When Sharedien Belongs on Your DAM Shortlist

1. Introduction

Marketing and e-commerce teams face the challenge of supplying an increasingly complex landscape of communication channels with the right product messages while maximizing quality as well as speed, efficiency, and consistency. In addition, personalization is becoming increasingly important, and content today must be tailored to specific target groups, channels, and countries in order to achieve its full impact. As a result, the amount of content generated by companies is growing rapidly. Even though producing this content is no longer a major challenge thanks to modern AI tools, companies are becoming increasingly dependent on effective management and syndication solutions that support them in efficiently managing this content and distributing it across various channels.

Accordingly, demand is rising for software systems that support centralized content management, partially or fully automated production, and the creation of use-case-specific derivatives (such as image crops or additional file formats) in order to distribute them directly to different output channels. Even though digital asset management systems are becoming indispensable within companies’ digital value chains, project owners repeatedly face the challenge of getting such investments approved. They are often responsible for building business cases, calculating ROI models, and quantifying the business value of the future software as realistically as possible.

In this article, we address the key questions involved in the software system selection process and identify the central KPIs on which a solid business case can be built.

2. How exactly does a software selection process work?

Definition of requirements

Any software selection process should begin with a comprehensive definition of internal requirements. To do this, it is important to develop as extensive a picture as possible and involve all relevant stakeholders. In the case of Digital Asset Management, these typically include marketing and e-commerce teams, channel managers, as well as product management and PIM managers whose area of responsibility is closely connected to the DAM system. Ultimately, all relevant information must be gathered to answer the following questions:

• What data currently exists and in what format?
• What do the production, management, and distribution processes look like in detail?
• Which channels are supplied with which data?
• Who is responsible for which data at which points in the digital value chain?
• Which additional channels are planned for the future and how must media assets be prepared for them?

All of these questions provide insights into the required functional scope and the technical capabilities that a new DAM system must offer in order to deliver the highest possible business value for the company.

Market research

Based on the defined requirements, the next step should be to take a close look at the current DAM market. An initial starting point can be market overviews from analysts or comparison platforms such as OMR Reviews. As part of the research, it is crucial to verify whether the shortlisted systems meet the following criteria:

• ICP (Ideal Customer Profile): Every DAM system has a more or less clearly defined customer profile, primarily determined by company size, product portfolio, and industry. It is important to consider only those DAM solutions that are specialized for your company type.
• Partner strategy: Implementing a DAM system can be challenging depending on the complexity involved. So it’s all the more important that experienced implementation partners ensure that best practices are incorporated, the roadmap is effectively managed, and risks are minimized.
• Integration strategy: The DAM is a central building block of the digital value chain and must therefore be closely connected to adjacent solutions and tools in order to optimally support data processes. These include PIM as well as CMS, e-commerce platforms, image databases, and graphic design tools.
• Functional scope: Every company has individual ways of working—and the same applies to Digital Asset Management. Some DAM systems focus primarily on managing assets for quick retrieval and centralized provision of content for connected channels. Other DAM systems support the creative asset creation process with extensive features such as project management, automated image editing, and review and approval processes. While a detailed analysis of functional aspects takes place later during system evaluation, the longlist should exclude solutions that clearly do not meet the functional requirements.

System evaluation

In this step, the selected vendor solutions are examined in greater detail and evaluated precisely based on internal requirements. Demos, vendor workshops, and RFPs (requests for proposal) are helpful here—the goal should be to gather as much information as possible in order to ensure valid comparability of system solutions. This also applies to the commercial aspects of the most suitable solutions once the negotiation phase begins.

The role of the integrator

At this point, the importance of the implementation partner’s role should once again be emphasized. Digital Asset Management is a discipline whose business value depends heavily on data processes. Whether it’s creating digital content, linking with relevant product data, or distributing product content to various output channels, an efficient process landscape with high automation potential requires clean integration of data and system solutions. However, it also requires a digitalization partner who, with best practices and strong software and change management expertise, helps elevate the organization itself to a future-ready level.

All key criteria at a glance

The following selection criteria are vital and should be part of any system evaluation:

