Using Professional Services Partners For DAM Implementations
Subscription Only
This article was contributed by Ralph Windsor, Editor of DAM News and Project Director of DAM Consultants, Daydream.
I have recently been involved in a number of DAM implementation projects where third party professional services partners have been used by vendors assessed during the selection stage. These kind of hybrid commercial arrangements present potential risk management issues for DAM users.
Subscription Required
You need an active DAM News subscriber account to access this content. If you already have a DAM News subscription, you can log into your account here.
Another risk with the first option (VAR) is if the reseller does not actually know the product very well, which can lead to delays (as the reseller has to keep asking the vendor questions) or the vendor having to step in halfway through the implementation.
I guess this is a risk when using a partner in general, and can be mitigated by ensuring they are one of the “highly skilled DAM VARs and implementation partners with decades of experience” you refer to.
However, I think it is more likely with the VAR option as often vendors will agree for a company (let’s call them an agency) to act as a reseller for their product simply because the agency has brought them a lead – often one of the agency’s existing clients. In this case the vendor would do well to insist on providing the services or using a trusted implementation partner.
Yes, you’re right on the first option. Spencer Harris has made a similar point on the DAM News LinkedIn group where this post is being discussed also.
The agency one is an interesting point. From my experience, where they get called in to provide DAM solutions agencies tend to favour the 3rd route (prime contractor with sub-contractor partners). Except in this case, they are actually the reseller, so there’s confusion for the client about whether it’s the VAR or prime contractor model being used.
I’ve seen a few pitches along these lines where the agency vendor’s DAM is actually an open source app that they’ve downloaded, re-badged and passed off as their own. As I think I’ve mentioned previously, in the past my firm used to develop an open source DAM which we subsequently sold on to another firm. In the ‘you couldn’t make it up’ category of DAM consulting experiences is seeing some software I personally have helped to develop being presented to a client as an original product that the agency claim to have built in-house.