How To Manage Digital Assets In The Automotive Aftermarket

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1 Why the Right Digital Asset Management & Distribution System is Essential for Aftermarket Success The Digital Asset Management & Distribution Challenge Companies across the automotive aftermarket are currently coming face-to-face with two significant challenges: How to efficiently manage their growing libraries of digital assets How to effectively distribute these assets to their customers We have identified six key reasons why these challenges are significant to companies in the automotive aftermarket: They need digital assets in order to stay competitive digital assets increase sales, reduce returns and are simply required by most aftermarket retailers They deal with thousands of part numbers and are adding new part numbers on a regular basis VISUAL SKUS WHITE PAPER They are rapidly growing their digital asset libraries, with product images, PDFs, videos, audio files and more They create and receive digital assets from multiple sources and distribute these assets to multiple customers, each with its own formatting and delivery requirements They need accurate data on which digital assets they have, which are missing, which have been created and received and which have been sent to customers They need to prevent misuse of digital assets, which are expensive to acquire and produce but easy to copy without authorization

2 Page 1 Why is the Digital Asset Management Challenge Significant? Aftermarket companies need digital assets in order to remain competitive For aftermarket companies, ensuring customers have access to high-quality digital assets is of paramount importance because: Digital assets help sell more parts Ecommerce has grown rapidly in the aftermarket over the last 10 years. Product images and other digital assets play a key role in ecommerce success. Many companies have increased sales by making product images and other digital assets available to their trading partners. Digital assets help sell the right parts According to some estimates, over 20% of auto parts sold are later returned. The cost of processing these returns is huge. Companies that develop libraries of product images and other digital assets typically experience significantly reduced returns. Additionally, because more customers get the right part, the first time, customer satisfaction levels increase. Aftermarket companies carry millions of parts, with new parts added daily The automotive aftermarket makes and distributes huge quantities of products. The aftermarket s total SKU count is estimated to be in the tens of millions. Every day, new parts are added, old parts are discontinued and existing parts are superseded. Each part has multiple digital assets associated with it. Keeping track of all these part numbers and their associated digital assets represents a major challenge for aftermarket companies especially those with high quantities of SKUs. It can be extremely difficult for larger aftermarket companies to acquire, manage, deliver and maintain up-to-date information on digital assets for all their new products. Aftermarket companies have rapidly growing digital asset libraries Over the past decade, aftermarket companies have started to understand that the production and distribution of high-quality digital assets helps to increase sales and reduce returns. Consequently, companies across the aftermarket are putting considerable effort and investment into building their digital asset libraries. Aftermarket companies are constantly adding product images, PDFs (installation instructions, warranty information, fact sheets), line drawings, videos and more to their digital asset libraries. These companies are amassing thousands some, tens of thousands of assets that need to be managed, shared internally and distributed to customers.

3 Page 2 4. Aftermarket companies share digital assets with multiple trading partners Distributing digital assets to trading partners is a complex, time-consuming and costly task for several reasons: With new parts being produced all the time, companies must constantly acquire and distribute new digital assets Many aftermarket companies receive digital assets from multiple suppliers and in a range of formats Most aftermarket companies distribute digital assets in a range of formats and to multiple trading partners Different trading partners have different requirements for how they need digital assets to be formatted To meet these needs, companies often have to store digital assets in multiple formats, making the task of managing these assets even more challenging Customers vary according to the method by which they require digital assets to be delivered some prefer online delivery, others physical media like DVD Customers vary according to the industry standards used for digital assets (e.g. PIES, AAIA Imaging Delivery File) Customers vary according to the frequency by which they require digital assets to be delivered (e.g. as assets become available, weekly, monthly etc.) Some customers require only a selection of the digital assets associated with the parts they order (e.g. product images and PDFs but not videos) 5. Aftermarket companies need quick access to real-time data on digital assets If a company is to make effective use of its digital asset library, it needs quick and comprehensive insight into precisely what is in that library. Only companies that have this insight are able to get full value from their digital assets. Those that lack this insight miss sales opportunities and suffer from preventable inefficiencies. Specifically, companies need to answer the following questions: What digital assets are missing? What part numbers are missing digital assets? What digital assets are currently in production? What digital assets have been received from suppliers and when? What digital assets need to be sent to customers? What digital assets were sent to which customers and when?

4 Page 3 What digital assets have been added/deleted/changed since customers were update? What customers have changed their parts lists since their digital assets were updated? 6. Aftermarket companies need to protect their digital assets Typically, any given aftermarket company will distribute digital assets widely among its trading partners and make many of these assets easily accessible via ecommerce sites. This makes it very simple for less-than-scrupulous competitors to acquire a company s digital assets and use these assets in unauthorized ways. After a company has invested considerable time and resources in acquiring or creating high-quality digital assets, the last thing that company wants to do is arm its competitors with those assets. Therefore, ensuring digital asset security is a growing concern for many aftermarket organizations. Clearly, the aftermarket is facing significant challenges related to digital asset management and distribution. Aftermarket companies are actively striving to address these challenges, usually with limited success. The need for efficient digital asset management is typically addressed in one of three ways. Common Digital Asset Management Solutions Using people power By far the most common approach is to simply add human resources. Typically, a company will either hire new staff to manage its digital assets or assign existing staff to the task. In either case, the solution will be expensive, the process will be labor-intensive and the results are likely to be less than satisfactory. Crucially, this approach cannot be considered a long-term, scalable solution. Most aftermarket companies are rapidly growing their digital asset libraries. Companies that use people power to tackle digital asset management will have to keep hiring costly new resources or stretching their staff ever thinner, as their libraries grow. Creating a system in-house Another approach is to combine existing human resources, workflows and technology systems to create a custom in-house digital asset management solution. A solution of this type will usually be complex, labor-intensive and time-consuming to maintain. A typical in-house digital asset management system is likely to include: Separate spreadsheets to manage parts, assets, customers and asset deliveries

