Vendor Landscape: Digital Asset Management, 2016 Cloud, Convergence, And Analytics Will Disrupt The Market by Anjali Yakkundi February 19, 2016 FOR APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT & DELIVERY PROFESSIONALS FORRESTER.COM Key Takeaways DAM: A Critical Part Of The Digital Experience Technology Ecosystem Today, diverse organizations express interest in DAM. Why? Because firms across verticals now focus on creating engaging, interactive content to appeal to increasingly distracted customers. To support this, DAM must integrate into broader digital experience technology investments. Cloud, Convergence, And Analytics Will Disrupt The Market In 2016 In 2016, Forrester expects that three factors will disrupt the DAM market: cloud deployments (primarily platform-as-a-service [PaaS] and software-as-a-service [SaaS] models), convergence among other digital experience solutions with embedded DAM capabilities, and analytics capabilities within DAM solutions to measure content performance. Digital Asset Management Supports Three Scenarios In order to evaluate the best-fit vendor, AD&D pros and their business counterparts will find that vendors tend to support one or more of the following use cases: enterprisewide, marketing, and media and production. Forrester surveyed over 20 vendors and categorized them based on best-fit use case. Why Read This Report In a world with increasing numbers of rich media assets and a diverse set of distribution channels, application development and delivery (AD&D) professionals must take a closer look at products like digital asset management (DAM). However, the market is fragmented, and relatively few big- name vendors offer DAM solutions. This report categorizes DAM vendors to best fit the most common use cases, details the market dynamics that AD&D pros should be aware of, and provides recommendations on how to strategize around DAM purchases.
Transcript
Vendor Landscape: Digital Asset Management, 2016Cloud, Convergence, And Analytics Will Disrupt The Market
by Anjali YakkundiFebruary 19, 2016
FOR APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT & DELIVERY PROFESSIONALS
FORRESTER.COM
Key TakeawaysDAM: A Critical Part Of The Digital Experience Technology EcosystemToday, diverse organizations express interest in DAM. Why? Because firms across verticals now focus on creating engaging, interactive content to appeal to increasingly distracted customers. To support this, DAM must integrate into broader digital experience technology investments.
Cloud, Convergence, And Analytics Will Disrupt The Market In 2016In 2016, Forrester expects that three factors will disrupt the DAM market: cloud deployments (primarily platform-as-a-service [PaaS] and software-as-a-service [SaaS] models), convergence among other digital experience solutions with embedded DAM capabilities, and analytics capabilities within DAM solutions to measure content performance.
Digital Asset Management Supports Three ScenariosIn order to evaluate the best-fit vendor, AD&D pros and their business counterparts will find that vendors tend to support one or more of the following use cases: enterprisewide, marketing, and media and production. Forrester surveyed over 20 vendors and categorized them based on best-fit use case.
Why Read This ReportIn a world with increasing numbers of rich media assets and a diverse set of distribution channels, application development and delivery (AD&D) professionals must take a closer look at products like digital asset management (DAM). However, the market is fragmented, and relatively few big-name vendors offer DAM solutions. This report categorizes DAM vendors to best fit the most common use cases, details the market dynamics that AD&D pros should be aware of, and provides recommendations on how to strategize around DAM purchases.
Cloud, Convergence, And Analytics Will Disrupt The Market
DAM: A Critical Part Of The Digital Experience Technology Ecosystem
Historically, digital asset management was a niche solution that helped media firms manage production-oriented content. But today, many diverse types of organizations express interest in DAM. Why? Because firms today have focused on creating engaging, interactive content to appeal to increasingly distracted customers. Examples include Kohler’s partnership with parent bloggers to create viral YouTube content, Lego’s online webisodes, and Virgin America’s Hollywood-produced in-flight safety videos.1 A Forrester survey of marketers found that 89% of marketers saw their content marketing budgets either remain the same or increase from 2014 to 2015.2
DAM is now a critical component of the digital experience technology architecture for AD&D professionals. In this role, DAM solutions are the content repository for customer-facing interactive content. They help prepare and serve content to specific delivery solutions (e.g., web content management [WCM], commerce platforms, and ad serving) that focus on contextual delivery across customer touchpoints (see Figure 1).3 One financial services customer we spoke with aimed to use DAM to manage all customer-facing content, including print, television campaigns, digital ads, mobile, and Web, and expected the solution to serve up content to existing WCM, banking platforms, and ad-serving networks.
