Most businesses don’t get the most out of their Digital Asset Management (DAM) systems. It can be complex or cumbersome for employees to enter the system and retrieve the desired data. Once they get access, finding the right material can be a more significant challenge. In fact:
One-third of marketers spend at least three weeks per year searching for the files they need.
As DAMs are a significant investment, this begs the question: How can companies encourage the highest level of adoption and usage while ensuring that their system becomes a thriving and active content hub rather than simply a repository for assets? The German tech firm CI HUB set out to solve this problem.
CI HUB Drive
CI HUB Drive is a simple app that lets users access assets stored in DAM systems and cloud drives directly from their desktops. It works by virtually mounting the company’s asset management systems in MacOS or Microsoft Windows, enabling users to find the needed files without leaving their home screen.
With this tool, users can also connect multiple data sources simultaneously. This is especially useful if a company stores some assets in a DAM system while other content is within a cloud storage system. Rather than requiring multiple log-ins and tabs open, CI HUB Drive gives users a single interface for DAMs, PIMs, MAMs, and the most common cloud storage services such as SharePoint, Dropbox, Google Drive, and many more.
Everyone within a company is a potential content creator, and employees are accessing files from multiple sources every day. However, each system has a different log-in, interface and search function. Using CI HUB Drive eliminates the time-consuming processes of accessing and transferring assets between drives, tools and work management platforms. Now, users can access the company assets they need as easily as a personal drive folder linked to their desktop.
Gerd Glaser, CI HUB CSO
With CI HUB Drive integrated, anyone within a company can:
- Access and edit assets stored in the DAM system from their desktop
- Migrate files from one DAM or Drive system to another by simply copy-pasting from one window to another.
- Synchronize changes made automatically so they are updated for all other users.
Staying on Brand
80% of workers today make use of collaborative tools as part of their job.
Since remote work and dispersed teams are becoming commonplace, teams need immediate access to the most recent resources.
This can easily lead to a Catch-22 situation for companies. They can either give open access to the wider team and risk assets being misused or outdated and off-brand content being published, or ‘lockdown’, giving only a select few access to the DAM, keeping the brand safer but creating a significant bottleneck.
With CI HUB Drive, companies can have it both ways – giving greater access while ensuring only the right content is used. It does this by replicating the permission-based access to folders within the DAM system, ensuring that users can access the correct files based on existing roles and rights within the connected system. CI HUB Drive also uses real-time, multi-threaded file synchronization, so edits made to assets locally on the desktop will be updated on demand and reflected in the original DAM or drive where it is stored.
Your Assets Where You Need Them
In any busy company, employees work quickly to get things done as efficiently and effectively as possible. However, when introducing new technology, a major stumbling block can arise when the new tool leads employees away from their usual work pathway.
Any new system that requires onboarding learning to navigate a new system or extra steps to existing processes will inevitably face internal backlash. Unfortunately, this is a common issue with companies implementing new DAM systems.
If team members find them too difficult to use when looking for the content they need, they will most likely save their most-used content to their desktops. Inevitably, this will lead to out-of-date material being used later, causing embarrassment or even legal issues if copyrighted material is used without a license.
By integrating CI HUB Drive into the most commonly used tools, MacOS Finder and Windows Explorer, there is zero training needed. This will significantly improve the adoption rate and company-wide use of DAM assets and data, making them a go-to hub for content, rather than simply an asset repository.
Andreas Michalski, CI HUB CEO and Founder
CI HUB’s philosophy is to meet users where they are. Rather than requiring users to learn a new system, they can open their desktop search function and find what they need.
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Originally Published on Martech Zone: CI HUB Drive: Access Multiple DAMs, PIMs and Drives on the Desktop
