Digital Asset Management is a term that applies to the management of digital assets (images, documents, videos, etc.) by and for an organization. This is done by structuring them and organizing them and making them available to the users who want to exploit them.
The assets are stored and retrieved through various interfaces and portals. Digital Asset Management is closely related to other aspects of business intelligence, like information management or content management. But the aim of Digital Asset Management is a bit different – it is to make all the digital assets available to the users in an organized manner so that they can be retrieved whenever needed.
Having a proper digital asset management business process workflow to manage these assets is essential for an organization to be productive.
8 Ways Digital Asset Management Workflow Can Help Improve Your Productivity
A digital asset management workflow is simply a software or organizational tool that helps users store, organize, search for and collectively share digital content. Digital Assets range from things like creative assets, digital files, animation files, audio files, and other rich media files. There are many ways that digital asset management workflow can strongly benefit a company. Here are 8 important reasons.
1. Speeding up Approval Workflows
First and foremost, having a more organized digital space will allow for quick and easy file access. This will strongly speed up approval workflows. Users will no longer have to “hunt” for assets. This will have massive impacts on efficiency as currently, 54% of U.S office professionals spend more time searching for documents than other activities, such as emails. Additionally, with better organization, resources can be stored in a centralized area.
This way, when projects from the past resurface, clients can find old drafts, logos, and digital content with ease. Multiple sources of info can be focused in a single streamlined flow of information encouraging strong communication and teamwork when working together. With features like automatic tagging features and a better tracking system of creative assets, approval workflows can be sped up to complete a faster series of tasks!
2. Notifying Users About New Assets
Another large benefit of having a strong digital asset management workflow is the ability to notify users about new assets. For example, by fathering a central warehouse for all project assets, and resources, different departments, and employees can come together. That way, once an employee is finished with their portion of the digital content, it can immediately be added to a specified folder. This allows for stronger collaboration and communication across teams and departments.
As well, there are fewer administrative processes and work-around between sending assets back and forth between team members before being finalized. More specifically, approval workflows ensure no time is wasted on planning out logistical tasks between users; more time can be spent on content creation, for example! Truly a win-win situation for the company, any clients, and the employees themselves!
3. Increasing Transparency Over Pending Assets
Another perk of using a digital asset management workflow is the increased transparency over pending assets. With this organizational software, task management just got so much easier. With automatic tagging tools, task lists, and search processes, any involved users can track the progress of these digital files. That way, there is no need for constant follow-ups or wondering what happened to the work assigned.
Essentially all your assets are safe and secure. Everything is in one place and you can see at what stage of development each file is. From there, users can have more transparency over which assets and pending and why. With automation features, specific pop-ups or explanations can be instantly provided with ease. Overall, implementing these systems largely benefits employee dynamics and collaboration.
4. Rerouting Unprocessed Assets with Escalation Policies
As mentioned before, digital asset management software aid in the organization of digital files. Thus, one large advantage would be the ability to reroute unprocessed assets using established escalation policies. With various analytics features and requirements, companies can automate unprocessed assets to be rerouted to specific locations. This improves the efficiency of approval workflows and prevents any issues with unprocessed assets that are accidentally let through into approved sections.
Additionally, this provides clearer accountability to users. For example, designated employees can deal with unprocessed assets and can be trained to carry out escalation policies; minimizing the amount of back-and-forth work between users. Not only will time be saved but companies can progress with much less human error- for example, you wouldn’t want an incomplete digital file to be publicized to the client!
5. Improves and Streamlines Version Control
One of the largest benefits of an organized workflow process would be the improved and streamlined version control. With repeatable processes, everyone can easily understand the steps required, when they need to complete them, and the time duration for each. Questions like “how do I finish this” and “what do I work on next” can be minimized and saves other higher-ups time from explaining the same simple processes over and over again. Having more streamlined version control makes the lives of managers and employees a lot easier.
As well, outside parties have visibility on project status and can follow a series of steps at every stage of the completion process. All parties are clear on what their job duties are and can now complete them to the best of their abilities.
6. Makes Assets Sharing Easy & Secure
As mentioned before, having a centralized location for digital assets makes sharing and collaborating THAT much easier. Not only is it much easier to collaborate, but assets are shared more securely and privately. For example, features like specific login accessibility and various security requirements like two-factor authentication prevent any unauthorized access. This largely improves communication between team members as they can track all changes simultaneously.
Additionally, things don’t get lost as everything can be found on a ‘cloud’. It won’t be like making changes to your personal folder that don’t get transferred to the centralized locations. Assets can be edited collaboratively and securely.
7. Optimizes Creative Workflow
With so much time saved, digital asset management workflow ensures a focus on creative workflow. So whether this is working on creative content, various rich media files, or even animation, users can focus on this core component, rather than administrative or logistical duties. With fewer next-step meetings with managers, employees can truly optimize their personal creative workflows. For example, employees can save the time they would have needed to undergo steps for approval by using a streamlined approval process.
Instead, this time can be used for developing digital content for clients. Quicker turnaround times result in happier clients and stronger client-company relationships! This is especially relevant as An IDC survey found that 85% of marketers say they’re under pressure to create more assets, with 71% saying they’re creating 10 times as many assets today as they did just a few years ago. (nuxeo.com)
8. Reduces Overhead, Costs, and Saves Time
Last but not least, digital asset management workflow reduces overhead costs and save time! As reiterated in several points, a company’s time is extremely precious. By spending less time on overhead costs, such as administrative reworks, inefficient aids, and unspecific onboarding training material, companies can focus on streamlined specific steps. For example, when an employee wants to get some work edited, they have to email the editor the digital file, explain what needs to be done and the objective, and wait for them to respond.
With streamlined workflows, digital assets have tagged features, status updates, and automatic notifications when a designated employee is requested for a task. Although it may not seem like much, time is money and every employee can benefit from spending less time on redundant tasks.
Use Jetdocs for Digital Asset Management Workflow
Overall, Jetdocs is an amazing example of Digital Asset Management workflow software that any employee can use! With so many benefits from speeding up streamlined workflows to increasing transparency of assets to overall profitability, digital asset management is fit for all types of companies. This can range from startups, and partnerships, to even corporations!