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Vendor Landscape: Digital Asset Management, 2016February 19, 2016
Cloud, Convergence, And Analytics Will Disrupt The Market
FIGURE 1 DAM’s Role In The Digital Experience Technology Architecture
Analyticsand
insights
Touchpoints
Contextual delivery at “the glass”
Marketing Commerce Service
Customer data
= digital asset management (DAM)
Content
Otherservices
Extensionsand custom
code
DAM Elevates The Brand, Supports Cost Savings, And Reduces Time-To-Market
When organizations use DAM solutions to support these broader digital experience agendas, benefits can include:
› Reduced content recreation costs. Organizations that centralize assets ensure that business users aren’t wasting valuable time searching for assets and spending needless resources on recreating content. For example, a global manufacturer and retailer we spoke with spent extra resources to shoot product shots differently in each region. It now uses a DAM to shoot once; centralize the global asset; and then localize, if needed; saving time and resources.
› Increased operational efficiency. Most DAM vendors today have some embedded workflow capabilities. These tools help streamline content creation, legal approval, creative approval, and agency collaboration processes. And they help firms decrease time from ideation to actual execution of experiences. For example, a firm can use workflow tools to streamline agency collaboration so that content is approved more efficiently with less money spent on creative agency work.
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Vendor Landscape: Digital Asset Management, 2016February 19, 2016
Cloud, Convergence, And Analytics Will Disrupt The Market
› Improved brand compliance and consistency. With more and more groups involved in customer experience (like customer service, commerce, and sales), DAM solutions help brand managers easily ensure that all customer-facing interactive content meets standard brand guidelines. There are also legal benefits. For example, one manufacturing firm we spoke with saved over a million dollars with its DAM solution because it’s no longer using images with expired rights.
Digital Asset Management Supports Three Distinct Scenarios
DAM is a relatively new space for companies; most firms we speak with do not have a solution, use file shares/network drives as a temporary stopgap, and/or have legacy point solutions. This immaturity means that companies have many questions about vendor selection, implementation, and adoption for DAM.
In order to evaluate the best-fit vendor, AD&D pros and their business counterparts will find that vendors tend to support one or more of the following scenarios (see Figure 2):
› Enterprisewide. Enterprise DAM solutions, like ADAM Software, Cognizant assetServ, and MediaBeacon, support global rich media management needs for broad customer experience needs. While marketing may be an important stakeholder, it is not the only group accessing customer-facing content, as sales, partner channels, and commerce groups may also use the system. For example, a global consumer packaged goods (CPG) firm we spoke with selected a DAM vendor that globally supports brand, product, and sales rich media content for all groups involved in customer experience.
› Marketing. Marketing-focused DAM solutions, like BrandMaker, Bynder, and Percolate, focus on managing content for marketing groups either at a departmental level or across multiple marketing groups. These solutions focus on marketing-based functionality, like brand management and creative agency collaboration. Many of these vendors also blend marketing resource management (MRM) functionality with traditional DAM functionality. One financial services customer we spoke with wanted a solution to manage both digital marketing content and marketing operations.
› Media and production. Many vendors still support higher-end, production-oriented content specifically for media, entertainment, broadcasting, and publishing verticals as well as traditional advertising groups. These solutions specialize in high-end, long-form video production processes and support load balancing and other unique storage needs. Example vendors include Avid, HP, and OpenText. For example, one high-tech firm we spoke with uses this type of solution to manage its television advertisements.
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Vendor Landscape: Digital Asset Management, 2016February 19, 2016
Cloud, Convergence, And Analytics Will Disrupt The Market
FIGURE 2 DAM Use Case Landscape
Vendor segment Description
Enterprise
Marketing
Media and production
ADAM Software
Adobe
BrandMaker
Enterprise
Media and production
Marketing
Bynder
Canto Cumulus
CELUM
HP MediaBin
OpenText
WoodWing
Zonza
Dalet
Vizrt
North PlainsSystemsTelescope
MediaBeacon
Nuxeo
Contentserv
Percolate
Cognizant assetServ
Widen
THRON
North Plains SystemsOn Brand
WebDAMCanto Flight
North PlainsSystems Xinet
Bynder
Brandfolder
Firms use enterprise digital asset management (DAM) across various departmentslike lines of business, product, commerce, marketing, etc.
Firms use these solutions to manage brand content and some marketingprocesses for marketing groups either at the departmental level or acrossmultiple marketing groups.
Firms use media and production DAM solutions to support higher-end,production-oriented content speci�cally for media, entertainment, broadcasting,publishing, and advertising.
