Deciding on a digital asset administration (DAM) vendor and an implementation accomplice places in place the inspiration you’ll use to develop your DAM. You need that basis to be as robust and as sturdy as potential.
However what do you base your selections on? How are you going to be assured you’re making the appropriate alternatives for your corporation? There are a number of key components to bear in mind as you navigate the choice course of. Within the first article of this two-part sequence, we’ll deal with choosing your DAM vendor.
Present me the cash
Whereas all of us want it wasn’t, funds often is the high consideration in selecting which DAM vendor you’ll transfer ahead with. Don’t get discouraged in case your most popular vendor is exterior your funds and there’s not sufficient wiggle room to barter decrease charges. There’s a wealth of DAM distributors available on the market right this moment for each funds. You in all probability know the massive gamers — Adobe, OpenText, Censhare, and so on. — however they’re not the one decisions. A well known title and excessive price ticket don’t essentially translate to a better high quality product.
A lot of the success of your DAM would be the results of the way you arrange your taxonomy, metadata and workflows. The DAM system itself is simply the framework for these key parts. And the seller you begin with doesn’t must be the seller you stick with perpetually. It’s possible you’ll select a extra fundamental starter DAM to get the challenge off the bottom and use it because the baseline for demonstrating the worth a DAM brings to your group.
If and whenever you outgrow your starter DAM and are out there to improve, you’ll have metrics and completely satisfied finish customers to help you in negotiating a better funds. You’ll even have precious perception into your group’s must-haves and nice-to-haves as you add to your established basis.
Dig deeper: A 12-step information for implementing a digital asset administration system
Narrowing down the choices
Selecting a vendor with expertise working with firms just like yours could also be useful, particularly through the necessities gathering section. In preliminary conversations with potential distributors, ask about their current purchasers. Are they corresponding to your corporation by way of measurement, construction and trade?
When you learn my earlier article and adopted my recommendation to gather and analyze your content material previous to beginning your vendor search, you’re ready to ask a possible vendor if their current purchasers have an analogous mixture of content material by way of file sorts and sizes. Do in addition they have related regulatory and/or authorized necessities round some or all of their content material?
Remember to ask for references in the beginning of the method so you could have ample time to arrange discussions with them. If a vendor can’t or received’t present any references, that’s a particular pink flag.
In conversations with the offered references make sure to ask about each positives and negatives. How particularly did the seller deal with the negatives? Not the whole lot goes to go completely easily with any vendor, however how the problems are dealt with and what help is offered makes a major distinction all through the DAM constructing course of.
Don’t simply communicate to the references offered by the seller. Lean in your community to acquire a number of references of your individual. Make the most of your LinkedIn contacts, attain out to colleagues you’ve met at conferences, or communicate to former co-workers who’ve moved on to new firms and new DAMs. The seller will give you references that they’re assured will communicate extremely of them, however you need the great, dangerous and the ugly.
When you’ve got both current or future techniques in your roadmap that may combine with the DAM, akin to web sites, product data administration (PIM) or workflow administration instruments, ask the seller about how simply their DAM integrates with these particular or related techniques. It’s additionally useful to ask any references you seek the advice of about their experiences organising and sustaining integrations with the DAM.
Meet and greet
When you’ve received your quick record of potential distributors, it’s time to schedule demos. That is the place the enjoyable begins and also you get to see some DAMs in motion. Earlier than you convey a vendor on-site, you’ll have to put collectively a listing of use instances you need them to cowl of their demo.
When gathering your use instances, embrace your entire stakeholders and be sure you’re getting the attitude of all classes of finish customers, from uploaders to downloaders and everybody in between. And don’t neglect about your IT and Authorized division representatives. They’ll have particular necessities and considerations exterior of these of the standard day-to-day finish customers.
This isn’t the time to carry again and punctiliously curate your want record. You actually wish to see all that the DAM can do. Within the curiosity of time although, separate your use instances into the must-haves and nice-to-haves to be sure you get by way of all of the must-haves. What are the deal breakers by way of necessities your DAM should meet?
Ensure your use instances cowl the whole asset workflow from add to obtain, together with metadata, approvals, versioning, looking out and archiving.
- What kind of asset safety and permissioning do you want?
- Are you curious about AI capabilities or different automation?
- Does your DAM have to accommodate recordsdata and metadata in a number of languages and help customers who communicate languages aside from English?
- How about your integration wants?
Whilst you’re placing collectively use instances, collect a set of your organization’s belongings and request that the seller use these for his or her demo. Ensure you have quite a lot of file sorts and sizes. Not solely do you wish to be certain their DAM accommodates your entire required file sorts and sizes, but it surely provides you a greater concept of the ultimate product to see your individual belongings flowing by way of the DAM.
Consider it in the identical manner as shopping for a home and picturing your belongings within the house through the exhibiting. You additionally wish to see how the seller handles belongings which can be new to the system and never a part of their normal polished and rehearsed demo. If an error happens through the demo with certainly one of your recordsdata, how do they deal with it?
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Too good to be true or the proper match?
Watch out for too many yeses as you ask questions through the demo. Ensure the seller is evident about which options and capabilities are out of the field and that are customized. The seller could also be telling you time and again that they will customise the system to present you something you need, however that’s not essentially a superb factor. Not solely can that shortly drive up prices and extend your challenge timeline, however over-customization can result in efficiency and stability points. In some instances, it could additionally prohibit future enhancements and upgrades.
When you’re instructed that particular options you’re requesting aren’t accessible now however are on the roadmap for a future launch, get a way of the timeline. If there’s no particular launch date or no less than a projected time vary, be cautious. You would be ready years for those who see the brand new options in any respect with out having to go the customized route.
Able to construct
Take your time and be assured in your vendor choice. Don’t rush by way of the method and don’t be afraid to maintain asking questions if one thing isn’t clear or appears too good to be true. The sturdier the inspiration, the stronger and extra profitable your DAM will in the end be.
Opinions expressed on this article are these of the visitor writer and never essentially MarTech. Employees authors are listed right here.
About The Writer
Rachel Edwards is an skilled digital asset supervisor who’s obsessed with metadata, taxonomies and information governance. She makes a speciality of bringing order to information chaos since 2007.