Why CIOs are increasingly interested in DAM

Transcription

1 White Paper Why CIOs are increasingly interested in DAM By ADAM Software* - Pieter Casneuf (CEO) & Philippe Coulon (Business Development) New technologies have created many new types of marketing and have increased the relative importance of marketing activities within (global) corporations. Marketing however has not been subject to the same levels of accountability found in other domains, such as Production. The easy ride for Marketing is now set to end, however, as CEOs increase pressure on CMOs to show greater responsibility for their revenue performance. Adding to this pressure are rapidly evolving marketing challenges such as globalization, online media distribution, process-based organization, and cross-channel communication. These developments will mean CMOs and CIOs have to work together in new ways to establish a common roadmap for responding to new pressures. A core element of this new alliance will be the integration of a DAM platform into Marketing s infrastructure. DAM platforms not only facilitate Marketing s daily tasks; they also provide the first building block of DAM, CRM and ERP integration and consequently an understanding of DAM is now critical to CIOs as well as CMOs. Key among the benefits of this integration will be the move from file (or project)-based management (FBC) to record (or process)-based management (RBC). CIOs will have a central role to play in the integration and ongoing management of these systems. They will need to develop centralized and standardized processes that are measureable and adaptable. This will, in turn, lead to leveraged returns and pay-backs. *ADAM Software offers enterprise E-library solutions that allow customers to create, manage and deliver content from a single digital master, including pictures, documents, video, 3D and all kinds of other media formats.

2 A very short history of IT automation Thirty years of information (or business 1 ) technology automation have expanded the frontiers of corporate efficiency. It started in the 1980s with unique master files and the systems put in place to automate tasks and processes. The 1990s saw the advent of forecasting and supply chain systems, enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), human resources (HR), product and customer databases, and, of course, web sites. The progression has continued through the 2000s where a new focus on business metrics has developed, accessed through online dashboard software that allows automated systems to become increasingly interconnected. Illustration 1: 30 years of IT architecture & automation Accounting ERP Business Intelligence XX Evolution from desktop accounting to a central storage & control of product, BOM, customer, supplier data. Job or process based applications such as planning, warehouse, accounting, credit control, etc. Dashboard for management on cost, variance & cycle time. PRODUCT SUPPLY CHAIN But even today, there is still substantial room to automate repetitive tasks that are not yet mediated by computers, and to connect islands of automation 2, especially in areas that have not traditionally been early adopters of IT architecture and automation. What about marketing? Technology s impact on marketing has been impossible to ignore over the past decade. For instance, the ability to measure response rates for campaigns gives marketers better understanding of the success of their investments. New technologies have also provided insights into prospects key interests, and better aligned Marketing with Sales 3. Market awareness is growing about more automation and optimization of marketing functions. It begs the question, why is this happening now? º º First, marketing automation has huge potential. Whereas automation in today s production value chains needs increasing budgets for an ever-decreasing return on investment, the automation of the marketing value chain is still in its infancy. Each investment therefore gives leveraged returns and pay-backs. 1-Following McKinsey s view on information technology. 2-McKinsey s Eight Business Technology Trends to Watch (Quarterly, 2007). 3-The State of Marketing Automation (DemandGen Report, 2011). 2 Page

3 º º Second, marketing is undergoing a change from a project-based to process-based activity, along with a switch from print media to online media. With strong pressure on marketing budgets and better efficiency, reuse of content and campaign materials is becoming imperative, and marketing is pushing towards standardization of its processes in order to achieve these results. Marketing value chain automation is still in its infancy I know that half of my advertising budget is wasted, but I m not sure which half. º º Third, there is an undefined link between budget and marketing results. The famous comment, usually attributed to Lord Leverhulme, says it all: I know that half of my advertising budget is wasted, but I m not sure which half. There is a clear opportunity to gain control of the marketing value chain, and get better understanding of which part of the budget is well spent. The CMO side Why should CMOs care about IT? And why now? Technology has created many new types of marketing and has increased the relative importance of marketing activities within (global) corporations. CMOs are therefore under increasing pressure from CEOs to show accountability on their revenue performance. There are also evolving marketing challenges: globalization, online communications, process-based organization, and cross-channel communication. There are, in fact, five clearly discernible challenges for any global entity when it comes to marketing organization, and all of them are pushing IT departments towards moving to an enterprisecapable DAM platform in order to manage better their digital assets. The five challenges are: 1. The explosion of online marketing - The growing online world has already surpassed the print world in terms of the number of channels it has spawned and the trend looks set to continue. This fast growing number of channels is creating a concurrent explosion of assets to serve every channel, every device, every protocol, and every operating system. Together with the explosion of these channels, online distribution of assets is also creating new media formats such as web video and intensive marketing use of 3D-assets. 2. The need to go glocal - While organizations are globalizing and developing a global brand policy, there is a need for localization in every region, in every line of business, but always starting from one, centralized, global master asset. Most organizations do not have a global content master and in companies that do have a global master, the localization process is often not under sufficient control to keep it safe from inappropriate use (wrong versions, region-specific content, non-adapted user rights, loss of control when using local copies, etc.). 3 Page

