Automotive suppliers are being urged to treat digital asset governance as a core business function rather than a file management chore.
Ian McNabb, head of product at Visual SKUs, said companies need to move beyond basic shared folders and consumer tools as they deal with rising volumes of product images and related content.
“Asset governance is more than just throwing all of your images into a folder,” he said during the MEMA Aftermarket Technology Conference in Springfield, Missouri, in the fall.
He described governance as clarity over which assets are approved, who can access them, where they have been sent and how they are being used, including region-specific material.
Many manufacturers still rely on Dropbox and spreadsheets to manage digital assets, according to McNabb. He noted those approaches may work for about 100 SKUs but break down when companies handle tens of thousands of parts, multiple brands and growing demands from retailers.
A modern digital asset management (DAM) system should centralize images and related files, provide transparency into status and ownership, and support workflow and automation, he advised.
“A DAM removes the guesswork that slows basically slows down your team, and it reduces errors,” McNabb said.
Governance is closely tied to speed and revenue. Every day a product sits without a proper image is a day it is not converting to a sale, he told attendees. A DAM platform, he said, allows photography, editing, quality assurance and syndication teams to work in parallel and automate parts of the pipeline so assets are ready when products launch.
He added that asset governance also means being able to audit who has which files and in what form. He said DAM systems can track which versions were sent to which trading partners and can distinguish between changes to the file itself and changes to the metadata, sending only what needs to be updated. That allows manufacturers to focus on net changes instead of repeatedly pushing full catalogues.
A modern DAM should be framed as a strategic hub that connects photography, marketing, catalogue teams, product information management, enterprise resource planning systems, websites and trading partners, McNabb observed.
When integrated properly, he said, it supports real-time readiness, self-service portals and API-driven delivery so partners get the right assets while manufacturers keep control over standards and access.
Image credit: Depositphotos.com
