When it comes to managing the types of assets that most businesses use to create marketing or even internal resources, a number of significant challenges are usually present. Chief among these is a matter of figuring out where these assets are located in the first place. Are they on a server at the office? Are they stored locally on someone's hard drive? Does the only copy of an important video exist only on a flash drive? With traditional storage methods, it's difficult to say.
Likewise, both managing the entire lifecycle of a particular asset and generating accountability among those working with them is difficult under these circumstances. Thankfully, cloud asset management (CAM) software acts as a way to relieve all of these issues, all in one fell swoop.
Three Main Benefits of Cloud Asset Management
CAM offers business owners the capacity to formulate steadfast decisions, strengthened through gathered data. When your cloud infrastructure's sustainable integrity (i.e., visibility, accuracy, and reliability) and your cloud management objectives are systematically aligned, your cloud framework is stronger and of minimal risks.
The following are the key benefits of CAM:
- Automation - CAM integrates fully-automated procedures to easily maneuver the discovery of your assets, providing instantaneous inventory data. Automation not only answers the problem of using longer times in gathering the necessary information. Also, it offers the assurance of data that is of less human error - thus, presenting more accurate reports!
- Accuracy - CAM can ensure more visibility than cloud asset inventory. CAM systems offer more comprehensive and systematic data, essential to formulate informative decisions on asset management. It is also cost-efficient!
Accuracy gives you confidence that your business can effectively optimize asset inventory measures from an array of factual data rather than hypothetical ones. - Security - CAM enables you to easily monitor vital security parameters, coupled with actionable analysis of possible risks and unexpected threats to your cloud infrastructure. Since automated systems can troubleshoot vulnerabilities without human interaction, your business is not susceptible to security biases and gaps.
Effective Ways a CAM Software Streamlines Efficiency
By far, one of the most effective ways that cloud-based asset management software helps to streamline efficiency comes by way of how such a solution will allow you to locate your IT assets globally. This is especially important given everything going on in the world right now, where many employees are still working remotely due to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
If people can quickly find the media they need to do their jobs, they can be just as effective working from home as they can be in the office. Not only that but communication and collaboration become effortless as everyone has the same access to content anytime, anywhere and on any device - something that was unthinkable even as recently as a decade ago.
Likewise, a media content management system based in the cloud allows more visibility into the entirety of the asset lifecycle. You can see when assets were created, who created them, who is working with them, and why - all so that you can finally see the "bigger picture" of what is really going on.
The importance of this level of insight into your resources is one that simply cannot be overstated. Not only does it help prevent (or at least explain) issues pertaining to human error like accidental deletion, but it also makes it easier for organizational leaders to track the progress of certain projects from any location. This helps keep everyone on the same page and moving in the same direction at all times.
Along the same lines, these types of cloud-based asset management software solutions allow you to check accountability in a way that is almost unprecedented. If something is removed or altered, you can instantly see who did it - allowing you to check in to better understand exactly what is going on.
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Finally, these solutions allow for the automation of many processes like tagging and sorting that, while important, also take up a tremendous amount of time and effort. That frees up more hours in the day for employees to not sort through that content, but to extract value from it - which in and of itself is of paramount importance.
Challenges in Streamlining Your Asset Management
Of course, that's not to say that streamlining asset management doesn't come with its fair share of challenges. An internal system must be created for things like metadata to make sure that formatting is handled correctly. If everyone is assigning elements like metatags randomly with no pre-defined "logic" being followed, the system can quickly become overwhelmed and it will soon be just as difficult to find assets as it would be using more traditional storage.
Security is also always a concern, especially when people have "anytime, anywhere, any device" access to proprietary assets and other resources. It's always important to make sure that employees are being trained on the best practices of cybersecurity (like not re-using passwords and only accessing internal systems from secure connections) to help make sure that elements aren't exposed to those who shouldn't be viewing them in the first place.
In the End
All told, the right CAM software can solve a number of important challenges, all at the exact same time. For starters, it makes crucial assets available to employees no matter where they are - essentially future-proofing their ability to work in the event that something like a sudden global pandemic were to happen again. It creates an enormous amount of visibility into the entirety of the asset lifecycle, and it also brings with it a level of accountability that you would be hard-pressed to get through other means.
It truly does take traditional storage and translate it into something that is more appropriate for the fast-paced modern environment that we're now living in - which is why the investment is more than worth it for most organizations.
If you're interested in learning about even more ways in which a CAM software can streamline efficiency, or if you just have any additional questions you'd like to go over with someone in a bit more detail, you can always reach out ProMAX today.