4 3. The move to process-based marketing - With marketing moving from project to process, companies are rapidly gaining understanding of the repetitive mundane tasks they execute within Marketing. Most marketing processes should be controlled for efficiency and start from a single digital master to avoid redundancy and brand dilution. 4. The growing focus on true cross-channel communication - More than ever before, companies have the opportunity to engage in a one-to-one relationship with consumers. Customers (or interested parties ) now leave more traces of behavior and preferences, and consolidation of marketing technologies and tools to manage these relationships is essential. Even in the content industries (mass media) which historically have disseminated their products through a layered distribution system a concept called Viewer Relationship Management is emerging. 5. Time-to-market and synchronization of marketing campaigns - With the multiplication of channels and audiences, Marketing needs IT support and software to manage the complexity. As was said earlier, the combination of these challenges is pushing IT departments towards adopting enterprise-capable DAM platforms to manage single, centralized digital masters and towards standardization of marketing processes for better efficiency and measurability. In some companies, the digital master is surrounded with versions and variants, which also must be managed and controlled. In others, the digital master may be a product or a service. For these corporations, a convergence between product and marketing lifecycles is required, reinforcing the need for an enterprisecapable DAM platform. The CIO side Facing the challenge and the need for ambitious enterprise-scale content architecture Until recently, Marketing and Production were totally separated in their automation processes. The Production supply chain was automated based on record information and that was built on top of ERP platforms (Illustration 2: lower right). Marketing supply chain processes, in as far as they were automated, were file-based and governed by a fileserver on departmental level, and maybe a DAM system on enterprise level (Illustration 2: upper left). At that moment, the world was simple, but hardly very efficient. The problems intrinsic in that way of working have led to file-based content automation and to the wide adoption of DAM. Fileservers simply could not handle the requirements of enterprise-scale content management, and DAM has solved this by organizing all content on an enterprise scale. With DAM, file-based content, such as video, 3D, administrative documents, etc. are all organized in one container, ready-for-use through server-side rendering and download to the client, and with robust security models that suit the requirements of each brand owner. 4 Page

5 Marketing departments have been reasonably successful in adapting to file-based content, and DAM is now a reality in many enterprise-level organizations. DAM has brought: a single and centralized version of the truth for each digital asset; a clear overview of the different assets and their localized versions; and has managed to keep an overall focus on marketing communication processes at the same time. Illustration 2: Information architecture (conceptualized) Marketing Process Information Architecture Production Process Information Structure Record-based File-based DAM DAM playing field This used to be This used to be ERP playing field ERP Reasons for change from a CIO perspective - Marketing activities considered as a real supply chain (or the three DIVEs) We already said that one of the major trends impacting marketing functions is the recent move from project to process, therefore introducing process management into marketing. Seeing marketing as a complete supply chain is a new idea, and it makes it possible to define and to separate marketing steps into an overall plan for the delivery of the marketing message to the customer. A basic outline runs from the marketing idea to the delivery of the message to the customer, then to the monitoring and capture of where the marketing content has gone and how it has been consumed. To look at this from a more technical perspective (see illustration 3 below), we can say that marketing needs are growing from a silo DAM system (DIVE I) into a DAM+BPMS (Business Process Management System) (DIVE II). This entails a change in the information structure from file-based to the record-based information of the existing ERP system, and this shift fully engages the CIO. What has been built up in the last 30 years - enterprise-wide information architecture on record-based (ERP) content - needs to merge with the world of file-based marketing content. Marketing activities are 5 Page

6 coming to be considered and managed like a real supply chain. CIOs are challenged by this new world and are increasingly taking control of the content architecture in marketing. Adding MRM (Marketing Resource Management) to DAM + BPMS brings us to the DIVE III marketing excellence. Record-based MRM brings many advantages to marketing: it allows larger sets of metadata and associated/related records; it s more variable and adaptable to measurable processes; and it s better suited to the complexities and specificities of marketing models. The record-based model places marketing activities in a global, enterprise context. When MRM becomes part of the mix, the meaning of overall information architecture for CIOs changes dramatically. ERP-systems hold most of the record-based information, such as product data, price, and stock levels. But what ERP systems cannot master is the marketing and file-based information of products. For example, when producing catalogs of products, both records and files are needed. Records get mixed with files and the blend of information goes into the automatic building of catalog pages. Consequently, we see three strategic waves (or DIVEs ) emerging that will spread over a period of several years once a CIO and CMO agree to work towards marketing excellence through marketing automation technologies. The goal will be to achieve industry best practices, and control of the marketing supply chain becomes based on the following. Illustration 3: Top-level scenarios (strategic waves) BPMS MRM CONTENT DIVE I -Set up the system -Master the content PROCESS DIVE II -Consolidate silo systems -Automate processes EXCELLENCE DIVE III -Build dashboard -Re-engineer process to industry best practice Fulfillment of these waves will deliver much improved marketing efficiency and better companywide integration of resources. As an offshoot, such an architecture will also assist local marketing departments, even B2B customers, in always using the correct, approved marketing materials. This means brand control and consistency become truly global. 6 Page

