[Solved] Digital Asset and Media Management: Assignment Question 2

Digital Asset and Media Management

Disruptive technological advances always emerge to shake up industries and shift normal business procedures leaving big, established organizations reconsidering traditional operation methods. With the advent of modern digital technology, most incumbent companies feel the market shifts in customer preferences which offset market predictions requiring strategic changes to the production, distribution, and marketing sectors. In particular, Moore’s law effect on information and communication technologies, such as the advent of more powerful mobile networks and processing power, pushed businesses to seek strategic advantages through the management of digital assets and media. Due to the intrinsic value of these digital assets to an organization, Digital Asset and Media Management (DAMM) emanates as processes that work to control ownership of content, making knowledge easy to find, share, track, and control. In particular, these strategies are vital in the strategic plans of modern organizations. Hence, DAMM characterizes a vital response framework for meeting client and stakeholder’s outcomes as technological advancements continually move market operations towards digitalization, thus making the organization a viable agent of change.

Study Purpose

The current study seeks to analyze digital technologies’ outcomes on organizations. Consequently, the research will delve into the role of Digital Asset and Media Management’s agency in technological change, strategic positioning, and relevancy in contemporary industrial complex and business operations.

Digital Disruptions and its Implications on Organizations

Digital disruption comes as changes which take place when new digital technologies and business models impact the value propositions of products and services from an organization. Such disruptions on business have far-reaching impacts in the internal and external business environments, including the ability to change market operations (By 2005). For instance, technological advancements in any industry can impact ten areas of society (Klein 2016). These areas include education, learning, and engagement plus an increase in knowledge, which come as two areas affected through the additions to technical capabilities and expertise in a field (Klein 2016). Similarly, digital disruptions can bring either positive or negative changes to social lives and community cohesion, as well as health and wellbeing.  These disruptions can be felt through direct, indirect, or induced impacts. More so, digital disruptions become inevitable with growing technological influence in every sector of the society leading to innovation, social and economic changes.

Disruptions allow small companies to challenge institutions with more substantial resources in competitive markets. On an economic level, the digital disruptions stand to impact human services in various ways, including transforming job skills and redefining industries such as retailing and publishing (Young 2018). For instance, Airbnb used digital technology to disrupt the hotel industry and challenge large hospitality companies around the world. Airbnb comes as an example of peer-to-peer commerce, which allows people to interact directly in selling and buying products and services to one another (Moon et al. 2019). Previously, travelers needed to book hotels in centralized hotel chains such as Hilton Hotels. Currently, companies like Airbnb allow clients to book accommodations directly and even chat with potential hosts. Through mobile applications and web pages, homeowners can turn their homes to accommodation for travelers and tourists. As such, Airbnb acted as an example of peer-to-peer commerce, a disruptive digital innovation that changed the economic landscape of the hospitality industry.

In the e-commerce industry, digital disruption led to innovative methods of shopping that grew to have a more significant impact on society.  Disruptive technologies typically start by targeting the bottom lower end of the market while delivering similar services and goods as high-market solutions in a simpler and cheaper method (Christensen et al. 2017). In one case of digital disruptions, Alibaba managed to apply its data collection skills to open a banking service for Chinese consumers that can now access loans from the e-commerce giant (Fan et al. 2018). Here, the digital innovation from the commercial sector that offered shopping solutions grew to deliver financial services as it advanced the level of services it provided. Nonetheless, digital disruptions have the power to quickly outgrow their low-class solutions and fit the broader market causing substantial changes in market operations. Thus, disruptive digital innovations often go unnoticed in the market as they start small but grow to impact the entire market operations.