• Market position: The size and market position of a software provider may be relevant for some companies in their decision-making process. This may also mean that project owners prefer national or even regional providers with whom in-personal communication is possible.
• Footprint: Market experience is also important—both generally and within the company’s specific industry of operation. The longer a software provider has been active in the market and the greater the number of reference customers, the better the chances that relevant use cases can be covered by the system without much effort.
• Implementation partners: For software providers, partner strategy is a key pillar for growth and market penetration. An active and growing partner network ensures that customer needs can be addressed better, more reliably, and faster. For many project teams, a regional partner is also an important criterion in system selection.
• Technical partnerships: Partnerships with technology providers indicate that integrations have already been implemented in previous projects and that standardized interfaces may even have been developed. Strong alignment of the partner landscape with a company’s system architecture provides the best conditions for efficient system integration.
• Software design: Software design influences the future viability of a solution and the flexibility with which a software system can be adapted to future requirements. Today, companies need a comprehensive software strategy—technology guidelines according to which new software is procured. It is advisable to consider only cloud-native SaaS or PaaS solutions in order to ensure interoperability within the digital value chain and the ability to replace software systems with minimal effort.
• Data modeling: The data model is the heart of every DAM solution. In Sharedien, entity types—e.g., digital content such as images or documents, relationships between content, photographers, or even contracts—are defined, enriched with all relevant attributes, and placed in meaningful relation to one another. This gives e-commerce teams, for example, the necessary flexibility to equip individual sales channels with the right offers and bundles.
• Import and export: Like any other data management system, a DAM solution must be able to import and export data as easily as possible—and in a variety of ways. While many retail companies source product images from the Global Data Synchronization Network (GDSN) or a supplier portal, bilateral data exchange via hot folders (monitored file folders through which two or more systems can automatically exchange data) is still common in many places. DAM solutions should also be able to import both unstructured data and metadata, for example via XLS.
• Data management: An important area of system evaluation is data management. It is important to understand how the system covers tasks within the scope of data maintenance. This includes topics such as bulk mutation or automated image processing, the definition of business roles, and task management.
• User experience: Of course, modern DAM solutions must offer a contemporary user experience—which is indispensable for ensuring high user adoption. Versatile user views, individual dashboards, and drag-and-drop functions are standard today.
• Innovation: The Digital Asset Management software space has been developing rapidly for several years. AI topics and automation in particular, but also user experience, are showing ever shorter innovation cycles. Therefore, during system evaluation, pay close attention to the roadmap and examine to what extent it aligns with your own expectations for Digital Asset Management.

3. When is a DAM system worthwhile?

Many companies fail to recognize when simple file storage no longer meets their actual Digital Asset Management requirements. The need for action is often only recognized once negative consequences become apparent. The most important signs of the need for a modern DAM solution are:

High internal costs

Digital content such as images, photos, and graphics are important components of effective product communication. This is especially true in fast-paced digital commerce, where brand companies have just a few milliseconds of potential customers’ attention and competition is everywhere.

At the same time, traditional production of digital content is expensive: photo shoots, graphic design, image editing, and video production require time, expertise, and quality assurance. While content and media production is currently undergoing a radical transformation thanks to AI, drastically reducing production costs, the content must be used effectively in order to ensure a high level of investment security. Product images generally remain valid and relevant for a long time and can therefore be used for multiple campaigns and communication channels.

However, once digital content has been used, it is often stored somewhere—worst case locally—and simply forgotten about. Most companies without a DAM system are not even aware of what digital assets they actually have. As a result, each new campaign requires costly new productions, leading to avoidable internal costs.

Slow time-to-market

Another clear sign that marketing and e-commerce teams need software-supported content processes is a slow time-to-market. If the production, maintenance, and distribution of digital content takes a long time, it means too much manual work is involved. For example, searching for relevant assets simply takes too long. Or approval and review processes are inefficient, or it is unclear which file version is current and which changes have been made. All of this costs time—and in the worst case, competitive advantage.

Poor data quality

The problem of data quality is familiar to most companies. Even with a DAM system, the right data governance rules and processes are required to achieve the desired content quality. Duplicates, missing or incorrect metadata, or an insufficient number of image derivatives for all relevant channels lead to an overlarge volume of data, uncertainty about how to use the data, and, in the worst case, too few important communication channels.

This can negatively impact conversion rates and customer satisfaction. Inconsistent product communication, high return rates, and even brand damage may result.

Modern DAM systems like Sharedien offer intelligent maintenance processes such as auto-tagging and rule-based review and maintenance workflows. They also provide automated data quality checks that help marketing and e-commerce teams continuously optimize content quality and avoid risks in digital commerce.

Increasing number of channels

The greater the number of digital channels, the higher the revenue potential. Websites, apps, social media, online marketplaces, and retailer portals multiply digital presence and thus the opportunity to strengthen the brand and present the product offering to the widest possible target audience.

In order to fully leverage this potential, precise communication is required—using the right product content for each channel, addressed to the right target group. For digital content, this means it must be available in multiple forms to meet these individual and specific requirements. An ad on Instagram must look different from an ad on Amazon. Google Ads places different requirements on product content than MediaMarkt or Otto.

This complexity in the creation, maintenance, and delivery of digital content cannot be managed without a modern DAM system like Sharedien. It’s vital for scalable product marketing.

4. When Sharedien belongs on the DAM shortlist

As described in section 2, companies should only consider DAM providers whose solutions were developed for their requirement profile. If the selected system is too extensive in its functional and technical coverage, investment costs are generally too high, which usually significantly reduces ROI. If the selected solution has too little coverage, companies limit themselves from the outset, and Digital Asset Management processes cannot be expanded and scaled in the future.