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Vendor Landscape: Digital Asset Management, 2016February 19, 2016
Cloud, Convergence, And Analytics Will Disrupt The Market
Cloud, Convergence, And Analytics Will Disrupt The DAM Market In 2016
Forrester expects some disruption in the DAM market as it evolves in 2016. The three primary disruptive factors will be:
› Cloud — PaaS and SaaS deployments will finally be in vogue. There are many overtures to cloud by on-premises DAM vendors (e.g., they will host infrastructure in the cloud). There are also many SaaS (e.g., multitenant, cloud offerings) vendors, but few, if any, have enterprise credibility. But today, enterprise customers are embracing, and demanding, DAM solutions managed in the cloud. They demand cloud-first DAM solutions so that they can rapidly deploy solutions, always run on the latest code (no more painful upgrades!), leave operations to someone else, support scalability, and replace capital expenditures with monthly operating expenses.4
› Convergence — digital experience platforms will embed DAM to the peril of some. WCM, campaign management, and product information management (PIM) vendors now embed DAM functionality. Other software, primarily MRM, has blurred with DAM so much that customers can’t always distinguish what’s DAM versus what’s MRM. For customers with lightweight DAM needs, these consolidated options reduce vendor complexity and integration needs. For example, when a software company needed a place to manage basic, Web-bound images, it discovered its existing WCM solution was sufficient.
› Analytics — business users will want insights into content performance. As DAM moves beyond being a static repository just for parking assets, business users want greater insight into how to better reuse assets. No vendor has fully solved this puzzle, but look to vendors like ADAM Software, Adobe, and Widen that understand this vision and have invested in making it a reality.
Shortlist Your DAM Vendors Based On Key Selection Criteria
The DAM market is crowded, and there has been little consolidation. The vast majority of the players — even some that have significant enterprise credibility and traction — are small DAM specialists with sub-$50 million revenues. However, three large players — Adobe, HP, and OpenText — sell DAM alongside other digital experience technologies (e.g., WCM, commerce, and campaign management) and business applications (e.g., eDiscovery, customer relationship management, and enterprise content management). Other large software vendors like IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP have either stayed out of this market or chosen to partner with smaller DAM specialists.
Forrester customers can use this report to help narrow down their shortlists of DAM vendors. The market presence information for each vendor can help organizations narrow down their lists of considered vendors with information like annual revenues, regional focus, development frameworks, and deployment options (see Figure 3).5 To narrow the list down further, detailed profiles list top verticals, customer references, sample software partnerships (e.g., connectors, shared go-to-market) with broader digital experience vendors, and sample agency and systems integrator partners (see Figure 4).
FOR APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT & DELIVERY PROFESSIONALS
Vendor Landscape: Digital Asset Management, 2016February 19, 2016
Sample agency and SI partners Brandobility, DigitasLBi, Label A, Moveable Online, NAPC
Top verticals Consumer packaged goods, financial services, manufacturing,retail, travel and hospitality
Customer references
Product name and version
Headquarters
Number of employees
Pricing model
Sample digital experience softwarepartnershipsSample agency and SI partners
Top verticals
Customer references
Scotch & Soda, Spotify, Syngenta
Canto
Canto
Product name and version
Headquarters
Number of employees 80
Pricing model License based on number of concurrent users and add-onmodules plus maintenance; subscription pricing availablebased on number of concurrent users and storage
Sample digital experience softwarepartnerships eSpirit, Magento, SharePoint, Workfront
Sample agency and SI partners CDS global, Databasics, CDS Gromke, Modula4, Otec Solutions
Top verticals
Customer references
Advertising and creative agencies, education, financial services,manufacturing, retail
CarMax, Disney, Hilton Grand Vacations
Flight JFK
80
Subscription pricing based on number of users, storage, andadd-on modules
WordPress
Education, nonprofit, retail, tourism
AFP, Sears
Berlin and San Francisco
San Francisco
Amsterdam
N/A
FOR APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT & DELIVERY PROFESSIONALS
Vendor Landscape: Digital Asset Management, 2016February 19, 2016
Cloud, Convergence, And Analytics Will Disrupt The Market
FIGURE 4 DAM Vendor Detailed Profiles (Cont.)
OpenText
Product name and version OpenText Media Management 10.5
Percolate v8.1
Headquarters
Number of employees 8,000
Pricing model License based on number of users and number of servers plusmaintenance; pricing for unlimited users available; subscriptionpricing available based on number of users
Cloud, Convergence, And Analytics Will Disrupt The Market
FIGURE 4 DAM Vendor Detailed Profiles (Cont.)
Zonza
*Forrester estimate
Product name and version Zonza 4.4
Headquarters
Number of employees 45
Pricing model Subscription pricing based on number of users and storageSample digital experience softwarepartnerships
Hogarth Worldwide
Sample agency and SI partners
Top verticals Consumer product goods, manufacturing, pharma and lifesciences
Customer references GSK, Johnson & Johnson, Mattel
London
N/A
Open Source And Marketing-Focused Vendors Look To Break Into The Market
The DAM market is still littered with mostly small, DAM-focused vendors. But there are still up-and-coming vendors that have potential. Many of these vendors, like Brandfolder and Picturepark, focus on marketing and are SaaS. There is still a small contingent of open source-based solutions that attempt to disrupt the market the way Acquia and Drupal have disrupted the WCM market. While some — like Cognizant assetServ and Nuxeo — are included in this report, other up-and-comers include Razuna and Southpaw Technology.