For Alibaba, the commerce application and website, initial operations include developing the shopping application and website that connected buyers to sellers. As a result, data analytic innovation allowed the new financial business to get created due to the increased opportunities that led to a creative content provision in the industry (Fan et al. 2018).  For instance, Alibaba became able to manage the shopper’s statistics through digital technology, which allowed the company to collect data from its transactions (Fan et al. 2018). As a result, the company developed a banking service. The banking service utilizes the information to provide small-scale loans to its customers from China. Monitoring the new digital disruption allowed the company to develop innovations to meet their clients’ needs.  As such, e-commerce increased the utility of its mobile application by making it easier to access credit services to shop on the website. Customers, therefore, found more incentives to buy and borrow on the organization’s platform rather than visiting physical retailers and finding credit services from banks.  In this way, digital disruption grew to impact the commerce and finance sectors in China.

Digital disruptions also impact the social scene in the contemporary world differently as computing moves from a scarce to an abundant resource leading to increased awareness around asset and media management. New disruptive innovations, such as cloud computing, help power information-intensive processes such as surveillance and social services, which impact society’s construction. For instance, security and privacy come as growing concerns in most business environments as cloud computing makes it inherently impossible to secure personal data physically (Ratten 2015). In the wake of a growing digital community, security and privacy issues can lead to the manipulation of billions of personal accounts for malicious purposes. Thus, new technologies such as surveillance impact the privacy and security structures in society. On the one hand, communities can track traffic offenders, criminals, and logistical transportation better through these digital innovations. On the other hand, such powerful technologies can easily be used by oppressive regimes to hinder personal freedom to speech, movement, and any activities in opposition to them.

The growing incorporation of digital forms of communication managed to impact society directly and indirectly in the recent past. Digital innovations managed to break distance barriers allowing organizations to reach clients in the global market.  For example, these digital disruptions through social networks enabled people to get connected, including buyers and potential buyers, through product and service reviews (Fagerstrøm et al. 2016). In most cases, satisfied customers turned out to become vital marketing tools for corporations through their positive reviews. This social change similarly influenced social spending behaviors as new products got socially accepted in different communities through shared understanding from exchanges in digital platforms. As cultures get united on social media platforms, emerging opportunities for selling goods and services are pushing organizations to reach broader markets. For organizations, customer outreach, and feedback through social platforms allows companies to respond to clients and make sales directly.

Security concerns also emerge as a crucial part of digital asset management due to the growing ease of accessibility offered by digital disruptions. Innovations on the internet platforms continue to increase the world’s interconnection making it easier for individual and organizational data to get accessed by anyone (Losavio et al. 2018). In one case, a company called Cambridge Analytica got embroiled in a series of accusations for leading a massive wave of misinformation that disrupted democratic processes worldwide (Isaak & Hanna 2018). The company accusations included utilizing information from social media websites such as Facebook to sway people to vote for their clients (Isaak & Hanna 2018). As a result, the political influence of digital asset management got reviewed significantly, leading to a rise in data security measures for social networks. Even more, these privacy concerns shifted the societal attitudes towards digital security, with individuals more aware of the associated risks.

Digital disruption in various industries impacts various industries around the world, necessitating the use of Digital Asset and Media Management (DAMM) as both a practice and technology. DAMM becomes crucial in an organization to adjust to change, aiming to remain competitive in modern markets by adapting internal and external conditions. For instance, production and distribution strategies in retailers such as Walmart adapted to the growing threat of digital e-commerce by partnering with large manufactures such as Dell to enhance their supply chain management efficiency (Zhang 2018). In a deal between the two market giants, improved information sharing led to efficient pricing and production strategies based on actual market demands (Zhang 2018). Furthermore, more than adapting, organizations need to adopt these strategies to their operation to reduce their operational costs to remain competitive. Consequently, disruptive digital technologies impact both internal and external business processes.

DAMM’s Agency in Shifting Technological Landscapes and Changing Expectations

DAMM responsive strategies to market changes come as processes that continually renew a business’s direction, structure, and performances to meet the changing requirements of external and internal customers (By 2005). Organizational change requires managerial skills in organizational change to suit the growing globalized and deregulated markets impacted by the rapidly changing technological developments. In the case of disruptive digital technologies, changes require managers to utilize relevant tools such as DAMM to shift the organizations’ operation to fit the market needs (By 2015). Moreover, since the requirement to change often comes unforeseen, it usually comes as a reaction to prevalent conditions. As a result, the DAMM can get integrated into production, distribution, marketing, and supply processes to adapt an organization’s strategy to meet its goals in the changing markets. The leadership of organizational change, therefore, becomes a crucial management skill in surviving the competitive market conditions.