5 Page 4 File systems with separate structures to manage assets by type and by customer Multiple custom-built scripts to help format assets to customers specifications An FTP server with a separate asset-delivery account for each customer Problems inherent in this kind of system include: The need to hire and train new, specialized human resources A huge number of moving parts that need to be monitored and maintained The lack of an efficient, centralized system for generating real-time data on assets Adopting a generic DAM technology Trying to address the need for efficient digital asset management with additional human resources and/or disparate existing systems is clearly an unsatisfactory longterm solution. What is really needed for effective asset management is the adoption of a single, centralized digital asset management technology or DAM. There are many DAM systems on the market today, offering a range of functionality at widely differing price points and available via on-premise or Web-based deployments. Unfortunately, the vast majority of these are generic, cross-industry solutions that do little or nothing to address the specific requirements of aftermarket organizations. Aftermarket companies have many important needs that are not met by generic DAM solutions, including: Batch delivery of assets Commonly, an aftermarket company may need to simultaneously deliver thousands of assets to multiple customers, each with its own unique set of preferences and required assets. Most DAM systems require the user to manually drag-anddrop the individual assets or groups of assets that each individual trading partner requires. Efficient reformatting & custom delivery of assets Preset digital asset functionality does not satisfy the formatting and delivery needs of the aftermarket, where each customer has a unique set of requirements. Most DAM systems simply do not take account of the complexity inherent in delivering digital assets to aftermarket trading partners. Scheduled delivery of assets For the aftermarket, efficiently scheduling digital asset distribution is absolutely critical. In an industry where companies are continually changing their product offerings (due to the constant introduction, obsolescence and superseding of parts), the manual formatting and delivery functionality common to generic DAMs creates significant inefficiencies. Management of part & interchange lists Aftermarket companies typically use part and interchange lists to format digital assets according to customers specific part numbering, file naming and metadata requirements. Generic DAMs do not include functionality to make the management and application of these lists more efficient.

6 Page 5 The DAM Solution Aftermarket Companies Really Need Parts & interchange list management As mentioned above, part and interchange lists are critical to the aftermarket. They are especially important when naming digital assets during the distribution phase and discovering missing data by part category or customer. For a DAM to be truly useful to the aftermarket, it must accommodate this aspect of the business. Seamless integration with existing systems Many aftermarket companies already have catalog and product information management systems in place, to deal with product and application data. An effective aftermarket DAM must integrate with these systems, to automatically stay up to date with the data they contain. Such a system also requires the capability to read data in industry formats such as ACES and PIES. Dynamic customer profile management Every customer that receives digital assets will have a unique profile outlining preferred digital asset types, formatting and delivery needs and other unique requirements. The DAM must be able to access profile data in real time, to efficiently deliver the required assets, in the right formats, via the correct delivery method, with the appropriate frequency. 4. Profile-based product image delivery Commonly, aftermarket companies generate and store multiple versions of every product image sent to each customer, to ensure formatting requirements are met. To save storage space and maximize efficiency, the DAM must be able to leverage customer profiles and deliver images only in the formats customers actually require. 5. Automated digital asset distribution Indeed, for a DAM to be truly effective for an aftermarket company, the system must be able to draw from customer profiles to completely automate the formatting and delivery of all of that company s digital assets. Hands-on involvement should only be necessary when a customer requires assets delivered in a hard copy format, which is rare. 6. Real-time asset reporting Finally and perhaps most importantly, an effective aftermarket DAM must be able to generate real-time reports on the status of the digital assets in the system. As previously discussed, a company can only effectively manage and leverage its digital assets if it knows what assets it has and what is being done with those assets.

7 Page 6 Conclusion In recent years, ecommerce has rapidly become central to the way the aftermarket does business. Digital assets have produced quantifiable results in reducing returns and increasing sales and customer retention. Consequently, aftermarket companies have invested considerable resources in acquiring, managing, sharing and delivering digital assets. With digital asset libraries growing constantly and trading partners making complex demands for the formatting and delivery of assets, there is an increasingly apparent need for technology that addresses the digital asset management and distribution needs of aftermarket companies. Existing DAM systems do little or nothing to address these aftermarket-specific needs. Introducing Visual SKUs Aftermarket DAM Visual SKUs has been providing high-quality, high-volume product imaging solutions to the automotive aftermarket for over 10 years. In that time, Visual SKUs has delivered over 500,000 high-quality product images from over 500 part categories to organizations throughout the automotive aftermarket. In the first quarter of 2011, Visual SKUs will be adding industry-specific digital asset management and distribution functionality to its existing suite of technology solutions and imaging services. This functionality will represent the first ever DAM technology specifically tailored to the unique needs of the automotive aftermarket. For more information please contact us at: Visual SKUs Inc. Toll-free: success@visualskus.com Web: