In the second installment of this two-part series, after discussing why we should talk about digital assets and risk, let’s explore how this can help the decision makers in their ultimate pursuits, whatever those may be. Risk isn’t a term to shy away from, but rather a valuable lever to flip in the pursuit of improved ROI.
If you recall my last post, the idea was that digital asset management is more than being able to simply find and use the assets. It also protects the integrity of the organization by making sure it’s living up to its legal responsibilities in the correct use of assets.
This would improve the lives of key decision makers by providing a process to manage and report on how well those investments performed.
When the CFO comes calling (and they always do), looking at your requests for funding a new campaign, can you easily respond by showing how you’ve achieved the ROI on past expenditures? Can you demonstrate that you have processes in place to ensure you meet the legal (and other) obligations that are inherent in buying any new asset? If you can, the conversation with your CFO will go much more smoothly.
If you can’t, don’t give up hope! At least you know where to start. Gaining value from investments and/or reducing costs is always the plan — but reduction of risk is a great quantitative place to start. Decision makers (and other stakeholders) in this process will be better able to drive plans forward if this is understood, and I would suggest helping the process by ascribing a value to risk as a jumping off point.
Look at the EULA or applicable contracts to understand what possible penalties you may incur. Are they punitive or injunctive? What is the possible cost to your organization? How long might a lawsuit or other disruptive event to tie you up? And at what cost? If it’s an incorrect use of a font in a website, forcing you to take down your e-commerce site, the total amount of money multiplied by time lost will usually equal a bigger number than you think!
If risk reduction is not accounted for, then much of the benefit of asset management is not being realized?
How ironic, no?