7 Defining Project Needs Let s now look in detail at the three DIVEs of process-driven DAM integration: (1) Content, (2) Process, and (3) Excellence. The questions on the next two pages are provided to help CIOs define the scope and needs of their project, as well as better understand the importance of DAM. DIVE I: The need for control of unique marketing assets Typical questions: º º How do you gain control of large-scale content operations in an enterprise? º º How do you go from one central digital master for each asset to serving all the channels, departments and processes? º º Is your digital master an out-of-box product? Or does it allow you to grow your operations enterprise-wide? º º Does it allow for endless growth in response to new complexity or it is a solution made for departmental use? º º Can it handle enterprise-level rendering, security, classification, metadata, multilingual-options, etc.? º º Are you creating a digital master for the company, the business line, a department or something else? º º Is your enterprise DAM capable of hosting any type of content, ranging from admin documents through pictures (stills), to video and 3D? And can it render any type of content on demand, transcoded to any type of other format asked for by the user? º º How do you handle IPR-protected content in your digital master? How do you manage DRM? DIVE II: The need for business process control Typical questions: º º Once the digital master exists and the simplest check-in and check-out processes are automated (mainly downloads), how do you integrate this content master with every day mundane processes in marketing? º º Can you automate processes? º º Do you have a library or a portfolio of processes in marketing you want to automate, from simplest first, up to the more difficult ones? 7 Page

8 º º Do you have ideas about the control parameters of a process? Can you translate the standard process parameters (cycle time, cost control and variance) into marketing automation challenges? º º How does content synergize with business processes? DAM alone is not enough, but a DAM+BPMS system is a market disruptive force, unlocking the potential of any digital master to achieve process automation. How far would you like to go in this automation? Consider the four following steps: 1. Do you want just basic check-in/check-out features? If so, you only need DAM. 2. Do you want to automate everyday marketing business processes such as approval workflows? A status-driven workflow will probably be enough for your organization. 3. Do you want to automate your major marketing processes, such as content localization, translation processes, packaging processes, webto-print processes, etc.? You will definitely need all the power you can get from a BPMS system. For example, do you want your DAM to allow design driven workflows? With enterprise-scaling power? 4. Or do you want to automate planning processes, media planning and campaign management? And are you struggling with the integration of the ERP-system into your DAM-environment? How far do your ambitions reach? DIVE III: The need for excellence in the control of marketing resources. DAM + BPMS + MRM Typical questions: º º Starting from the long-standing statement that perhaps half of the marketing budget is wrongly spent, it s obviously a good idea to try to understand which half it is. So process analytics are popping up and not just customer analytics. Do you, for example, want to track and trace every step of your operational marketing workflow? º º And do you want to know how you can go for business improvement through process iteration and follow up? º º Do you hold the ambition of having best-in-class architecture/processes? º º Can you get more out of each dollar spent in marketing? 8 Page

9 The main reason for instigating change from a CIO perspective is that significant disruption occurs when a digital master is used in file-based processes and in marketing processes which are record-based. With the changing DNA of marketers from project to process, with the push to online channels and making processes more controllable, record-based processes loom. While these developments may make little or no difference for marketers, they make a lot of difference for the CIO. Until fairly recently, the digital master and the automation of file-based content processes was largely still an island of automation. With the advent of automated processes based on product data or campaign-based data, the blending of file-based content and record-based content has begun. ERP (record-based content) has started to blend into DAM (file-based content). 9 Page

