People shopping for DAM are understandably overwhelmed and confused about the shopping process for choosing a Digital Asset Management System. To understand how this unfortunate reality has come about, all one has to do is review the evolution of the DAM industry itself.

The Vendor Side

• Vendors develop Digital Asset Management products and supporting sales and service business models.
• Vendors provide product demonstrations to industry analysts while all touting their customer-first approach and high levels of customer satisfaction.
• Eager to please, all the DAM vendors respond with a “yes” check-mark to virtually every item on the RFP feature-matrix.

The Industry Resources

• Its much easier to compare and contrast product features rather than dispute competency and success of professional services, industry analysts provide businesses with their review of each vendor’s DAM products.
• Trade show, blogs, and other “neutral” content sites develop into breeding grounds for product feature wars while generally ignoring the successes and failures of real-world product implementations.

Potential Customers

• Businesses recognizing the need for a Digital Asset Management solution, begin their research by engaging industry analysts and sifting through the unfathomable amounts of content out there discussing DAM product features.
• Finding a disproportionate amount of information about the products and little discussion about implementation, the businesses ultimately creates a RFP feature-matrix to compare and contrast their potential DAM solutions.
• Excited businesses then receive surprisingly similar, although slightly different, product demonstrations from their leading vendors.
• With differences now boiling down to just a few feature differences, businesses begin focusing on the cost of the solution from each DAM vendor.
• Some may make the extra effort to demand and follow-up with customer references, inquire with industry analysts about the reputation, and/or investigate the longevity and financial standing of the DAM vendor.
• Once a selection has been made and pricing is in an agreeable range, businesses now begin to consider the details of the implementation.

The Outcome

• Perhaps recognizing how important the service will be and how little they know about the vendor’s capabilities to deliver, businesses will now begin to structure the contracts in a way that minimize their risk in the case of failure.
• Sand-box trial periods, delaying payments until after delivery, requesting source-code to be stored in escrow are all typical hedging practices to minimize the risk of failure, while little consideration is typically put into ensuring and maximizing a successful implementation.
• If the DAM vendor concedes enough to satisfy the businesses, the sale is completed and the implementation project begins.
• Maybe the vendor delivers enough to satisfy the business. But risk is high, given that the DAM system was purchased largely on product features, but long-term satisfaction is more dependent on the competence and commitment of the vendor providing the DAM. Too often, businesses then go back to the shopping process.

Our Recommendation

• Ask vendors for customers that have used their product for several years. Find out what kind of support they get and ask how their usage has evolved since implementation.
• Ask about specific scenarios, not just general feature overviews. Make sure the vendor has the expertise to tailor the solution to your needs and environment.
• Trust, but verify! Get references, ask questions.
• Look at this as a long term relationship, you need a partner that will support you and your organization as your work environment and technology evolves.