Selecting A Vendor

The vendor selection process will make or break the digital asset management implementation and execution. Careful selection involves the evaluation of several different aspects including:

Background
The primary make-up to digital assets includes photographic images or other various graphic arts files. It is critical for the vendor to understand the nature of imagery and the associated color spaces, file formats, and cross-platform environment for usage on both Windows and Mac OS. When seeking qualified digital asset management vendors request detailed information on experience pertaining to how they initially evolved into a digital asset management vendor, how long has the product been in existence, how has it evolved throughout the years, and what is the make-up of the support team (i.e. software engineers, marketing research, technical liaisons, implementation administrators, execution teams, and ongoing support staff).

Back to top

Financial Stability
Financial stability of a digital asset management vendor is critical to the ongoing support and maintenance of the application. Evaluate the participating vendors by determining credit rating, future investment strategies, and growth plan. digital asset management vendors with limited financial resources are cause for concern given the need to continuously invest in the most advanced technology available to uphold performance standards and future industry specifications and standards.

Back to top

Application Technology
Application technology is critical for integration with other systems in existence and future systems that will be created or purchased. Use applications built on open source frameworks versus proprietary development to ensure flexibility to meet the ever-changing business requirements and demands. Communicating with other systems in real-time using web services contributes to the consistency of up-to-date content across multiple web and print media channels.

Back to top

Implementation Timelines
Arriving at the stage where an organization can begin to reap the benefits of digital asset management is directly correlated with the vendor's ability to implement the product or service in a timely fashion. Implementation using a hosted or ASP vendor is historically faster than implementing a software application. The ASP vendor utilizes existing implementation team resources to ensure the quick deployment with an organization's digital assets and metadata. Software providers typically involve the use of the organization's internal Information Technology department which means the organization needs to work within the IT department's schedule and prioritization structure.

Back to top

Product Functionality
Make sure the vendor's product or service has the core functionality required by your organization. If a required standardized feature is not visually represented by the vendor, it is reason for concern. These required features of your organization that have not yet been developed by the vendor are deemed vaporware. Provided the vendor has the resources and ability to complete the feature requested, be certain of the timeline and cost associated with the feature development to ensure you are not paying an insurmountable dollar figure for this feature midway through the implementation.

Some features requested by your organization may not exist in any one vendor's core application and will require customization. In these cases, you cannot avoid the fact that the vendor of choice will need to customize the application for your organization. Ask for similar features the vendor may have developed that would accommodate the majority of the request to accomplish short-term objectives.

Obtain the vendor release schedule to view future developments and features that may fit perfectly into your immediate requests. The frequency and features contained in the releases will allow you to plan accordingly for the growth of your digital asset management application.

Back to top

Cost
As with any purchasing decision, cost is always a consideration for implementation. The cost structure from vendors encompasses a setup and annual maintenance or monthly subscription. Setup costs can range from $10,000 to over $100,000 depending on the vendor pricing structure. Ongoing costs are dependant on a variety of items, again, depending on the vendor selection. These ongoing costs may include charges for the quantity of users, amount of megabytes stored, number of digital asset transactions, charges per feature request, ongoing releases, or general annual maintenance of hardware and software.

Costs associated with the ASP model can be summed up by a report by Frost & Sullivan on World digital asset management Markets A794-70. The excerpt is as follows:

"As hosted and outsourced solutions become more popular towards the end of the forecast period, they will cannibalize sales from the client-server model and have a dampening effect on the price growth rate since hosted solutions are cheaper than full software deployment."

To purchase the full report, visit http://www.frost.com

Costs associated with the software purchase and deployment raise caution to the ongoing cost of maintenance and attention required to maintain performance standards. In an article written by Jim Kerstetter with Business Week Online titled Commentary: Business Software Needs a Revolution, he states the analyst estimates for ongoing business software costs.

"Analysts estimate business-software customers spend $5 installing and fixing their software for every $1 they spend on software."

For the full article, please visit Business Week Online at http://yahoo.businessweek.com

In another article referencing ongoing maintenance, Timothy Chou, President of Oracle Outsourcing, communicates the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). An excerpt from the Software's "Hidden" Costs is below.

"In computing the cost of software, companies tend to focus on the purchase price and initial implementation. Yet even when fully operational, software is never free. It must be supported, maintained and upgraded…"

For the full article, please visit ASPNews.com at
http://www.aspnews.com

Back to top