What is a Digital Asset Management system - DAM vs CMS

Despite the potential gains, many companies still ask themselves if they need a tool to manage all of their digital assets. In this article, we will answer that question.

What is a “digital asset”?

Digital assets can be any files, videos, images, documents, and other media your company has the right to use. Digital assets grow exponentially – the more a business grows, the more it's likely to need an expansive asset library. This often causes issues because without a tool to manage all these assets, things can quickly get out of hand.

Additionally, due to the emergence of cloud-based services and increased digitalization of services, companies store more assets each year. In fact, the DAM industry is expected to reach $26.3 billion by 2032 from $6.6 billion in 2023. As the digital ecosystem changes, digital asset management systems have had to adapt to new kinds of assets.

Here’s where modern digital asset management systems come in, they give businesses a tool to maintain a single source of truth and transparency of operations.

What is digital asset management system (DAM)?

According to the Gartner Glossary, a Digital Asset Management system is in charge of storing, managing and rendering rich media. This includes text, graphics, photos, audio, and video. Typically, DAM systems support all kinds of operations, from operational to administrative and both inside and outside organizations.

However, modern digital assets are not always in the media category only. They also include computer-aided design files, Internet of Things (IoT) data, user data, and structured content.

How do DAM systems work?

Most digital asset management systems work in a five-stage process:

1. Asset creation and encoding
2. Asset indexing and identification
3. Integration of asset into the business process
4. Creation of permissions for the asset
5. Beginning of asset lifecycle

While there were digital asset management systems in the 1980s, it wasn’t until 1992 with Cumulus (one of the first DAM systems) that DAM became a standard practice.

Cumulus introduced many of the features DAMS still have today, but lacked strong search capabilities. In the 2000s, server-based DAMS made files more searchable, and then cloud-based technology offered a decentralized way of storing and retrieving files. In 2020, we saw the introduction of AI and machine learning processes into the DAM.

Most modern DAMs are cloud-based and come integrated into content management systems and digital experience platforms, but there are also standalone solutions. However, DAM really reaches its true potential when used in conjunction with content management as it fuels content creation, creative production, and campaign management.

Benefits of digital asset management systems

The truth is that users want to organize the process of finding and consuming digital media files across different devices, which is what digital asset management systems were born to do. Take a look at the benefits of a DAM system:

Productivity

Searching for files is one of the most time-consuming tasks for many businesses—or it used to be. Thanks to DAM, everybody can locate files and folders quickly. In addition to cutting down on time to market, this simple access to universal resources can also contribute to improved brand consistency.

Process efficiency

You probably won’t find a DAM system out there working on its own as standalone software. In most cases, digital asset management systems become part of other software tools, particularly CMSs and DXPs. They integrate with CMSs to make asset management a part of a bigger, digital content creation workflow.

Less storage space

Many DAM systems implement data space reduction technologies, which enables them to store more content in both physical and cloud storage spaces.

Enhanced compliance

Digital asset management systems serve as a single source of truth for your company’s legal documentation, licenses, contracts, and every kind of regulatory compliance demands such as the GDPR.

Improved permissions and roles

DAM systems enable companies to apply rules and permissions to content and assets, guarding company assets against tampering and protecting user data from unauthorized access. Plus, centralized asset sources make it easier for team members to collaborate, as they’ll be working with all the same information.

What is an enterprise digital asset management system?

An enterprise digital management system includes all of the above features. However, its resources and design reflect the unique needs of large organizations. It also provides the flexibility for organizations of any size to scale up as they need to.

Digital management systems are also arguably more important to enterprise organizations than to their smaller counterparts. This is because all the benefits they offer – such as easy management, centralized information, and compliance/security – become more essential as the number of assets increases.

Thus, while businesses of any size can benefit from a DAM system, enterprise digital asset management is a crucial part of achieving an effective large-scale content strategy.

Do you need a DAM system?

To help guide you on your journey, we devised five situations where a DAM may be warranted. See if any apply to you!

You don’t have visibility over your assets

If you don’t know where your assets are, you need an asset management solution. Lack of visibility over assets means that you’ll end up having issues with a project at one point or another. DAM systems give you the ability to see every piece of information in your company, simplifying processes.

Your content is siloed across multiple platforms

DAM solutions provide users with a single repository to access and manage files. With a DAM system, your data isn’t scattered across different platforms. Rather, you gain the possibility of storing a single source of truth for all of your assets and organization tools (such as metadata and taxonomies) to make everything easier to find.

You need more than just a place to drop your assets

One of the good things about modern DAM systems is that they support the entire content lifecycle, especially if they are used in conjunction with a CMS. DAM systems support work-in-progress assets and give content editors a place to create and review them. When integrated with a DXP following the best-of-breed approach, editors gain all the tools they need to support their content.

You need to support different asset types

DAM systems are optimized for rich media and assets. Most also support structured content and give you more than just a media library. Digital asset management systems also allow you to support omnichannel content management and delivery. Additionally, they can be used by a larger number of users.

You send files across multiple groups and platforms

Digital asset management systems support your scaling business needs. They aren’t just a place to drop files. On the contrary, they support the creation and editing of assets across regions and groups, eliminating information silos. Also, DAM solutions, when integrated into a CMS, create a bridge across groups, connecting IT teams with marketers and sales teams.

How to choose a digital asset management system?

The truth is that for data-conscious companies, a DAM system is always a must. However, leveraging only a DAM might not do the trick. Modern companies who have set their minds to creating omnichannel digital experiences need an extra push if they want to go beyond asset management.

When selecting a digital asset manager (DAM) for your company, focus on features that enhance efficiency and adaptability. Here are key factors to consider:

• Powerful organization features: Choose a DAM that uses robust technologies, including AI, to automatically tag, categorize, and index assets. This makes it easier to find files quickly and reduces the time spent on manual organization.
• User permissions and access control: Look for a system with robust access controls, allowing you to assign user permissions. This ensures that only authorized individuals can view, edit, or share specific assets, maintaining security and compliance.
• Rich integration capabilities: A good DAM should integrate seamlessly with your existing tools and workflows. For companies using a headless CMS, ensure the DAM supports API-based integrations, enabling smooth collaboration between design, content, and development teams.

By choosing a DAM with these features, you can efficiently manage assets while ensuring flexibility and scalability across your organization.

A CMS and a Digital Asset Management system can co-exist within a single system

A modern CMS like Storyblok offers developers and marketers a robust DAM system packed into a top-of-the-line CMS that gives them all the tools to run a reliable digital content production environment. Our system goes beyond asset management. It gives you all you need to build and deliver digital experiences. It integrates asset management and takes it to the next level by adding digital content authoring tools.

Storyblok offers users a simplified asset search as well as metadata management. This can help you keep track of copyright information to ensure compliance. Storyblok also transforms, optimizes, and caches every image in a CDN, enabling fast content delivery of websites and apps, adding to the site’s UX and UI.

Moreover, Storyblok’s Visual Editor has taken it to the next level. Use our advanced in-engine image editor to have complete control over your assets: you can change filters, cropping, additional graphics, and more. The robust tagging system makes it easy to organize all of your assets, while the Activity tab instantly shows you every instance of its usage. Thanks to an intuitive dashboard, you can access all the important information on digital asset management systems from one centralized location.