Digital Clarity Group’s DAM round-up condenses and consolidates some of the digital asset management industry’s most topical news and happenings from the past couple of months.  This edition’s round-up covers the projected increased market growth and adoption of digital asset management solutions, as well as ADAM software’s recent release of version 5.5 of its DAM solution.

DAM Adoption on the rise for 2016

Multiple reports (Frost and Sullivan, MarketsAndMarkets, and others) project an increased investment in digital asset management (DAM) technology in the coming years. This is not surprising with our every-channel, always-on world demanding more and more rich media assets – 76% of B2B marketers say they will produce more content in 2016 than ever before.¹ The increased use of video and images across an ever-expanding digital landscape compounds the complexity of managing these resources, and demands that enterprises have a centralized repository that is searchable and connects with other enterprise technology as part of the company’s overall enterprise content management strategy.

So while content remains king, building a proper castle in which these royal assets will live is becoming more important. And it’s not just about storing digital assets. Gone are the days where simpler file storage solutions (Box, Sharepoint, DropBox, etc.) were adequate. Digital assets are corporate assets with real monetary value. To maximize the ROI of these assets, company teams (marketing, brand management, sales, etc.) need easy access, tracking, and reporting. This increased awareness of the value of the assets, as well as the added required functionality, is driving both the expected high growth within the market, as well as the trend away from stand-alone DAM products. Much of the expected DAM market growth, from $1.16 billion in 2014 to $4.12 billion in 2019, will be from investment in more interoperable DAM solutions that will serve a more front-and-centre role as part of a larger enterprise content management technology landscape strategy. (For more on this theme, see Tim Walters’ recent DCG Insight Brief “Content Management: The Hub for Systems of Engagement.”)

Some new and some catch-up functionality in ADAM 5.5 release

ADAM software (ADAM) recently released what ADAM CEO Pieter Casneuf calls the company’s “most significant, far-reaching and game-changing software release to date.” While this may be true from ADAM’s perspective, from the outside looking it, this release looks more like it brings their solution into alignment some of its contemporaries, rather than releasing break-through innovation. The three most referenced highlights of 5.5 are the addition of Enterprise Search, REST API, and Cloud Storage.

Of the three highlights, enterprise search is the most interesting. A recent study found that marketers spend on average 15 minutes looking for a single asset file making enterprise search essential in any DAM solution, so it is good to see ADAM upping their game in this area with the addition of Elastic’s search engine Elasticsearch. This proven search solution will facilitate the finding, using, and repurposing of assets from within ADAM 5.5. In a recent briefing on the release, I asked Petra Tant, VP Product Management at ADAM Software, “Why Elasticsearch?” She explained that with its strong feature set, proven performance, and ability to support Enterprise search needs Elasticsearch met the search and search reporting criteria ADAM wanted to offer its customers.

Refining their approach to integration capabilities by adding industry-standard REST APIs will provide ADAM customers simpler integration and management of connections with other platforms – on premise or in the cloud. This will be more and more important as DAM takes on a more prominent role in the marketing technology landscape for many organizations, where integration with other solutions such as marketing automation, content management, and analytic solutions will be required/desired.

And the fact that ADAM can now be hosted on Microsoft Azure – well, that it is .NET based, that just makes sense.

Overall, the improvements in release 5.5 are good, but not necessarily “far-reaching and game-changing.” But ADAM doesn’t stand alone here. There are few if any in the DAM industry that can lay claim to deep investment into R&D that has translated into truly innovative and new DAM capabilities. Which is probably okay, as many marketers are still struggling with getting the basics right, let alone trying to adopt pioneering new functionality.

Catch up with the key news from around the related industries with Digital Clarity Group’s CMS, e-commerce, and service provider round-ups. All can be found in the Blog section of our website.