Last week I had an interesting meeting in which I demoed Widen’s digital asset management application for a large manufacturing company.  Earlier, I had spoken with one of the company’s sales reps who expressed frustration in getting product shots from the marketing department in a timely fashion.  Weeks, even months it would take to get images found, sorted, and sent to potential buyers.  She asked, “How can I be expected to sell their product if I don’t have images to show prospects?”  The company had so many images that it took someone days, weeks, even months to find select product shots.  The sales rep got it.  The marketing department didn’t.

The marketing department thought their internal workflow ‘was just fine’ and didn’t see the need for a hosted digital asset management application.  Soft cost just doesn’t register for many people.  What is soft cost?  These are often silent costs that companies cannot visibly see.  For the person who spent 2 days searching for images – what other more productive activities could she have been doing during that time period?  For the sales rep – how many sales are lost because she could not provide images to her prospects in a timely manner?  These indirect, uncovered costs matter!  Soft costs should not be overlooked as they contribute to inefficient workflows, unproductive employees, and ultimately, the bottom line.