10 III Why CIOs are increasingly interested in DAM How far do CIO & CMO ambitions reach? Or to rephrase this title: How far will your needs and ambitions drive you, knowing your competitors are already moving in this direction? It s a bit like choosing a diving board when you re a 10-year old kid: of course you are sorely tempted by the 10-meter diving board, but what about the risk of that big belly flop from that height? Perhaps the solution is not to fear it but rather to make sure you make a straight dive - DIVE III. It s no doubt a big challenge, but the potential is huge! Enterprise DAM systems are evolving. They have already moved from a file-based archive system into the position of the controller of digital masters. Now they re taking the next step towards a blended information architecture between ERP and DAM - what we ve called DIVE III or excellence. Perhaps it s best not to wait too long up there in the cold! With DIVE III, marketing revenue performance management is made possible. Illustration 4: Marketing excellence business architecture Illustrating the three DIVES: DIVE I - Digital Asset Management (DAM) DIVE II - The trend to RBC DIVE III - CIO involvement through RBC CMO II FBC I DAM RBC ERP Key: File-based Content (FBC) Record-based Content (RBC) CIO 10 Page

11 To reiterate our key points: This DAM evolution across the enterprise is coming from technology, and as such, CIO involvement is critical. Applications for BPMS systems are already rapidly developing in the media and marketing world. The combination of DAM as an enterprise-level, digital master controller combined with the power of an enterprise BPMS system is disruptive and creates new possibilities in the number of processes we can now automate. Once the digital master is well organized and can be opened up in a controlled way, the enterprise critical processes ready for automation are numerous and not limited to the File-based Content (FBC). Brand Management File Based Content (FBC) Illustration 5: Marketing excellence business propositions MARKETING EXCELLENCE Campaign Management Record Based Content (RBC) DIVE I º º Enterprise E-library/Media Library of assets º º Web-To-Print Storefront º º DAM at your fingertips in MS-OFFICE º º DAM within Adobe Creative Suite º º Sharepoint based DAM integration º º Brand Management º º Metadata Management, Taxonomy & Thesaurus º º Interactive file formats in DAM FBC DIVE IIa º º DAM as a development platform º º Automatic Catalog Publishing º º Online approval Workflow Enterprise º º Workflow Design º º Packaging Workflow Automation Enterprise DIVE III º º Workflow for Agencies º º Print (pre-)production º º Packaging workflow º º WCM integration DIVE IIb º º Marketing Collateral Localization º º Product Information Management PROCESS RBC 11 Page

12 What if you do not take the DIVE? Forrester reports that 50% of CMOs do not get along with their CIO counterparts 4. This creates a real possibility that Marketing won t fully transition from the old school, where ERP and DAM are totally separated to the new school, where file-based and record-based content totally blend into each other. So what if you do not take the DIVE? º º The silo approach will lead to data inconsistency - If some or all departments, regions and /or brands have their own siloed solution, how can your companies provide the single digital master so necessary for brand consistency and efficiency? If there are several distributed versions of an asset, how can one be confident of working with the right version? º º Insufficient process control will create inconsistency and inefficiency - The lack of data consistency means it will become more and more difficult to engage enterprise-wide processes. Content that is spread out will never be in sync, and it will be impossible to use it within marketing process automation. º º Single business performance view will mean no integrated reporting - When content is not aligned, marketing processes won t be either. And when processes are not unique and consistent, then reports become of less and less value. It will be impossible to gain a full overview on all your processes and business performance, and equally difficult to re-engineer the process to improve it towards marketing excellence. Conclusion Technology s impact on marketing has been impossible to ignore over the past decade, and marketing is one of the last islands of automation in today s corporation. This is one of the most important CIO challenges for the years to come. A trigger for this is the increasing pressure CMOs are receiving from CEOs to show accountability on their revenue performance, as well as recent marketing challenges: globalization, online communications, process-based organization, and cross-channel communication. Marketing is growing from using a silo or DAM system into a DAM+BPMS system, and is undergoing a change of information structure from file-based to record-based content. The shift of information from file-based to record-based engages the CIO: what has been built up in the last 30 years as an enterprise-wide information architecture on record-based (ERP) content needs to merge with the world of file-based marketing content. 4- Forrester, Report Brief: Partnering For Success: The CIO-CMO Relationship by Liz Brady and Cindy Commander 12 Page

13 The challenge for CIOs is therefore to face the need for an ambitious enterprise-scale content architecture, which IT will be asked to design and to manage. For this, we identified three strategic waves (or DIVEs ): º º The need for control of unique marketing assets (DIVE I) º º The need for business process control (DIVE II) º º The need for excellence in the control of the marketing resources (DIVE III) CMOs and CIOs have to work together to think and decide on how far their ambitions reach and consequently develop their roadmaps. In any case, and notwithstanding the shared goals CMOs and CIOs would like to reach, the building up of a DAM platform is the core of any future set-up and the first building block of DAM, CRM and ERP integration. ADAM Software proposes E-Library (single digital master) solutions, combining digital asset management solutions (composed assets, video, 3D) with integrated workflow management systems, digital rights management, security & classification management, and rendering of assets. More information on: For more information follow Pieter Casneuf and Philippe Coulon on LinkedIn 13 Page