a VYRE Ltd sponsored white paper April 2009 Digital Asset Management Hits the Big Time By Ruth Knight, Sales and Marketing Director In the following white paper we pose the question has digital asset management (DAM) hit the big time and reached a maturity point where it is considered strategically important to the mass market. The business case is also examined with two case study examples from Diageo PLC and Virgin Holidays. Finally, best practice advice is offered to ensure the successful deployment of a DAM solution in current economic conditions. VYRE Ltd, Zetland House, 5 25 Scrutton Street, London, EC2A 4HJ. Tel: +44 (0)20 7749 1800 info@vyre.com www.vyre.com
Contents Digital Asset Management Hits the Big Time The Big Time 3 The Business Case 4 Secrets of Success 6 Time to Invest in DAM 7 2
The Big Time A real buzz surrounds digital asset management at the moment, with recent articles in the New York Times talking about its strategic importance and analyst companies such as ABI Research, Frost and Sullivan and Gartner predicting rapid growth. But is the hype justified and in the current economic conditions how should a company maximise their investment in DAM? Digital asset management is, in layman terms, content management for non-text assets such as video, images, artwork and podcasts. It covers the entire lifecycle of asset management from creation, approval, storage, retrieval and distribution. The increased interest in DAM comes from the rapid proliferation of rich media content. The evidence of this growth is all around us. Just take a moment to look at the media you and your colleagues create and consume on a daily basis: the majority of key work events are now videoed, presenters compete to create the most impressive and dynamic presentations, rich media is a fundamental tool in the creation of engaging websites and finally, due to the fragmentation of media, those busy marketing communications experts are rolling out campaigns across what seems to be an ever increasing range of media and formats. Research analysts confirm this growth is on an upward trend. For instance, Gartner released a report in January of this year predicting explosive growth in digital asset management tools in 2009 and beyond. They believe the growth will mainly be fuelled by the increased use of video in the enterprise. In fact, the report predicts that by 2013 as much as 25 percent of content users see in a day will not be text documents, but audio, video or images, Furthermore, from a survey of 800 companies Gartner found that managing multimedia content, video, audio and images, is the fastest-growing segment of the content management market, with just 44 percent of enterprises having such products today but 22 percent intending to install in 2009. Video is key to this explosion and its appeal stems from the fact it is an easy to consume format, which provides a more intuitive way to accomplish tasks. In addition, it is now relatively easy to create and edit. In the current market the significance of video has added depth, as it can be used to reduce support and training costs by making it easier for customers and service professionals to learn. The increasing volume of media brings challenges. IT teams and the wider business now acknowledge that traditional storage on networks and email can cope with small volumes of low profile media but when it is essential to safeguarding the integrity and confidentiality of a brand or high value assets, it is simply too risky. Trying to approve rich media content by traditional means is also high risk with poor traceability and transparency. In relation to video 3
findability is a key issue as it lacks the native textual elements that make other kinds of content, such as web pages easier to identify. So, although hyperbole was rife when the early adopters of DAM started talking about its merits 5+ years ago, now the need for DAM is substantiated and we see this demand coming from many different business areas: the general business for storing presentations and promotional media, marketing teams for brand assets and creative teams for a wide range of artwork, video and new media. With the high level case for digital asset management made, how would a company start to build a business case and what advice can be offered to ensure the investment is realised quickly in times when budgets are under increasing scrutiny. The Business Case When DAM was in its infancy, the functionality offered was confined to the storage and distribution of media assets; lets call this pure-play DAM. Now there are solutions, such as the VYRE Unify platform, that provide a more holistic approach to managing digital assets, linking the assets to business processes and enabling companies to repurpose and publish these assets across multiple channels. This is where the potential to the business flourishes, as the ROI is not confined to storage and distribution of assets but also streamlining processes, agility and ultimately time to market for products and services. A couple of key examples will help bring this holistic approach and its benefits to life. The first is the major drinks manufacturer Diageo PLC that has over 200 brands across 180 regions. The assets that they store are brand assets, linked to the promotion of their drinks and over time the solution has evolved from a pure-play DAM solution to a campaign management tool and a brand guidelines tool. The benefits of this solution are substantial with an ROI of 1:10 made on the core DAM solution, these returns are focused around dramatic reductions in global distribution costs, reduction of time lost searching and enhanced speed in receiving approved assets. The campaign management tool also helps the company speed the time to market for campaigns and protects the integrity of the brand by ensuring compliance to brand and legal guidelines. Although these benefits are a little harder to quantify they are no less important, especially when brand consistency needs to be maintained across a high number of formats and regions. A further benefit of the campaign management tool is transparency of processes, as the performance of brand teams and partners can be monitored, inefficiencies identified and corrective action put in place. 4
With the efficient creation and management of rich media and brand related assets a core objective for Diageo, their deployment of VYRE Unify is still evolving in line with business needs. For instance, recently the solution has extended to web content management and is being used to manage a website that supports the anniversary of one of their flagship brands. Further still, departments outside the Marcoms teams are creating their own sites to manage processes such as innovation. The combined benefits of entire solution are expected to increase to 1:15 in 2009 and deliver multi- million pound savings to the business. A unified platform that delivers multiple rich media focused solutions provides great value to the business, as it addresses multiple business needs and the initial investment is realised across a range of business units. An additional benefit to highlight is that a single solution strategy reduces duplication of effort, not just across creative processes, but also internal IT resources, as they have a reduced number of systems, integrations and corresponding content repositories to support. The second example that highlights the benefits of system flexibility is Virgin Holidays. In this deployment again DAM is a core function. However, in addition to pure-play DAM, online businesses processes support assets, bringing efficiency to content creation for both web and brochures. For