A careful selection process therefore sets the course for sustainable and future-proof software procurement. The following list outlines the key characteristics of companies for which Sharedien is an ideal DAM choice. Companies that recognize themselves in these points should definitely put Sharedien on their shortlist:

• Consumer goods market: For many years, Sharedien has been strongly positioned in the consumer goods industry. Companies such as Beiersdorf use Sharedien as the heart of their internationally successful communication strategy.
• Retail: Retail customers also benefit from numerous best practices. With customers such as Otto, even highly complex use cases are handled with strong performance—and peak loads are reliably absorbed.
• Manufacturing: Manufacturing companies, including those in more technical industries, will find the ideal Digital Asset Management solution in Sharedien: whether 3D images, CAD drawings, or instruction manuals—Sharedien can manage any type of digital asset and easily represent configurable products. With its generic entity model, creating any type of relationship is also possible. This makes it easy to represent accessories, spare parts, and product bundles.
• Other manufacturing companies: Thanks to its high flexibility, Sharedien can comprehensively and effectively represent any type of product—from luxury goods such as watches to pocket knives, fashion products, motorhomes, or screws. With Sharedien, the possibilities are limitless.
• Enterprise companies: Sharedien is clearly positioned in the enterprise segment. Market leaders with thousands of employees and broad product portfolios such as Beiersdorf and Otto benefit from Sharedien’s ability to efficiently and reliably process large volumes of data. The more complex the environment, the more Sharedien’s advantages come into play.
• International presence: International companies with distributed country organizations and localization requirements can cover any market- and target-group-specific requirement within the data model using Sharedien.
• Complex product structures: Companies with large and/or complex product portfolios—for example because they manage multiple brands or sell configurable products with spare parts and accessories—are perfectly served by Sharedien’s powerful data modeling capabilities.
• Innovative mindset: Sharedien is more than just a tool for managing images. Discover the possibilities of digital commerce with Sharedien’s numerous functional modules and integrate creative processes, license management, or AI initiatives into your Digital Asset Management system.

Do these characteristics apply to you and are you currently in the middle of a selection process? Schedule a non-binding introductory meeting with our subject matter experts today!

5. The business value of Digital Asset Management

Especially in larger companies, software selection alone is not enough. Project owners must justify the planned investment to management and demonstrate, based on real business value, that the project will pay off in the long term.

This is a challenging task because there are many options and levers for calculating a business case. The question is which KPIs decision-makers ultimately want to be measured against.

Here are some examples that can help when calculating ROI or building a business case:

• Resource savings: With modern DAM solutions such as Sharedien, manual tasks can be automated. The resources saved can then be used much more effectively in other areas to generate even more business value. A detailed process analysis is important for the calculation—it should show how much time is currently spent within the company on tasks that software could handle independently.
• Revenue increases: High-performance DAM systems are the prerequisite for distributing channel- and country-specific product content across a growing number of communication channels. Accordingly, estimates can be made regarding the additional revenue that can be expected from personalized content. As a benchmark: a McKinsey study found that companies were able to increase revenue by 10 to 25 percent through personalized content.
• Return rates: In this context, return rates can also be considered. If companies closely monitor their returns, accurately document the reasons for those returns, and calculate the resulting costs, they already have a solid argument for the added value of a powerful DAM solution that can effectively manage and continuously optimize product content across all sales channels.
• Replacement of legacy software: For companies that want to replace their on-premises solutions with modern cloud-native SaaS solutions, a detailed cost breakdown of operating legacy software, databases, and infrastructure hosting is worthwhile. The savings from eliminating these costs typically have a strong positive impact on ROI calculations.
• Improvement of data quality: Although this objective is difficult to express in purely monetary terms, it should generally also be included in the business case. It should be shown what data quality issues currently exist, what consequences result (or may result) from them, and how the new solution will contribute to solving this problem.

How Sharedien increases your business value

The Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study by Forrester Consulting shows significant efficiency gains, cost reductions, and security improvements resulting from the use of Sharedien. Companies that chose Sharedien achieved a return on investment of 168 percent and reached break-even after just 14 months.

The savings achieved through the use of Sharedien speak for themselves: through efficient asset search alone, companies save an average of €3.7 million—plus an additional €522,000 through the replacement of outdated systems.

In addition, companies reported a significantly improved user experience and higher team adoption, and collaboration with internal departments and external partners was also improved.

Download the study here!

An even more detailed picture is provided by our success stories with customers such as Beiersdorf, Otto, Kärcher, and wedi. Upon request, we are also happy to connect you with our reference customers.

6. Conclusion: See for yourself

If you are currently building your shortlist or wondering whether you need a DAM system at all, schedule a non-binding consultation with our experts and find out whether and how Sharedien can play a role in your content processes!

Contact us now

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