Using DAM correctly
by Philipp Böhner
Under the title «2025 is the DAM Year – Save money from the start by better using what you already have», Henry Stewart Events (HSE) and CI HUB hosted an exciting webinar in May. Even though the webinar took place a while ago, the challenges discussed at the time are more relevant today than ever. With the increasing speed of digitalization, rising content requirements, and more complex system landscapes, companies are feeling these pain points even more acutely.
The biggest challenges in digital asset management in 2025
The CI HUB Experience Team surveyed 190 participants—from DAM owners to marketing team leaders, agencies, content managers, production artists, and IT managers – from a wide range of fields during their end-customer onboarding sessions about their biggest challenges in the DAM environment in 2025.
The results paint a clear picture:
- Cross-system data acquisition and provision (27%)
- Maintaining layout consistency across different channels (38%)
- Providing brand-consistent templates for people without graphic design skills (45%)
- Management of copyright and licensing issues (51%)
- Ensuring consistent production and maintaining a steady flow of appealing material (54%)
- Dealing with complex processes due to the diversity of existing systems (62%)
- Reusing content across different channels (71%)
- Overcoming content overload in search results (74%)
- Making information visually available during design and production (80%)
These figures highlight a critical insight: these are not isolated issues faced by individual teams. They are structural challenges spanning the entire content value chain – from creation and management to transformation, approval, distribution across multiple channels, and impact analysis.
The underestimated key role of DAM in your digitalization strategy
Many companies today are already pursuing a digitalisation strategy that maps customer journeys, takes a cross-channel approach and aims to streamline processes. But without the right content infrastructure, this strategy often remains fragmented.
Those who succeed in intelligently connecting their surrounding systems build the bridge between strategy and execution – enabling more efficient workflows, consistent brand management, and clear governance around rights and licensing.
How companies overcome silos through integration
One of the biggest efficiency killers in content processes is manual intervention: files need to be downloaded, saved locally, edited, and then uploaded again. This media disruption not only wastes valuable time – it also increases the risk of errors, duplicates, and outdated versions.
The solution lies in consistent system integration. There are two levels to consider:
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Horizontal integration connects systems like DAM, PIM, CMS, or ERP. The result: seamless workflows instead of isolated solutions.
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Vertical integration brings assets directly into the tools employees use every day – whether it’s creative software like InDesign and Photoshop or office applications like PowerPoint and Word.
At brix, we recommend CI HUB integration. It connects your DAM system directly to the tools your teams rely on. Assets can be placed directly from the DAM into InDesign, Photoshop, PowerPoint, or Word – always in the correct format and always up to date. This step-by-step elimination of media disruptions leads to: greater efficiency, fewer errors, and significantly higher consistency throughout the entire content value chain.
How Switzerland Tourism benefits from CI HUB
The power of integrated systems is clearly demonstrated by the case of Switzerland Tourism. Together with CI HUB, we implemented the integration of their central digital asset management system (SAM) with Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Cloud.
Key benefits at a glance:
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No more media disruptions – assets are directly available in PowerPoint, Word, InDesign, or Photoshop.
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Automatic format conversion – even large TIFF files are inserted in the correct format and optimized size.
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Consistent access – all employees worldwide use the same verified image source.
Conclusion
The insights from the webinar are more relevant than ever: companies don’t need yet another new tool – they need to connect their existing systems intelligently. This is where the success of a digitalisation strategy is decided: either it delivers in practice, or it fails due to media disruptions and inefficient processes.
To future-proof your content and marketing workflows, integration – not isolated solutions – is the way forward. Only then can the full potential of Digital Asset Management be realised: efficient, consistent, and on-brand.