Project Planner: Costing out a Digital Asset Management System

What keeps you up at night? It’s not the 30 gigabytes a day in digital assets your company is on pace to generate. It’s how—and by whom—those assets are being used. Your midsize media company had been getting by with a patchwork of document, asset and rights management systems, but the explosion in data size and the need to control your branded content make it clear: It’s time to deploy a large-scale, high-capacity, high-throughput digital asset management system. A DAM platform will allow you to manage everything from storage and backup to search and retrieval to rights and revenue around your digital files.

The first-year rollout will be dedicated to customizing and bringing online the application modules—including meta-data tools, access privileges, search and file priority—that make up the DAM platform. You’ll also aim to get at least three years of archived content live, in some cases even mapping to legacy systems. And while you’ll rely heavily on outside help, do yourself a favor up front and do your DAM homework. “Companies that are super-prepared are the ones that have really mapped out their processes and figured out where DAM can help them be more efficient,” says Julie Mandell of Open Text Corp.’s Artesia Digital Media Group.

To see the details behind this Planner and fill in your own estimates, click on the “Get the Tool” icon above and download the interactive worksheet.