What It Means
Cloud, Convergence, And Analytics Will Disrupt The DAM Market
When exploring DAM options, AD&D pros need to understand just what assets need managing and what kind of support stakeholders need. But beyond that, they need to look to vendors that are prepared for the market disruption that will come in 2016 and beyond. Specifically:
› DAM vendors that only offer repositories will fold. DAM vendors that offer just a basic, static repository for departmental content will not succeed. Customers with these lighter-weight needs will instead go with embedded DAM functionality. Conversely, DAM vendors that offer broader enterprise marketing or enterprise customer experience solutions will continue to grow since embedded DAM functionality can’t meet the unique demands outlined above.
› Vendors that integrate into systems of insight will shine. Content marketing initiatives are no longer about just creating content in a silo — they require content to be iterative and marketers and other customer experience pros to constantly measure the impact and value of content-driven
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Vendor Landscape: Digital Asset Management, 2016February 19, 2016
Cloud, Convergence, And Analytics Will Disrupt The Market
experiences. DAM vendors must do more than just store content. They must link data back to content to help customer experience and marketing pros make smarter decisions about content reuse. Those that do this will prevail.
› The flavors of the cloud will matter. Demand for infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) (bring your own license into a cloud environment) will fade as it requires lengthy software installs. Instead, buyers will prefer PaaS (vendor offers managed application services in a single-tenant environment) and SaaS (software vendor owns, operates, and upgrades the software and infrastructure). SaaS vendors must become enterprise-ready, with deeper, scalable features; platform extensibility; and easier integration into other digital experience tech. On-premises and IaaS vendors will need to wholly rearchitect their systems to be PaaS or SaaS — no easy feat.
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Source: Jeff Pyatt, “4 Examples Of PR Strategy Converging With Content Marketing,” Advertising Age (http://brandedcontent.adage.com/mic/outbrain/studies/blog-09.php).
Source: “How Virgin America Got 6 Million People To Watch A Flight Safety Video Without Stepping On A Plane,” Digital Synopsis (http://digitalsynopsis.com/advertising/virgin-america-safety-dance-video/).
2 To most technology vendors, agencies, publishers, and bloggers, content marketing’s all about businesses generating relevant traffic to their websites and then turning that net new traffic into business. Forrester data indicates that marketing leaders see something more valuable from content marketing — a means of maintaining efficiency as their channels to market multiply. In other words, top-line customer growth is a valuable product of content marketing but is eclipsed in most marketers’ minds by its value to the bottom line. This report shares data based on a recent survey of content marketing platform (CMP) users and explores how marketers aim to transfer content marketing’s increasing share of marketing budget into business outcomes. See the “Brief: Marketing And Media Efficiency Outcomes Drive Content Marketing” Forrester report.
3 Customers demand consistent and contextual experiences, yet digital experience strategies, teams, and technologies often reinforce silos across a customer’s journey rather than connect them. Application development and delivery (AD&D) professionals must integrate these silos while keeping pace with the demand for net-new experiences. AD&D pros must make integration core to their experience platform strategy. Outside-in strategic thinking will carry the organization a long way, but AD&D professionals must collaborate with marketing and business colleagues to build a shared vision — including integration points — for digital experience (DX) technologies. See the “The Integration Imperative Of Digital Experiences” Forrester report.
4 The digital experience (DX) platform market has been slow to move to the cloud. Fortunately, major digital experience platform vendors like Adobe and SAP Hybris are now embracing the cloud to deploy and operate their software, and service providers like Deloitte, Razorfish Global, and SapientNitro have repositioned their managed hosting options as more cloud-like DX platforms. But what cloud benefits do vendors and service providers actually deliver? This report for application development and delivery (AD&D) professionals clarifies cloud terminology for digital experience platforms, articulates the benefits that come from each cloud model, and prods vendors to simplify how they talk
Cloud, Convergence, And Analytics Will Disrupt The Market
about their cloud services to accelerate purchasing and deployment. With this report, Forrester also announces its deeper investigation into how the cloud will disruptively improve digital experience platforms. See the “Make The Cloud A Foundation Of Your Digital Experience Platform Strategy” Forrester report.
5 The information that appears in Figures 3 and 4 is from a survey that was fielded in December 2015. This information is representative of what was available as of December 2015.
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