensure loss prevention. Are you really likely to lose all copies at once? Certainly not. So, this is where a number of organizations jump off the DAM bandwagon-backups are enough, they reckon.

It's not about losing files, it's about losing control

For many companies, however, the benefit of DAM lies not in loss prevention, but in the prevention of erroneous distribution. Consider everyone's favorite computer/phone/music player manufacturer. When pre-release photos of their next generation mobile phone are taken, do you think they'll just tuck them safely into some file server and leave it at that? This is one company that takes its investment in DAM seriously, despite the fact they produce DAM's biggest competitor-the operating system. Control is everything for this Canto customer.

Of course, most of the world's organizations don't seek this kind of digital asset security. So, here we lose another group of would-be DAM converts. But these organizations become the ones most likely to release the wrong version of a press release-or a price list that contains errors they must honor-just because they couldn't stop the distribution ball from rolling. They didn't understand that "asset security" means much more than losing assets-it means the avoidance of losing face too.

Dental floss is a luxury we just can't afford

When you hear a DAM vendor extolling the virtues of their systems, you can close your eyes and imagine sitting in your dentist's chair as a child: "Make sure to floss your teeth after each meal. (Catalog your assets after each edit.)" or "You'll be glad you flossed when you grow up! (The greater benefits are realized over time.)" or even "Sure it's not fun, but it's good for you. (Sure it's not fun, but it's good for you.)"

It's tough to argue the ROI of dental floss, but kids aren't into ROI. The appreciation of ROI requires a certain level of maturity.

It's like candy vs. vegetables. In the creative and business worlds, applications like Photoshop and PowerPoint are the candy. Not only are they fun (are they?), they help users generate output that's measurable. Executives score points for every presentation that rocks; but no one gets back pats (or year-end bonuses) for cataloging assets. Priorities are ranked accordingly, and we lose yet another group of prospective DAM users.

No one finds religion on a good day

DAM systems tend to be on the shopping lists of only those organizations who have felt real pain. The pain is slightly different for each, but most organizations confess they were at "rock bottom" when they found the religion of DAM. In some cases the pain was production downtime caused by approval delays. In other cases you hear how the retrieval of a single asset could require the combined work of several employees. But in all cases the bottom line was money: When things go wrong, it takes money to fix them. Money to recreate lost assets; money to pay employees to waste time; and money to defend your actions in court.

But many organizations are lucky because-as of yet-they feel no pain. So, while we haven't necessarily lost this group entirely, they're not quite ready. Give them time.

And only the DAM faithful remain standing

Some organizations get passed the mind set that assets have no value; they see that asset security is a real concern; and they recognize the longer term benefits of doing what's good for you. They realize intellectual properties can be worth much more than delivery trucks, and they know that damage control is far more costly than asset control. They know that vegetables are not as much fun as candy; that floss isn't as easy to use as a toothbrush; and that no one said running a financially healthy business would always be fun and easy.

These are the "mature" organizations that seek a solution to manage their digital assets and, more often than not, they choose Canto Cumulus.

Read some of their stories at:

http://www.canto.com/en/resources/case-studies/

Lean more about the advanced capabilities of "DAM 2.0" that only Cumulus provides:

http://www.cxo.eu.com/white-papers/Canto-DAM-20-Collaboration-and-Project-Management-Control