How to make hybrid working more effective with DAM

Mike Paxton, VP at Canto, explains why digital asset management software is empowering teams for a future where hybrid working is the norm

The pandemic quickly proved the necessity of software like Slack, Teams and Zoom. Many office-based workers had access to such tools prior to Covid but working from home made them business critical overnight.

Forward-thinking employers in both the private and public sector are now considering how to create the most effective post-pandemic work environments for their teams. With hybrid working set to have a permanent and transformative impact on organisations, now is the prime opportunity for businesses to review not only their team members’ employment contracts and how and where they will work long-term, but also whether the technology they use is equipped to enable the touted productivity gains of hybrid working.

Splitting the working week between the office, home and potential other flexible locations, means easy and secure access to files, and consistent ways of working across teams, departments or even entire organisations, is paramount. Especially when there are new hires in growing teams, or project work with suppliers who require access to the right assets.

For this reason, many organisations are now introducing digital asset management software – often abbreviated to DAM.

What is DAM?

From imagery to video, from design files to presentations, from documents to spreadsheets, the number of files and folders that we save, organise and share is ever growing.

DAM solves the challenge of organising all this media. It’s a solution to help consistently store digital assets in a secure, central location so they can easily be found and shared.

This technology empowers team members – as well as approved external parties – to help them quickly find tagged files, saving long searches and distracting remote colleagues. With many people continuing to work from home in some capacity, this has never been more important. It helps everyone spend more of their time focused on action that really matters to their organisation.

The advantages of DAM for hybrid working

1. Get everybody in your company working in the same way.No more saving to desktops, shared servers or overflowing Dropbox and Google Drive accounts. DAM software aligns everyone to save files in the same secure way, to be discoverable by others no matter where they’re working from.
2. Provide secure and immediate access to third parties.It might not be appropriate to grant full access to a shared drive or folder to a consultant, agency or contractor, but neither is it sensible to have to regularly split files into multiple folders or use slow WeTransfer-type services. With DAM, admins can allow an approved individual or team access to only the files you require them to have.
3. Tools and features to help different team members. In-built image recognition and facial recognition technology within DAM means you can find all relevant image files immediately. Integration with programmes such as Microsoft Office, Slack, Adobe Photoshop and InDesign means faster editing and file saves are synced, so everyone else immediately has access to the latest version. 
4. Cloud-based software is affordable and can grow with you. DAM uses the likes of Amazon Web Services to offer ample and scalable storage capacity. Usage often accelerates once DAM is embedded into workplace culture and there are subscription models to suit different types of team and organisation.
5. Get started quickly.DAM platforms are designed to make it quick and simple to upload your files and folders from a shared server, desktop and services like Dropbox, Box or Google Drive. Great user experience is an expectation for software and DAM is designed so your team or external partners won’t need support to show them how to use the platform.

Going forward, many of us in office-based roles are likely to be hybrid working. Introducing DAM will ensure smarter, more consistent ways of working when confronted by today’s high volume of digital content, and team members and partners working in different places.