We all typically call hardware and software equipment our assets. But do you know that digital assets are also an essential part of our lives? By digital assets, we meant,
- Digital Media
- Graphics
- Word Documents
- Presentations
- PDF Documents
- Directories
Digital assets must be stored, organized, and managed carefully to increase its life. All these activities can essentially be achieved if we have some rule or tool in place.
A recent report suggested that organizations that manage the lifecycle of their digital assets properly can reduce 30% of their cost incurred in managing the digital assets. In this article, we have tried to explain the lifecycle of digital assets, and how Digital Asset Management can help you to manage the whole life cycle of digital assets.
This article will be helpful for organizations, individual owners/stakeholders who want an effective way to manage their digital assets. This is our small try to increase your ROI and reduce the time consumed while managing your digital assets.
What are the life cycle stages of digital assets?
When we say life cycle, we meant the journey of a digital asset from its inception till its expiration. The life cycle of a digital asset can be divided into 4 stages.
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Creation of an Asset
Consider you having a concept in your mind. We all are used to digital platforms like Google Docs, Google Slides, Google Sheets, etc., right?
Using these platforms, when we create a document, presentation, or a sheet, then a concept is recorded. In general, an asset is created.
It also includes scanning a document and converting it into a digital format. A scanned copy of a document can also be termed as a digital asset.
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Managing the digital asset
When you create a document or a presentation, the major activities post creation is any minor/major addition, minor/major adjustment of the content, etc. In general, we term it as updating the asset.
Once you have created your asset, its life cycle stage shifts to the management part where you are making changes to the asset.
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Distributing the asset across your contact
An additional activity you perform alongside managing the asset, is to share the asset across your contact. In order to do so, you might even share it first with your team, and further, it is shared with their contacts, and a chain is created.
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Archive the unnecessary/unimportant assets
A stage comes when a digital asset becomes a liability for you, consuming the space. In such a situation, your priority task is to remove the asset from your system, to free up the consumed space.
Like say, for example, if you are rebranding your logo, then old logo files, brand color code files, etc., must be removed to free space. This will help you to maintain a single logo being used across the organization.
This stage of the life cycle can be termed as archiving the unimportant assets.
How Digital Asset Management can help you manage the whole life cycle of digital assets?
Digital Asset Management is a process that brings together all digital assets in one environment. It promotes strategic decision making and asset life cycle management.
Here are some of the main features of digital asset management that serves you to manage the whole life cycle of digital assets.
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Metadata while uploading the assets
The first step while using the asset management platform is to create an account and start uploading assets. With metadata in place (unique identifier) for each asset you upload, it becomes easy for you to search your asset, and update the assets. In general, managing your digital assets.
Additionally, there are several digital asset management who helps you to create documents, presentations, sheets, etc. Hence, your first stage of the life cycle is also settled.
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Share files whom you want to share
With the Digital Asset Management platform in place, it is possible to share big files without any ado. You can easily share files with people registered on the platform, as well as, external users.
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Tracking your assets
Once you share your assets with others in your contacts, you need to know about the updates made on them. Keeping a track of the assets’ updates is a necessary task. Having a digital asset management platform in place will serve you with the whole tracking of your assets.
The essential task of managing your digital assets is thus easily managed by having a digital asset management platform for your organization. Managing the whole life cycle of a digital asset is essentially solved when you start using a digital asset management platform.