DAMM needs to deal with digital disruptive production technologies that often offer cheaper methods to produce goods and services than mainstream organizations. As creative and disruptive technologies often originate in the lower-market region, they can often get overlooked by more prominent companies that eye larger and affluent customer bases (Christensen et al. 2017). For example, video streaming emerged to offer cheap viewership of shows and movies as opposed to cable and satellite. However, it slowly rose from targeting lower market ends to challenge big companies providing higher quality services. Companies such as Netflix and Hulu currently hold more significant viewership subscriptions, with the former coming as the largest subscription provider in the world (Turner 2018). DAMM enables organizations to remain alert to new production methods and adapt accordingly and timely. Production management systems allow production processes to match market demands for digital media in gaming applications, television, and films.

Market shifts from analog contents led to the creation of digital methods to present new media content and to convert to digital formats. Creation processes in DAMM involve the importation of analog and digital sources or their recreation in new databases (Austerberry 2005). In some cases, encoding, scanning, and optical character recognition allow for the conversion of analog media to digital formats (Austerberry 2005). Maps created through analog processes utilize optical character recognition in most cases to provide the relevant information on digital platforms. Due to the increased penetration of mobile phone technology, current DAMM outputs come compatible with mobile operating systems. For example, mobile maps grew increasingly popular for navigation purposes before they got integrated into other applications such as fitness and shopping. Thus, the growing demand for digital content drives the DAMM processes to fit more specific market needs.

DAMM also comes as a reaction to digitized content distribution in the industry, due to the radically shifting customer expectations. Online distribution processes quickly gained prominence over traditional methods of distributing digital content as the internet yet again became a great opportunity to break long supply chains (Young 2018). For instance, SoundCloud allowed musicians to directly upload their content to digital platforms that often got offered to listeners for free (Young 2018). The European company utilized cloud technology to share and distribute audio content with artists offered the chance to promote and share their music on the global stage. As a result, the convenience of the organization’s services allowed the service to become one of the largest music audio platforms in the world. Traditional methods used by record labels to distribute music soon faded out of the market’s and customers’ preferences pushing record labels to incorporate online and cloud services to their music distribution.

However, DAMM also comes as a response to the negative impacts of digital disruption to the distribution of media and resources through emerging platforms. Sites that offer paid services often suffer losses in revenue streams due to piracy and copyright infringements. In most cases, DAMM works to create access control through security protocols to protect digital content from unauthorized access to digital content (Austerberry 2005). As digital piracy emerges to be a massive issue in the management of assets and media, artists and owners of these contents lose millions of dollars in revenue, necessitating the incorporation of innovative efforts to curb the vice. One such DAMM technique is the provision of free digital content to unpaying customers with adverts used to generate revenue from the media content. As a result, pirated content loses its value to individuals who can access music, video, film, or other digital content for free.

Changes in consumer habits also call for DAMM practices to shift an organization’s strategies to fit the needs of the buyers. Evolving technological landscapes push organizations to find real-time market information, which can enable them to focus on end-users concerns (Goldstein 2016). In some cases, the production capacity of an organization might not be able to meet an unforeseen increase in demand due to poor market interpretation. DAMM practices respond to the need to obtain an efficient market forecast through direct asset management that lines up production capacity to market demand (Wager 2005). Furthermore, stakeholders’ requirements push organizations to provide real-time performance in the market and consumption patterns to align the business’s strategies to the current and forecasted positions. Thus, DAMM comes as useful management tools since data and information from users, and the market can get gathered easily through digital management.

