Drivers for change include the need to optimise access and distribution of content

19th Jan 2016 London, UK - North Plains has announced the results of its 2015 survey of how organisations are managing their digital marketing assets. Just under half of respondents work in the financial services sector, with the rest spread across other large ‘blue chip’ organisations.

70 per cent cited digital asset management (DAM) as extremely or very important. Exactly 50% are researching DAM, with around a third of those planning to optimize existing DAM systems. 13% are looking to implement or replace DAM systems in the next 6-12 months.

Key highlights of the findings:

60% use more than one method to store digital assets, with 40% having 3 or more methods (and as many as eight)
The biggest pain point is efficiencies around finding and distributing assets to multiple locations (78%)
Reliance on email to distribute assets has gone down from 61% (compared to 70% in 2014) yet 21% still rely solely on email for delivering digital assets.
Growth areas
Management of assets has come into sharper focus among the survey’s respondents, with this issue cited by 72 per cent compared to 62 per cent in 2014. Encouragingly, there is more emphasis on security: while 50% either did not have or did not know about any methods of securing digital assets in 2014, this number has dropped to just 32%.

Just under 25% of respondents also want to improve analytics, while compliance and rights management is important for a further 13%. Other priorities include better approval processes around assets (10%) and re-use or repurposing of assets that have already been created (12%).

Storage issues
The survey revealed that 60% of companies are using more than one method to store digital assets – even if they have a DAM – with over 40% having three or more methods and as many as eight in some cases. Apart from DAM systems, other methods include: local area networks (LANs), shared drives, FTP, CD or DVD and via their external agencies. Around half already use DAM to store digital assets, with fairly even adoption of server versus cloud-based systems.

Research basis
The research was carried out via email phone-based interviews by eMedia across UK-based executives with responsibility for digital asset management, with just under half of those being in the financial services sector. Other respondents typically working for FTSE100 or Times 1000 size of organisation, across manufacturing, utilities, oil and gas, construction and public services.