Common Creative Asset Management Challenges

To understand the common challenges creative teams face, let’s take the example of creating an e-commerce website. You’ll have the following professionals working on the project. Here are just a few of the use cases:

• Web developers to build your website’s user interface and user experience

• Photographers to capture awesomelooking product images

• Graphic designers to create various web elements, including logos and banners

In the absence of a CAM platform, each team member will store their assets on their computers and share them with others via email or a platform like WeTransfer. Or they might use a cloud storage solution like Dropbox or Google Drive.

Every time an asset needs to be edited, its author/owner will receive an email with the list of the required changes. Once the next version is ready, they’ll email it to the other team members or the project manager for approval.

That’s a ton of back-and-forth in the same email chain. Things become even more complicated when you have to get approvals from external stakeholders, such as clients. Even incorporating a third-party project management tool doesn’t help much.

Let’s explore these traditional workflow challenges in more detail.

Lack of Version Control

Each team member might have access to different versions of the same asset. It can be difficult and time-consuming to assess each version, compare them and identify the final one. This can lead team members to use the wrong version or override another team member’s work.

Besides slowing down the process, this can also increase production costs. Worse still, it becomes difficult to maintain consistent branding in every version of the asset.

Collaboration Roadblocks

Communicating feedback and approving assets via email can result in a slow and inefficient workflow. Also, pinpointing specific details that need to be changed in an image, video, or audio file becomes difficult. That, in turn, can disrupt workflow due to communication gaps. These issues can be even more pronounced when your team works remotely.

Compromised Safety

Tools like Dropbox or WeTransfer don’t give you enough control to prevent unauthorized access to your assets. Once you share the link to an asset with someone, you have little control over how they use or misuse it. They can easily share it with others or even use it as their own asset.

Incompatible Creative Tech Stack

Using standalone tools to design, share and store assets increases friction in your creative workflow. Each tool will have specific file size, format, and resolution requirements. Team members will have to check and meet these specifications, slowing down the workflow even further.

How do you overcome these creative workflow challenges? A simple yet effective solution is to use a creative asset management solution, a subset of digital asset management (DAM) software.

Modern CAM platforms are designed to let creative teams collaborate, regardless of location, operating systems and devices. They also offer various features to streamline creative workflows, speed up time-to-market and cut production costs.