The Role Of DAM In Customer Experience Management, Webinar, 11 December 2013, 7pm (Europe), 1pm (ET), 10am (PT)

One of our featured DAM Vendors, ADAM are hosting a webinar:  The Role Of DAM In Customer Experience Management with two consultants from Cognizant and Accenture on  11 December 2013 at 7pm European time (1pm ET and 10am PT for US attendees).  The speakers are Gordon Walsh (Accenture) and Timothy Day (Cognizant).

They plan to address these questions:

1. Is there a trend in the requirements for DAM projects emerging over the last 5 years?
2. How do you ensure that DAM systems become business critical elements in the corporate marketing processes.
3. How can DAM solutions assure a role in CXM/WCM solutions.

Here’s a bit of the webinar copy:

“Companies nowadays use different media, target different audiences and deliver their message simultaneously in a wide range of channels. In that perspective, the DAM system can no longer be viewed as an isolated island but rather as a strategic part of the new set of Customer Experience Management solutions. Digital Asset Management becoming the single source of content for all rich media asset driven processes.” [Read More]

We’ve had a somewhat chequered history with CXM on the pages of this journal, but I have to acknowledge, it is a subject marketing personnel at mid-senior levels need to have considered carefully with reference to their own circumstances, rather than defaulting to an off-the-peg opinion they have borrowed from some ‘thought leader’ or other.

There is clearly a role for CXM strategy, but how much of the theory actually informs the implementation is harder to assess – obviously some of it has to, but a critical evaluation of the subject appears essential.  It seems to be fashionable to modify the word ‘operations’ into ‘experience’ quite a lot these days with reference to enterprise software solutions especially.  Some of that I can buy into, other aspects just seem like the IT industry playing out its usual transient obsessive tendencies until the next shiny new conceptual bauble comes along.

When these type of dilemmas present themselves (as happens a lot in the software game) I find it useful to avoid both wholesale buying into a given new idea or cynically dismissing all of them out of  hand just because they are new, but instead, focus on what, precisely, the end user is supposed to get in terms of advantages and how they will be delivered from a practical perspective.

You will need to dial into the webinar next month to get a more in-depth opinion on this, but to offer my initial thoughts on the questions posed:

1. There has clearly been a trend towards more marketing oriented DAM in the last five years and the whole subject has moved out of its production niche (or ‘silo’ to use that other fashionable negative buzzword)
2. You ensure your DAM becomes a critical part of your marketing process by making sure it is integrated into everything else (‘runs like a river through your organisation’ to use another cliché buzz-phrase)
3. Integration again, but also the functions of the DAM need to be directly linked to what end users need to do.  So, abstract descriptions of functionality such as ‘re-sample image to 72 dpi’ are bad, whereas those that are targeted towards the needs of end users in terminology they understand are better, e.g. ‘create web-ready version’.

Those are three answers I’ve come up with in a few minutes while writing this post that you are reading on a random niche tech blog somewhere on the internet.  If you are going to hire CXM experts (whether consultant, vendor or analyst) you need to be assured they can do a lot better and that they too are not just using off the peg opinions themselves before they see any of your hard-won budget.

So, with that in mind (as with any technology) it’s a case of specific deliverables first and fine words second.  That is now an established fact for anyone wanting to offer DAM related services.  However, I’m not sure CXM interests have yet been obliged to do the same leg-work and put in comparable effort that those of us who lived through the wilderness years in DAM have had to.  The Q&A sections of webinars like this one should be used an opportunity to get the CXM concept properly explained, especially what tangible benefits will be offered and how, exactly, you go about developing a strategy which can be implemented and subsequently measured.  Those are the more pressing questions about CXM and you can be certain that even if you don’t ask them, your boss (and the people he/she answers to) sure will.

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