Canadians rely on digital solutions to communicate, innovate, and integrate ideas in the modern digital world. To stay relevant and reach customers in today’s market, brands have no choice but to be present in digital spaces by establishing social media profiles, e-commerce solutions, and virtual platforms for their services. As we’ve seen with many industries (banks, retail, and direct-to-consumer business models, just to name a few), brands are learning they must stay digitally relevant to stay operating.
The 2020 pandemic greatly accelerated our need for digital solutions and rapidly increased our dependence on products, a dependency we are still seeing almost three years later. Businesses have had to implement and engage customers in these digital spaces, bringing forward new opportunities and challenges. Digital adoption presents numerous opportunities to reach new customers while bringing forth technical challenges. Small and medium-sized brands find digital roadblocks difficult to overcome from direct-to-consumer logistics to the lack of storage space for digital assets. Finding attainable solutions that can be easily integrated is key to maintaining growth amongst digital competitors.
As of June 2022, the Canadian government proposed the Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2022, a new document that would work to better introduce digital tools, protection, and development for all Canadian businesses. One key aspect of this Act was the implementation of universal access. This universal access ensures that all Canadians have an equal opportunity to participate in the digital world, including the required tools, training, and resources (source).
One outcome of this increased digital alliance and need for social media, e-commerce, and digital sales content, is the number of digital assets owned and operated within a corporation. With such large numbers of assets, companies can often misplace their own content. On average, 10,000 distinct files are lost in large companies over years of operations. Many of these lost files are considered important documents that were core to company operations and can be difficult to replicate. Finding efficient and reliable storage solutions has become a need following the demand for digital products.
Brands are now beginning to incorporate Digital Asset Management (DAM) software to better operate assets and maintain organization in the system. These cloud-based programs work to not only increase efficiency but also repurpose content for multi-use outcomes.
As more and more companies jump onto digital tools and platforms, we can expect to see the number of digital assets multiply rapidly. Companies need to implement safe storage solutions in the early years to reduce asset losses and better organize for efficiency down the road. Digital Assets Management tools and cloud-based organization are just a couple of the ways we’re seeing brands implement digital tools to better position themselves in the growing market. Brands that learn to position themselves now, are the ones we can expect to see succeed in the years to come.
Written by Sébastien Bardoz, Vice President of Sales and Operations, North America, Wedia. Wedia is an international leader in SaaS software and consulting, dedicated to marketing and communication departments. Wedia provides a variety of digital services, including Digital Asset Management, Digital eXperience Management, Distributed Marketing Management, and Creative Project & Content Management.
