Month: March 2025

I often get asked, “What is the best MAM?” Eager eyes await my answer at client meetings and conferences. With a smile, I respond, “That’s an easy one—the best MAM is the one that fits your requirements.” While it may sound simple, the reality is more complex. Hidden in this answer are a series of crucial questions and specific use cases, many of which organizations have yet to document.

Identify the Market and Roadmap

Every MAM vendor follows a development cycle influenced by feature requests from sales teams, solutions architects, or client engagements. These product roadmaps are driven by the need to fulfill use case requirements. Some MAMs have robust features designed for image-based workflows, while others are tailored for video management. Yet, each vendor will claim their product is the best, within their defined market, of course. To narrow your options, start by identifying the types of assets and files you need to manage and the features required for your workflows.

Define Your Use Cases

To find the right MAM for your organization, begin by defining your specific use cases and how your workflows operate. Detail the system functionalities and requirements you need. Weigh these functional requirements with a measurable metric, which will help during the system assessment and ultimately determine deployment success, KPI achievements, and ROI.

Understand Workflows and Integrations

Consider what legacy or future technology is part of your environment. Using the 3-5-7 Flywheel methodology from our previous blog, evaluate how your workflows have evolved. What new codecs or systems are you implementing? What languages and API parameters will be necessary for smooth cross-application functionality? Identify your “source of truth” for data and how it flows throughout the data landscape. How do you want your workflows to operate, and how should users progress through them? What storage types are being used, what connectivity and protocols are being used, and where are those storage located? These considerations are vital to ensure functional requirements align with use cases and that the system integrates well within your ecosystem.

Engage Stakeholders and Measure Fulfillment

Involving key stakeholders is crucial. Make sure you gather feedback from a diverse range of users, not just the typical producers and editors. Then, create a matrix to assess how well the system fulfills your requirements, and another to evaluate usability. Some systems may seem like an obvious choice on paper, but may impose rigid processes that users find difficult to adapt to. When users fail system acceptance tests or create workarounds, ROI and KPIs suffer.

Seek Professional Guidance

Most organizations have existing relationships with systems integrators or IT providers—use these resources to bridge knowledge gaps. Engage with engineering teams, ans subject matter experts to gather additional insights, and document key takeaways to explore during testing or proof of concept (POC). When conducting a POC, involve the vendor’s professional services team. A simple integration built by the vendor can reveal their responsiveness and ability to meet your needs.

Conclusion

As the saying goes, “Fail to plan, plan to fail.” This is especially true when choosing and implementing a MAM, DAM, or PAM. With careful planning and attention to the steps mentioned, you’ll be on track to selecting the best system for your organization.