How to Select a Digital Content Management System

As a cataloger, you want to present the right information at the right time to the right customers in their preferred media.

Indeed, your company’s success may be based on the ability to market products accurately and retain a consistent message across all of your marketing vehicles, including print, Web and direct mail.

Today, many catalogers find that about 30 percent of their customers use print catalogs as their shopping lists and the Web as their actual ordering method. To guarantee customer satisfaction, then, it’s crucial that your product information be consistent in both channels. That’s where technologies such as digital content management (DCM) and digital asset management (DAM) systems can help.

DCM and DAM Defined

The terms digital content management (DCM) and digital asset management (DAM) often are used interchangeably. Unfortunately, this fuels confusion among technology specifiers. The general difference between DCM and DAM systems can be seen in the depth to which your products will penetrate your publishing processes.

DAM systems offer functionality based on managing a large number of granular files (e.g., image, audio, video, documents). Such systems provide a mechanism for assigning metadata, searching, browsing, retrieving, versioning and protecting files. They also may be configured to manage the workflow that supports the creation and modification of these assets.

Meanwhile, DCM technology solutions provide the general asset management functions listed above, in addition to a mechanism for assembling and tracking the content at both a granular and document level (e.g., assets, metadata, pickups, stored compound documents) for publishing requirements. Asset management is the first step in developing a comprehensive system to manage an entire publishing process from end-to-end for print, Internet and variable-publishing channels.

DCM systems create a bridge between product marketing and creative services. This is both a literal bridge between product information systems and desktop publishing applications, and a figurative one that provides a collaborative environment for users to develop and produce online and print catalogs.

DCM systems fill the gap between information systems and publishing capabilities, leveraging company-wide information assets and enabling business objectives to drive targeted communications through a variety of publishing channels.

Today’s DCM products generally are tightly integrated with commonly used desktop publishing applications such as QuarkXPress, which is used by many catalog designers. This integration effectively turbo-charges traditional paper-based publishing workflows by allowing users to extract assets from the system, place them in documents and then manage the document itself as an asset.

Furthermore, DCM systems maintain the connection between the asset and the document, making proofing and corrections as simple as clicking the update buttons.

(Note: The term digital content management often is misused to describe systems that support only Web-publishing requirements. To try to lessen the confusion, analysts and industry pundits recently have begun referring to DCM as Enterprise Content Management. That’s a term we may be hearing more in the future.)

Selection Strategies

Choosing the right DCM system can be a difficult and confusing decision. The market offers a variety of products, and each provides a different level of functionality. How should you select the system best suited for your catalog? And what do you need to know about your own company’s internal resources and workflow before purchasing a DCM system?

First, identify the business objectives driving the decision to deploy a content management product. These objectives may include:

• lower production costs by streamlining processes across publishing channels;
• lower content-capture costs;
• increased accuracy of published information across publishing channels;
• reduced time to market; and/or
• increased revenue through targeted communications with customers.

Your decision also may be based on a desire to increase brand awareness for your catalog. Your objectives in this case may include:

• consistency of product information and creative content;
• managing the supply chain from suppliers to customers; and
• synchronizing marketing across publishing channels.

Formally identifying these business drivers will give you a basis to develop consistent measurements for product evaluations. These drivers also can provide a mechanism to assess the success of the product that’s ultimately deployed.

How to Evaluate Solutions

Once your goals are defined, develop a plan to evaluate the DCM products on the market. The challenges you face in producing your published products may include effectively managing photographic images, catalog copy and other asset materials, and developing a process of pushing those assets through a page-production cycle. Once you add Web publishing to the picture, your need for timeliness and efficiency is even more pronounced.

For any project, particularly for a system that will touch many parts of your organization, it’s best to follow the Five Ps rule—Proper Preplanning Prevents Poor Performance. The following steps may help you prepare for a product evaluation:

1. If you have a list of functional requirements for a DCM system, put it away for right now.

2. Define your business objectives for deploying a DCM system and secure buy-in from senior management.

3. Identify the primary constituents in the decision-making process (e.g., product management, page production, Web publishing, IT, marketing).

4. Map your current workflow for catalog development. Identify the bottlenecks and envision a better process including input from the constituents named above.

5. Identify your publishing channels, the flow of information from one publishing group to another and how they can be improved.

6. Identify your information technology infrastructure requirements.

You’re now ready to re-evaluate your original functionality requirements. Compare them to the responses you listed for steps two through six. Are there functions that now must be added to meet your business objectives?

Perhaps you were right on track. However, most people find that this evaluation process serves as a way to align product functions to their companies’ business objectives.

Keep an open mind about the list of features; there’s probably no single technology product that satisfies every line item. Instead, rely on your identified business objectives as a lens for viewing features in context.

Once you’ve completed these steps, you’ll be armed with the buy-in from your organization, a vision for how the system will fit into your catalog’s workflow, a common standard and measurement for product comparisons, and a list of desired features.

Whatever your catalog management challenges, there are systems on the market to address those needs. Research will help you define your challenges, evaluate what you hope to do with your valuable content, identify how you want to enhance your catalog production process and help ensure that you choose the right DCM system for your company.

John E. Sisson is vice president and general manager for Banta Integrated Media, Cambridge, MA. He is responsible for all digital technology, e-commerce, and content management product and service offerings. Contact him at (617) 914-3104.