Why DAM Vendors Should Outsource Creative Tools Integration
My colleague Ralph Windsor has recently written an article for Santa Cruz Software – a DAM tool vendor based in the US. Entitled ‘Why DAM Vendors Should Outsource Creative Tools Integration‘, the article highlights a number of important factors to consider when deciding to either build creative tools integration in-house, or to delegate their development to specialist third-party suppliers.
Ralph explains how undertaking the development of such tools in-house is often beyond the financial and technical resources that DAM vendors have access to, and thus farming out software development to dedicated third-party suppliers makes sense on both a commercial and expertise basis.
“While the capability to offer integration with a wide range of third-party technologies is now essential, the minute details of achieving it can act as a drag upon a vendor’s precious developer resources and limit their opportunity to innovate. DAM vendors are typically lightly staffed and leverage the relative operational stability of their platforms to enhance profits and provide working capital for whatever limited Research and Development they can afford.” [Read More]
Further to this, by taking care of technical support issues and managing updates to their platform outside of the DAM system, a third-party tool developer can help to reduce downtime and free up valuable time for the DAM vendor to focus solely on their core business.
“Offloading the issue of support for the integration of a DAM with creative tools to a third-party specialist provider has a strong commercial logic. DAM products are highly complex and advanced pieces of software engineering – even the lower cost ‘DAM Lite’ products. To both scale up while retaining tight control over fixed costs, vendors should be highly selective about what they actually develop in-house. There is often a strong instinct among developers to build rather than buy, but this is particularly true in the case of Creative Tools integration.” [Read More]
Another important aspect of third-party tool provision is ensuring that any integrations are seamlessly implemented in order to maintain a consistent and reassuring end-user experience in terms of usability and branding. Ralph explains:
“At a simplistic level, the logo of the DAM vendor (and only their logo) should be visible. If a multiplicity of other options are shown then this creates confusion among the users of the DAM and the impression left is that the DAM has been cobbled together from a ‘grab bag’ of different parts. These weaken end-user faith in the competence of the vendor and the robustness of the rest of their platform.” [Read More]
You can read the full article at the link below:
https://santacruzsoftware.com/2024/03/dam-vendors-outsource-creative-integration/
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