Digital Asset Management (DAM) Implementation
Kinaxis
Implement a Digital Asset Management (DAM) System
Project Overview
THE OPPORTUNITY
Kinaxis decided to implement a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system to establish a single source of truth for their final marketing files. The implementation of the system would eliminate the need for multiple systems used to store and host marketing files, control versioning, and allow users to only access files that aided in their role/position.
THE HURDLE
Because Kinaxis did not have an existing DAM system, the hurdle was getting a handle on the organization of the existing marketing files and working with the teams under Marketing to ensure that a DAM system would be chosen to fit their needs and be structured in a way that they were able to easily access, navigate, and locate their own team’s files.
THE SOLUTION
Interviews were conducted with various members, leads, and business stakeholders from the teams under Marketing to understand where and how their teams were managing files and how a DAM system could help their team. The interview findings helped to create the business requirements, which ultimately led to a vendor being selected, and the system being built and implemented.
DETAILS
Project Length: 1 year
Team: 9 people
Role: Content Marketing Library Specialist and Production and Digital Asset Management (DAM) Specialist
My Contributions:
DIGITAL ASSET MANAGEMENT
COLLABORATION
TAXONOMY
USER ACCEPTANCE TESTING
TRAINING
Discover & Learn
RESEARCH PERFORMED
Prior to the Digital Asset Management (DAM) system being selected, the following items and questions needed to be addressed:
Access: The IT Department provided me with access to the 12 platforms and systems the Marketing Team was utilizing to store and host files.
Interviews: I interviewed 15 various members and leads from the seven teams under Marketing (that made up the larger marketing team) to answer the following questions regarding the platforms and systems:
Who is the owner?
What is the platform/system type?
How many licenses are included and how many have been issued?
Who has access?
How is it being used?
Are file naming conventions used?
Does it have metadata fields? If so, how are they being populated?
What are its pros and cons?
Workflow: I met with the Production Manager to understand the lifecycle of a marketing file. It was important to know how creative from the Marketing Team was being requested, worked on, approved, stored, hosted, and published.
Team: The Marketing Operations Team assigned a project manager, three members from the Information Technology (IT) Team, and a senior buyer to help me throughout the DAM implementation project.
Strategize, Plan, & Present
PLANNING PERFORMED
After the initial items were addressed and answered, I was able to start planning how to gather the DAM business requirements and provide a recommendation on how to better organize the existing marketing files.
DAM Business Requirements
Presentation: After interviewing the 15 various members and leads from the seven teams under marketing. I created and walked through a presentation with business stakeholders from the aforementioned teams to educate them on what a DAM system is, how it could serve as the solution to the business problem, and help their teams in the future (snapshot below).
Gather Requirements: After the presentation, I met with the business stakeholders one on one to learn their team’s requirements for a DAM.
Author Requirements: The project manager provided me with the project intake form and guided me through how it needed to be populated.
Submit Requirements: After I populated the project intake form with the business requirements, I submitted the document to the IT Team for review. Several members from the IT Team met with me. In the meeting, I talked through the business requirements line by line, made a case for why a DAM was the only solution to the business problem (as opposed to using any of the existing systems from the technology stack (“tech stack”), and answered any questions they had.
File Management: I proposed a folder restructure and naming conventions for the organization of the existing marketing files. These files would eventually be migrated to a DAM (click here to view the project page).
Evaluate
After the DAM business requirements were reviewed with IT, DAM vendors were selected for evaluation. The DAM vendors were selected based on the business requirement of the DAM system having an integration with the following systems/platforms: Drupal, Highspot, and Okta.
Capabilities Evaluated: There were many items to discuss with the DAM vendors on how their systems were configured, organized, and what capabilities they offered (snapshot below).
Recommendation & Approval
After speaking with the DAM system vendors, I created and walked through a presentation with the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) to provide him with my system recommendation, answer any questions he may have, and receive his approval (snapshot below).
DAM Recommendation: The DAM that I recommended was Bynder.
Approval: The CMO gave me his approval to move forward with the Bynder DAM.
Contract & Sign Off
After notifying Bynder that we wanted to move forward in the purchase of their DAM system, we were provided with the contract. I reviewed the contract for accuracy in the following areas: order summary, subscription and pricing, and the statement of work. The senior buyer then negotiated the price, and the CMO signed off.
Build & Testing
After the contract was signed, Bynder assigned two Customer Onboarding Managers to guide us through the initial DAM system setup, then transitioned us to a Customer Success Manager to further customize the system and get it ready for the launch and training of users.
Initial Setup
Branding: The logo, favicon, color scheme, and URL were set to align with the company’s branding.
2. Integration: The integration with Highspot was configured.
3. Taxonomy: The taxonomy and metadata was created to help classify and define the company’s assets.
2. Further Customization: The following items were worked on to further setup the system:
Homepage: The homepage is where users are brought after they login.
Asset Bank: The asset bank is where users can access the assets that have been uploaded to the system. The assets that are available are based on user permissions.
Brand Guidelines: The brand guidelines is an area of the system that is accessible from the homepage. This is where users can access the brand guidelines and assets.
Resources: Resources is an area of the system that is accessible from the homepage. This is where users can access documentation and helpful resources.
Taxonomy: The taxonomy and metadata were refined to help classify and define the assets.
3. Testing: The Bynder DAM had one environment (as opposed to a staging and production environment). The User Acceptance Testing (UAT) was completed as the system build progressed. A small group of users with different user permissions from two of the teams under Marketing tested the functionality. The teams were the following:
Corporate Marketing Team: The Corporate Marketing Team is the team that completes the creative for the company, manages its’ content, and would be using the DAM to store their final creative assets. The team is made up of content, design, video, web, and production employees.
Industry and Solutions Marketing Team: The Industry and Solutions Marketing Team is the team that is responsible for Highspot, which is a sales enablement platform. This system would integrate with the DAM.
4. Final Build (snapshot below)
Access: The DAM was accessible via the custom URL and Okta, which is a platform that allows for single sign-on (SSO).
Homepage: The homepage provided navigation links to the other areas of the system as well as documentation, quick links, and helpful resources.
Assets: The Corporate Marketing Team’s creative files were moved from the network drive into the DAM (documents, images, photography, videos, etc…).
Asset Bank: The asset bank smart filters were configured to help the user refine their search.
Taxonomy: The taxonomy and metadata were refined to help classify and define the assets.
Brand Guidelines: The brand guidelines was setup so users could access the company’s brand guidelines and assets.
Resources: Resources were setup so users could access documentation and helpful resources.
User Permissions: Users were assigned to a specific permission type in order to control what they could do in the system as well as what assets they could access.
Final Implementation
Once testing was successfully completed, I was able to launch the DAM to the Marketing Team. Moving off of the network drive into the DAM system, resulted in the following:
The Marketing Team (approximately 70 employees) were introduced to what a DAM system is and educated on how it could help their team
A new workflow to manage the lifecycle of creative assets was implemented
The DAM was configured to set user access, create taxonomy, set up the system homepage, asset bank, brand guidelines, and documentation to ensure a seamless user experience
More than 10,000 marketing files from the network drive were uploaded, assigned metadata, and organized into the DAM system
DAM documentation was created and trainings were held for fellow team members to understand and know how to most efficiently use the system
BUSINESS IMPACT
The action taken to implement the DAM system resulted in the following:
Established a single source of truth for marketing assets
Refined the number of systems used to store and host marketing assets from four to one
Provided users with a more efficient experience in locating marketing assets to utilize, reference, reuse, or revise