Even as these DAMM data offer valuable insights to customer preferences, they also point out non-performing products and services to be removed or redesigned. With technology leading to shifting consumer needs and preferences due to the increased market options and ease of access, they point out market trends and characteristics that bring insight to market preferences (Stokes & Seers 2005). For instance, DAMM services for streaming and on-demand delivery of digital content can allow shows to get discontinued if their viewership levels fall below profitable margins (Stokes & Seers 2005). As such, DAMM saves an organization from investing in dwindling sectors allowing more capital to get spent on investments with higher returns. Customer shifting demands also build a basis for targeted marketing that enables organizations to tailor their marketing and production for a particular market niche based on their purchase inclinations. As such, DAMM comes as a response to the need for specific information in the market.

Furthermore, changes in the competitive nature of various industries due to disruptive innovations require DAMM to enhance an organization’s ability to operate with a competitive advantage in modern markets. While typical sustaining innovations offer improvement to existing products and services, digital interruptive inventions offer considerably inferior products initially (Christensen et al. 2012). For instance, instead of providing larger movies or music databases, they deliver inferior services at an affordable price. This form of competition does not initially steal customers from the rivals until the quality eventually rises enough to satisfy the incumbent (Christensen et al. 2012). Therefore, the emerging competitive structures require digital management for market surveillance of disruptive innovations and customer habits to respond and adjust their operations accordingly. The entry of lower-priced market players increases the industry’s competitiveness in the long run. Even though the change in competition does not come immediately, DAMM offers sufficient market surveillance to highlight the resulting change in consumer habits.

Even more, DAMM’s ability to create custom workflows helps organizations respond to changing customer preferences. Workflows refer to the typical lifecycle of goods and services offered and included various states, including production, approval, live, archived, and deleted (Austerberry 2005). In the case of a service or good that performs well in the market, it can remain live for long periods to draw in revenue for the owners. However, systems such as Nuxeo allow workflows to be customized for non-performing assets to quickly archive and delete these items (Austerberry 2005). Depending on the relevance of the asset, an organization can respond to market performance instantaneously and efficiently. Furthermore, individual cases requiring media to get pulled down due to specific reasons such as legal disputes also generally require DAMM to get an immediate impact in the market and save costs.

DAMM as an Agent of Change

By adapting DAMM, businesses must enact changes in their operations as it comes as a new system and practice that innately involves change. The new management strategies impact incumbent organizations to a significant extent as the latest disruptive technology stirs up operations of an industry. For instance, the implementation of new DAMM software and hardware leads the organization to new operational standards that bring changes to the quality of digital media production and asset management (Stokes & Seers 2005). DAMM technology often leads the organization’s adaption to market changes in many operational areas, therefore, stirring several modifications in a business. In the contemporary competitive market, DAMM becomes the center of the business’s adaption to modern digital operation standards from the internal and external operational standards. As a result, companies find that DAMM strategies by their very nature involve changes in operation, management, and competition strategies.

Furthermore, operational contexts often determine the extent to which DAMM will play a role in an organization’s transformation. Some industry’s operations become innately tied to DAMM, allowing their activities to shift accordingly. For instance, digital photograph management came at the advent of new information and communication technologies to develop new ways of major customer processes associated with photography (Lucas & Goh 2013). The introduction of digital media management led to new ways of capturing, sharing, and developing visual media that proved the photography business would be primarily impacted by the incorporation of DAMM (Lucas & Goh 2013). As a result, companies such as Kodak that failed to respond to the transformational technology did not develop the required changes as traditional business models became increasingly threatened (Lucas & Goh 2013). While DAMM pushed other companies to make organization and cultural changes to their operations, Kodak rigid management hindered the creation of new digital products and services which transformed the photography industry.

The digital media ecosystems mean that incumbent organizations will become likely to experience more changes then businesses that emerged within the digital media ecosystems. Large enterprises such as Kodak and analog record labels got faced with the task of transforming their traditional operating models through DAMM. For instance, record labels business operations shifted as they relied less on third parties for content distribution, merging the production and distribution processes through DAMM (Young 2018). Digital media distribution introduced new capabilities to organizations at relatively lower costs than traditional operations. Even more, digital distribution also introduced new marketing strategies on business platforms such as social media, which allowed artists to get involved in marketing their contents online (Lipsey 2010). The new opportunities led to the change of significant business processes and shifted the work model of an organization from productions of media to reach the final consumer.

