Are Outdated Tools Holding Back Your Brand’s Content Production?

From crossed wires to glacial file transfers, hybrid work has made creating and managing digital content more challenging for many businesses. As traditional ways of working become a thing of the past, digital asset management (DAM) platforms are helping companies ramp up productivity and prepare for the future.

The pandemic forced many companies to adopt hybrid working overnight. Although the workplace had been changing for years, this rapid transition exposed shortcomings that had long been papered over.

At the same time, with record numbers leaving their jobs, companies are losing experienced staff and struggling to onboard new hires fast enough. Meanwhile, organisations are finding it harder to create digital content, grappling with inefficiency and wasted time.

Yet teams continue to use platforms that weren’t designed for collaboration. Traditional cloud storage and remote servers lack the tools needed to quickly locate, edit, and share content like high-resolution images, videos, and audio files. Likewise, poor version control and clunky file sharing are undermining productivity, brand building, and customer relationships.

Companies Need the Right Tools as Hybrid Work Becomes the Norm

Still, data shows that companies are adopting new technology to help employees collaborate, share and produce digital work more efficiently. Canto’s 2021 “Evolution of Digital Asset Management” survey revealed challenges facing organisations when it comes to managing digital content and collaborative work.

The results show that companies with digital asset management (DAM) platforms are ahead of the curve, especially in the context of hybrid work.

55% of respondents expect teams to continue working remotely at least half of the time, while only 22% expect a full return to in-office working. To meet the needs of hybrid working, organisations must make collaboration and work sharing accessible to employees, no matter where they are.

But companies have been slow to adopt tools that make it easier to find, share, and collaborate on digital content. When it wasn’t clear how long remote work would last, many stuck with their existing software. Now that a new landscape is emerging, it’s time to manage digital assets more effectively.

Organising high volumes of assets is critical here. 15% of the companies surveyed have no centralised content management system, while 31% have a single source of truth that includes analytics and integrates with other systems.

This latter, “digitally mature” group is most likely to have a DAM system in place. The ability to easily access and share files drives productivity, especially with hybrid work. DAM platforms can help organisations ramp up productivity, yet 20% of respondents still store their digital assets locally, while 3% have no organised solution at all.

Poor Digital Asset Management is Holding Teams Back

Cloud storage platforms, like Google Drive and Dropbox, remain popular. Yet these tools aren’t suited to high-volume digital asset management, with limitations around version control, tagging, rights management, and finding and sharing assets quickly.

Many organisations simply don’t manage their digital assets as well as they could. With a more sophisticated approach they could reduce manual work, creating more room for higher value tasks.

In fact, 39% of respondents say manual work is their biggest pain point. Another 34% report a lack of integration, while 31% complain of version control issues, which also limit productivity.

What’s more, 58% of respondents say duplicating work has become more challenging, undermining productivity and job satisfaction. Miscommunication is another big pain point for 47% of respondents, with another 53% saying they found it harder to find the right assets at the right time.

These difficulties are barriers to production, with half of organisations saying that creating assets quickly is more challenging now than it was 12-18 months ago. Despite this, 56% of respondents say that creating more content is a priority, with 59% looking to improve efficiency.

Resource-constrained teams find it hard to perform fast enough. Yet many organisations overlook the benefits of DAM platforms, which create a single source of truth for digital assets, increase collaboration between teams, improve workflow, integrate with other productivity tools, and have analytics capabilities.

Yet, 60% of organisations say they’re satisfied with their current approach. While some organisations have been slow to act to the demands of the hybrid workplace, this hesitancy also suggests that many firms haven’t yet grasped the benefits of more sophisticated asset management.

An Investment in Digital Asset Management is an Investment in the Future

To publish more content, improve collaboration, and liberate resources, you need to invest in tech that drives productivity, brand storytelling, and job satisfaction.

Digitally mature respondents report greater benefits: they’re 13% more likely to find content easily, 9% more likely to say they have better collaboration, 15% more likely to report improved brand management, and 6% more likely to say they create content quickly.

These benefits align with their goals for 2022, showing that digitally mature firms are better prepared for the future. When asked about how they measure effectiveness, the digitally mature group uses a range of metrics; they’re 12% more likely to look at increased employee productivity, increased web page views, and metrics around increased bookings, sales, or demos.

Overall, data measurement is higher in the digitally mature group by 3-12%. Those with a maturer approach to digital assets also appear to have dealt better with the impact of the pandemic, with fewer of them reporting resource constraints and miscommunication.

Organisations are seeking to ramp up content creation, but are already facing bigger challenges with creating, sharing, and managing digital assets. Resource constraints and hybrid work only adds to these challenges, as knowledge is lost and new employees take time to be onboarded.

Investing in technology that helps them manage their digital work and meet business goals are critical here. A mature approach to DAM that creates a single source of truth, with both analytics and integrations can improve efficiency, brand management, and collaboration.

Taken together, these improvements make it possible to scale content creation more effectively, with organisations that have invested in digital asset management doing just that. By streamlining collaboration and making it easier to locate the right content, a DAM platform ensures that teams are spending more time producing content instead of wrestling with outdated solutions.

This makes platforms like?Canto?invaluable for helping companies thrive in a competitive marketplace that rewards speed. To learn more about the findings of Canto’s evolution of digital asset management survey and why some organisations experience fewer pain points and enjoy better results,?download the report .

By Erica Gunn, CMO at Canto