Correspondence: Eric Marks, C/o Susan Worthy Clear Story Systems, Inc., One Research Drive, Westborough, MA 01581 Tel: +1 508 870 4225 Email: sworthy@clearstorysystems.com

¹is an independent consultant and author. Previously, he was a client advisor with Cambridge Technology Partners, and before that he was managing director with BrightRoad, a division of Ontos Inc. While at PricewaterhouseCoppers, Marks focused on supply chain management. In his book 'Business Darwinism: Evolve or Dissolve', Marks looks at the make-or-break impact of IT on accelerating the global struggle for market share. His second book, 'Executive's Guide To Web Services', published in April 2004 by Wiley US, untangle the maze of standards, concepts, and terminology that blur Web services and SOA, arming the reader with enabling concepts and providing a solid foundation and reference text with which to unleash untapped business potential.

Abstract

Digital Asset Management (DAM) is rapidly gaining recognition as a key component of an enterprise content management strategy. It is important to recognize the growing need to create, store, retrieve and manage rich media files. DAM solution providers identified this need and are offering a variety of options to manage digital assets, including installed software managed in-house, hosted solutions managed outside the organization or the best of both worlds — systems that begin as hosted solutions and then, as an organization's IT infrastructure becomes more sophisticated, can be easily converted to an installed solution. This paper explores the DAM strategies National Geographic Channels International is deploying and how their business case for DAM considers business model, enterprise adoption rate and the question of in-house vs outsourced. Hard cost savings, business process efficiency improvements and the ability to take advantage of rapidly emerging market opportunities are contributing factors to ROI and DAM solution justification.