Digital Asset Management as a Service
TeleScope OnDemand DAM as a Service extends the OnDemand Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering with the functions, resources and tools an organization requires to deliver an effective and useful DAM.
DAM as a Service gives you:
- TeleScope OnDemand – full featured, SaaS version of TeleScope
- Digital Librarian – Metadata definition & maintenance, asset quality assurance
- DAM Master – Governance, business rules, user management, system configuration
- Production Services – Workflow & creative services
- Support – training, rollout & help desk
Why Not Outsource your Digital Asset Management?
You understand your business. We understand DAM. Let North Plains run your DAM. For over 15 years North Plains has provided digital asset management expertise to hundreds of organizations around its award winning TeleScope™ Digital Asset Management platform. We understand rich media. We understand metadata management. We understand creative, production and distribution workflows across a variety of industries. We know about organizational change, training and rolling out a DAM across small, medium and global organizations. We know how to manage the system for change and growth. And we know how to understand your needs and tailor the DAM to them. We’ve provided a successful and growing Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) DAM offering to a variety of companies for the past 3 years. Let us provide the DAM Master, Digital Librarian and other services to you to make your DAM implementation successful. North Plains’ DAM as a Service: All the benefits. None of the overhead.
Why DAM as a Service?
Let’s face it; Digital Asset Management is a challenge. Every organization has digital assets – images, graphics, videos, documents, spreadsheets, and more. We all like to quickly find, share, reuse and distribute these assets when and how we need to. While we often wish that everyone in the organization had the same resource to search, use and distribute from, typically, disparate systems, legacy systems and broken workflows are the norm.
A digital asset management system is more than a repository of assets. It is a resource that requires staffing, hardware, software, time and effort to work properly to provide a ubiquitous and useful experience. If the DAM is to functionally support every facet of a business reducing costs, improving productivity and adding efficiency then it must be properly implemented and maintained.
Most organizations don’t have the internal resources readily available, the personnel, or the skill sets required to implement, manage and maintain the DAM. Some organizations opt to find, grow or hire the talent – the "DAM Masters"– that are required to govern, administrate and fine-tune the DAM, rollout new capabilities and train users. Others assign the role to an existing resource, often a marketing person, who may or may not actually have or be able to easily develop all of the necessary DAM skills to be successful in the near-term. The DAM Master plays a key role, one critical to the success of the DAM. Therefore, to improve success offloading the DAM Master as an external function of the business can allow internal resources to develop the skills required while still focusing on their primary role in the company. Utilizing an external DAM Master provides a skilled instantly available resource improving not only the bottom line in the near-term, but system adoptability, scale, and minimizing headaches & frustration inherent in any DAM implementation & management.
Beyond Resources, What About the Assets?
Digital media files, to be useable as assets in the DAM, require identification. Each asset needs to have information associated with it. This process of assigning information about a digital file to the file is referred to as metadata tagging. A file not tagged with metadata cannot be located, found and categorized.
Most organizations struggle to manage metadata effectively. Defining the metadata for every asset is a challenge. If metadata is not consistently applied and maintained with rigor, the digital file will be difficult or impossible to find. Therefore, it is imperative for the organization implementing DAM to define an initial overall scheme for their metadata (the taxonomy).
Once the taxonomy is defined, an organization will require a process to maintain and adjust their metadata approach over time to continually meet business needs. This organic metadata management process allows the organization to tap into a smart system which scales over time, increases the value and use of the DAM. Organic growth can’t happen unless a baseline exists, and ongoing work and discipline are applied.
Defining taxonomy and managing metadata can be a full time job. Unfortunately, regardless of company size, it is a fact: most people don’t like to tag assets. It is laborious and tedious. Studies continually report that creatives, the people initially closest to the asset when it is created, are reluctant to add metadata either during or at the end of the creative process when it is most needed. If they don’t do it… someone has to. Therefore, a Digital Librarian is a critical success factor in the DAM.
The Digital Librarian
The Digital Librarian’s role is akin to a physical librarian, who makes sure that the books are on the right shelves, and can be found in the card catalog. They create the metadata definition and manage the ongoing maintenance. He/she has a core required set of skills including defining the terms, categories and an organizational structure that meets the needs and workflows of the organization. The librarian may archive existing assets, mediate requests for changes to the taxonomy, roll them out to users, and assure that assets are properly tagged and that the metadata adheres to organizational standards.
The “digital librarian” role is one that few organizations typically already have on staff. Without a Digital Librarian the metadata definition and maintenance DAM projects require are bound to fail, or limp along without broad adoption.
DAM Success
Metadata management is only one of several required management functions for the DAM system to be successful across the organization. Additional functions include:
- Keeping the DAM synchronized with the needs of the business
- Establishing automated workflows in the DAM for asset-centric processes including creation, review, and distribution of video, images or finished works like a PDF, a brochure or an advertisement
- Providing user management, on-boarding, initial and ongoing training
- Monitoring and manage the system infrastructure itself for performance, scalability, expansion and the occasional troubleshooting.
Simply, DAM management fits into distinct functional roles:
- Digital Librarian – Performs metadata definition and maintenance, asset quality assurance and archival
- DAM Master – Provides governance, business rules, user management, system configuration
- Production Services – Develops workflows and oversees creative services
- Support – Provides training, rollout and help desk functions
While DAM support varies from organization to organization, often within the organization an individual tends to wear multiple hats and provides several of these functions. Most of the time, it is a combination of IT and line-of-business resources (e.g., marketing group or marketing operations) who administer the DAM. However, for most organizations it is difficult to fill these roles internally. Additionally the associated overhead cost provides a challenge to many organizations.
With DAM as a Service, you get up and running quickly. You’ll be able to find and use the assets and be on the road to a successful DAM right from the start. We’ll relieve you of the challenges of metadata maintenance, user management, governance, DAM to business alignment, training, help desk and other services involved in running the DAM. You run your business. Let North Plains run your DAM.
To request more information, please contact us.