Virgin Holidays the main business drive was to decouple the production of content and assets for the web and brochures, allowing up to date provision of holiday information across all channels and significantly reducing the production time for brochure creation. This was achieved by the implementation of a content management and multi-channel publishing solution that streamlined the content creation processes. The solution has been named Red Squirrel and to meet the varying demands of the users there are many personalised views of the solution. For instance, the content teams go to a secure area to create and repurpose copy, the hoteliers to approve copy and photographs, the call centre staff view up to date information on holidays and the brochure team uses the solution to manage the entire brochure production process, from flat planning, integration with Adobe InDesign and the creation of print ready artwork. The return of investment for the Red Squirrel implementation on VYRE Unify has been significant with all of the company s brochures now built and configured online using the VYRE content management and digital asset management system. In more detail, Virgin Holidays has seen the following impressive benefits to date. A 50% reduction in the time it takes to produce brochures (with bigger 300pp brochures now produced within 5 weeks, as opposed to 10 weeks prior to the adoption of VYRE Unify) 5
A reduction in the average number of page proofs from 10-13 to 2-3, giving the tour operator much more control The brochure production and web content processes have been successfully decoupled, and there is no longer a reliance on the brochure cycle for web content. This is now completely independent, which means Virgin Holidays can be as responsive with its web content. As content and digital assets are held in a single repository they can now be easily repurposed for multiple channels. All this has improved efficiencies and streamlined processes. Furthermore, system controlled processes and workflows ensure all content is verified and version controlled. This is of utmost importance to the tour operator from a due diligence perspective. Hotels have been given the possibility to take ownership of maintaining their data. They can now upload images as well as leave comments informing Virgin Holidays of changes as and when they happen so that the tour operator can implement these on its website ensuring that the information on the Virgin Holidays website is up-to-date at all times. Virgin Holidays can now also pass on almost complete brochure pages to its designers. And designers and Virgin staff can also take advantage of the workflow approval features; reducing the time it takes as well as bringing more order, structure and clarity to this process. All this in turn reduces the costs involved in creating brochures and publishing this information to its website. Further developments within the system such as a page building tool have also enabled Virgin to reduce external agency spend. In 2008 this equated to 50% of its brochure titles being produced in house in 2009 the intention is to increase this to 100%. In terms of ROI the tour operator is anticipating a 1:2 return on its investment over the first two years. Secrets of Success Both of these projects have been implemented in adherence to an agile methodology. An agile deployment takes an iterative approach to a project by identifying the key business bottleneck, solving that challenge and then extending the solution based on previous success. The phased approach is particularly pertinent in the current climate, where many company boards are less likelyto take the big bang approach due to budgetary and risk considerations. The success of the iterative approach is intrinsically linked to the feedback of positive results, so ensure that initial processes are benchmarked and efficiency improvements are clearly analysed and promoted to the business. 6
The software as a service (SaaS) model can also be a genuine route to minimising risk and capital outlay to the business. Indeed, according to Frost and Sullivan, hosted alternatives are quickly gaining momentum a the solution of choice for the SME market over installed systems as users look to best manage their budgets and resources closely. Furthermore, the SaaSmodel can help minimise risk by allowing a company to begin with a small pilot and refine requirements and processes prior to launching on a large scale. In this model you are investing in an out of the box solution that is capable of addressing core DAM needs. The initial investment is lower due to the standardisednature of the product and as this model is provided as a hosted service you are also limiting the internal investment on infrastructure and resources. Of course, out of the box and lower cost does have limitations and in order to future proof the SaaSinvestment investigate three key points: can the solution be customised and expanded to fit future business needs, is the performance and scalability of the solution proven at an enterprise level, and if needed, as value and scope of the solution increases, could the solution be managed by in-house teams on a licensed rather than SaaS model. So to return to the initial question posed, is the current hype that surrounds DAM justified and how best safeguard your investment in response to current market conditions?? Time to Invest in DAM Justified, yes. Pure-play DAM solutions are limited in scope but have the potential to address a core business challenge and deliver an immediate ROI. Where the value to the business becomes significant is when the traditional boundaries of DAM are transcended, by not just concentrating on the management of assets but also bringing efficiency to marketing processes and multi-channel management, therefore increasing time to market for product and services. How best to project the business investment in DAM: indentify the key media asset and corresponding process bottleneck and implement in adherence to an agile methodology. Future-proof the investment by ensuring the solution can be expanded to meet multiple needs, such as campaign management, print management and web publishing and consider starting on a SaaS model to restrict the capital outlay to the business. 7
About the Sponsor VYRE Ltd VYRE Unify is a Content Management platform designed to automate the digital marketing supply chain. VYRE's single platform approach provides a range of solution options and unifies the worlds of content management, digital asset management and marketing resource management. The unified platform increases process efficiency and eradicates content silos, helping to drive down costs and deliver a quicker time to market for products and services. In support of the Unify solutions VYRE provides a full service offer that includes creative design, requirement analysis, project management, change management, support and hosting. VYRE clients include: Diageo PLC, Nokia PLC, Virgin Holidays, Inghams -, Oasis Community Learning, Queens University Belfast, ESPN STAR Sports, The Society of London Theatre, Blink Productions, Cambridge University Press, The AAT and IMG Media Group. About the Author Ruth Knight Ruth Knight is the sales and marketing director for VYRE and holds a Politics and Law degree from London University. Ruth is also a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, qualified to the Diploma level. Before joining VYRE in 2002, Ruth worked for The Guardian Media Group, September Films and Getty Images, pioneering new media as a channel to attract and retain loyalty. From December 2005 Ruth has been a member of the VYRE Board of Directors. 8