Creating a Business Case for an Artwork Management System Part 1: Calculating ROI

Intuitively it just seems like a good idea to replace job folders with an Artwork Management System (AMS), but usually a little more than intuition is required to spend money. Every organization has an approval process for funding and in order to get approval, you’re going to need to justify the cost.

Enter the ROI calculator. By punching in a few numbers it can magically spit out that one single number you need to convince management that an AMS is right for your business! If only it were that easy.

I’m not against an ROI calculator, in fact, I believe it can provide great value, and it’s a commonly used tool that CFO’s and CEO’s are comfortable with. The challenge is in the truth behind the numbers. Accuracy is critical and savings are often hard to predict because, well, it's a prediction. And the ROI calculation isn’t the only way to justify the cost. It’s just one piece of the full picture, but I’ll come back to that later.

Let's begin with the numbers. A good place to start is to create a list of areas that present an opportunity for time and cost savings:

1. Asset Recreation 
2. Asset Searching 
3. Asset Distribution 
4. Proofing 
5. Project Management Time
6. Audit Tracking

We’ll walk through some ways to measure each. And if you have specific real-life examples that fit into any of these areas it will make your business case all the more compelling.

1. Asset Recreation

How often are assets recreated because the original can’t be found? When dealing with large numbers of assets dispersed across a wide variety of media, it is not surprising that some assets are lost or a person in one location is not aware that what he or she requires has already been created by someone else in another location. These assets may reside on an employee’s hard drive, on various repositories throughout the organization, with agencies and so on. 

When staff can’t quickly find a specific asset there is a natural temptation to simply recreate the same asset (again and again). The result is a multitude of similar assets, all individually paid for. The cost of recreation will vary depending on the type of asset it is but generally ranges from $500 up to as high as $20,000 if a second photo shoot and retouching are required.

Additionally, even when the original asset is available for re-use, a different file type may need to be created to satisfy the intended use. For example, a high resolution Photoshop file may be required as a GIF for web use. This requires someone with the right software tools to generate the GIF from the original file.

Assumptions:

• Industry analysts estimate up to 30% of all content is recreated because it is lost or mismanaged
• A typical organization has 5,000 brand related assets
• $500 recreation cost per asset (this is the low end of typical recreation costs)

What numbers are right for your organization? 

Industry standards are a good rule of thumb and maybe you want to use them, but make sure they’re relevant and meaningful to your organization. Think about your organizational structure. If you operate in 1 country and your assets are centrally controlled, 30% may be too high for you. Do some homework and adjust this to a defendable number for your organization. Do you have 5000 brand related assets? Some companies have 10 brands and others have hundreds. Whatever your number is, it should include related assets, such as photography, logos, drawings, etc.

Once you’ve worked out your numbers, do the calculation: 5000 brand assets * 10% content creation * $500 cost = $250,000

2. Asset Searching

How easy is it to find what you have? 

With assets dispersed across an organization on various systems or on employee’s hard drives, there is no way to determine where an asset is or even if what someone needs already exists. Some employees who have been with the company for years may have some insight into where assets are located but what happens when those employees leave the organization?

Assumptions:

• A typical knowledge worker spends 2.5 hours per day searching for content that isn’t indexed 
• Average hourly cost of a knowledge worker = $30/hr
• Content indexed in a rich media management system takes 90% less time to locate 

What numbers are right for your organization? The 2.5 hours number above may be true for all content, but maybe a better correlation for brand assets would be to use the number of campaigns annually. How many campaigns do you typically run a year and how long do you spend finding the files required for the campaign?

6 campaigns * 20 brands * 8 hours/campaign * $30/hr * 90% = $25,920

3. Asset Distribution

How do assets get to the people who need them? With assets dispersed across organizations on various systems or on employee’s hard drives, there are a variety of distribution methods. Email may be a common distribution channel for some content although most organizations have limits set to control the size of files sent via email. With digital content, large files are common and may be sent via courier.

Is file conversion required? You likely don’t want everyone to have the high res production files so instead you’re converting for use. Depending on the volume, this can be a time-consuming and repetitive task. 

Assumptions:

• 500 files (possibly converted) and sent per year
• 30 min/file required (find, convert, copy, send, log)
• Content manager cost - $30/hr
• 10% of 500 files distributed are sent via courier
• 90% of 500 files distributed are sent electronically
• $50 courier fee 

What numbers are right for your organization?

450 files sent electronically * 30 min/file @ $30/hour = $6,750
50 files couriered * $50 courier fee = $2,500