Introduction

The case for digital asset management, like most business decisions, hinges around return on investment. The primary gains from asset management are that the time to search for content will be dramatically reduced, the precision and recall of the search will be improved, and the preparation time of content for distribution will be reduced. These three will lead to cost savings and improved efficiencies.

Before making a case for digital asset management, you must qualify the scope of the deployment. Asset management systems can range from a single user installation for image filing with a cost of $50, through to a multi-million dollar installation for hundreds or even thousands of users. The type of asset will make a big difference, as will the number of assets. The assets come in many formats. They can be structured data or unstructured text files, photographic image and illustrations, or multimedia files: audio, video, and animation. As the number of assets increases, so does the complexity of the management. A large asset repository requires tools that would represent a complete overkill for a small library. Although a large library may have economies of scale, it will require more complex management applications to fully realise the advantages of digital asset management. The relationship between the size of the library and the cost is not necessarily linear.

Asset management is often equated to the digitisation of analogue archives: paper, film, and videotape. Although digital assets must by their very name be digital, they do...