DAMM operations, therefore, led to the dispensation of particular existing workflows and processes in traditional business models. Digital media management allows firms to integrate processes in their workflow lowering operational costs and production efficiencies through value management, saving time, money, and human resources (Tanner 2020). For instance, the implementation of cloud-based DAMM within an organization allows marketing teams and other departments to access files and information seamlessly as they serve customers faster and efficiently (Goldstein 2016). Compared to traditional processes that required manual requests for information, the DAMM transforms information sharing within an organization, and faster execution of tasks as a company’s assets get easily accessed by necessary departments. Furthermore, with the reduction of workflows, businesses find themselves requiring less human resources to execute tasks. As the operations become more efficient, DAMM causes companies to dispense particular processes that get replaced by digital services such as file management.

Organizations similarly face structural changes as businesses introduce new departments to handle the DAMM process and get rid of outdated ones. As digital asset management leads to the digitization of operations, new opportunities emerge for information technology, thus establishing departments to offer essential services (Lipsey 2010). For example, public relations departments find themselves dealing with online brand management, which requires social media accounts coordination for organizations. Thus, digital brand management requires a new department to focus on online branding and customer relationship management through digital platforms that emerge as a crucial sector of the organization’s operations (Lipsey 2010). While traditional marketing and customer outreach remain functional, their value among customers and potential clients continues to drop as digital communication penetrates modern society. DAMM, therefore, changes the means organizations communicate with their customers and potential clients.

Similarly, DAMM leads to the formulation of strategic alliances for organizations which are made possible by new technologies. Retailers find new partnerships at the center of their inventory innovations to cut operational losses through information sharing made possible by DAMM.  For instance, Dell Technologies and Microsoft expanded their partnership to help the customer access their digital products easily (Vanian 2019). The cooperation introduces fully supported cloud infrastructure from Microsoft Azure for digital media management across devices (Vanian 2019). As such, the Dell client will access the services of Microsoft cloud computing using VMware, which will, in turn, expand the capabilities of Microsoft Windows Virtual Desktop. As cloud services become essential to the business achievement of customer growth and reaching their strategic goals, DAMM integrates media management from the cloud that allows customers and organization to access their digital content seamlessly. Consequently, mergers that improve digital media management become viable for organizations.

Discussion

Disruptive technologies in modern markets push organizations to respond through DAMM in the competitive nature of the market, which in turn, instigate changes within the organization. Innovations incorporating digital solutions bring drastic changes to production, distribution, and marketing strategies as organizations respond to the new economic and social impacts of emergent technologies. For instance, the direct impact of online distribution methods for media content allowed record companies to shift to the easily accessible online distribution of media (Goldstein 2016). Furthermore, DAMM strategies implemented in an organization lead to the rise of new opportunities for commerce and marketing, causing further changes. For instance, e-commerce giant Alibaba utilized its client information database to create financial services for its customers (Fan et al. 2018). As such, DAMM comes as a reaction to market conditions brought by disruptive technologies and an agent of change within an organization once implemented.

Conclusion

DAMM becomes a vital response to meeting customer and stakeholder expectations as the technological advancements continue to shift market operations while shaping an organization’s future as an agent of change. Research highlights that DAMM is an organizational response to changes incurred through disruptive technologies as it becomes vital to manage change through digital technologies. Furthermore, DAMM strategies in a business’s operation similarly invoke organizational changes that vary according to business contexts. DAMM systems also impact internal business systems, such as workflows and organizational structure. The examples provided in this essay prove that DAMM processes impact even large corporations faced with an increasing need to change from traditional operational methods. As such, there is a need for further research on the way DAMM brings a change in firms’ management and organizational responses to the emerging aspects.

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