With the enhancement of technology, consumers require flawless experiences in everything they do.
Be it at home, with their smartphone, car, or work-space, the ease of handling tasks should be at the snap of a finger.
To have a seamless experience at the workspace, companies need to have an organised structure to store, access and retrieve files. The sum of digital content generated every day in an organisation is overwhelming, thus requiring the need to have content management and digital asset management systems.
With the ever-growing digitization, CMS and DAM is essential in an organisation to maintain a structure and access information quickly.
To begin with, let’s understand what a CMS and DAM is all about.
You must have heard about a content management system or CMS, since the word is buzzing continuously.
In the olden days of digital, to publish a blog or update a website, one had to rely on static website servers and upload directly. That means all the updates had to be hard-coded through standard web programming techniques.
Understanding Content Management System or CMS
Content is the information and communication related to business documents, manuals, files, audio clips, images, video, marketing, and other types of written and digital data. CMS is a software application or set of programs, that allows one to create and manage this digital content.
Developing a website with a content management system helps to simplify and streamline workflows, and enable the team members to maintain website and content without the need of a formal technical background. Common examples of a CMS are WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Magento, Wix, Shopify and Squarespace amongst others.
The reason a CMS is preferred by users is because it provides the facility to create, edit, add, review, publish, distribute, track, archive and update web data and website information. It also allows companies to store content online and provide direct communication with the audience. With that, you get access to deploy content across different platforms and measure content performance in real-time.
But one of the most attractive reasons to use a CMS is the ability to upload, edit, and delete content from a website or a webpage, without the knowledge of HTML, CSS, or other coding languages. The type of CMS to be used by the industry depends on your business’ requirements.
Although a CMS is excellent at managing and publishing content from anywhere in the world, it is still weak at storing digital assets. For this, a Digital Asset Management (DAM) is required.
Digital Transformation with Digital Asset Management
Digital transformation is about making use of technology to enhance your business and improve revenue.
Digital Asset Management (aka DAM) is a great option to have a central repository of content with dynamic rights based access to users within your company, to your partner network as well as customers. DAM improves operational efficiency by making the most of the available resources.
Also Read: Benefits of Digital Asset Management for your Digital Transformation
A Digital Asset is a digital file which has some value to the organisation. Images, videos, text files, presentations, graphics, logos, pdf, etc. are all examples of digital files. Digital Asset Management is the process of storing, searching and sharing digital assets for easy retrieval when needed.
The digital assets can be stored locally on a server, digital device (be it a laptop, tablet, media player, etc.), or in the cloud. These stores are like a centralized digital library for all the digital assets that can be accessed by employees, partners and clients.
Another purpose of a Digital Asset Management System is to provide workflow automation for easy content modification, approval and storage. Find files, track usage, contain repositories, gather backups and archives, and provide other solutions and easy use of things, all through your DAM software.
The combined advantage of Content Management & Digital Asset Management
Today, companies are using both CMS and DAM to streamline their workforce and be more productive. While one provides the storage and ease of accessibility of files, the other gives the user a feature to manage content effectively.
The combined power of CMS & DAM has led to the growth and success of the business while maintaining quality and consistency. Businesses need a Content Management System & Digital Asset Management System maintain internal efficiencies and handle growth.
Here’s how:
Improved Efficiency
Firms that do not use CMS, waste a lot of their time in editing, publishing and making changes to website content.
Team members have to follow a long process even to make a small change in the content. The challenge is that once the process of request starts, it might take forever to make a change in the content running the risk making it obsolete by the time it hits the site. With a CMS, one does not have to depend on anyone and can quickly push content on the website.
Moreover, using DAM side by side, one can synchronise the workflow and find the right assets quickly and easily. Content Management & Digital Asset Management together can help organise and categorise assets, increasing the rate of production.
Leverage Institutional Memory
Some valuable information stored is present in different places.
For example, the processes, messages, rules, etc. are stored in emails, conversations, and other forms of content. It is quite challenging to extract information through different means.
A DAM and CMS can help in such a situation. By giving a way for users to create documentation, store them in a central accessible location, firms are leveraging institutional memory and have the ability to keep a record of even the tiniest information.
In this a DAM is used to store internal assets for the productivity aspect, while a CMS allows employees to document the process in a single place.
Cost Cutting
Using Content Management System & Digital Asset Management together can boost a company’s service and reduce cost.
With a CMS, the cost of building and maintaining your website is reduced. A DAM, on the other hand, saves time and value of the employee. Searching for relevant files or recreating content can be a huge waste of time and resources. But using DAM one frees up the time of employees and lets them focus on more critical tasks.
Research claims that companies that don’t use DAM solutions spend over $44,000 to manage assets. Companies with DAM solutions save around $189,000 in just five years
What is your opinion?
Content Management System & Digital Asset Management are of great use when appropriately implemented.
Both complement each other; for example, a CMS is good at publishing and a DAM is good at storing well tagged business assets.
Many medium and large companies are already using CMS and DAM to obtain seamless experiences at scale.
At first, the task of adopting CMS and DAM solutions can seem daunting. But with the increased efficiency and reduced publishing time, one quickly realises the value.
Let us know your views and thoughts on content management and digital asset management for your company.