From 'looking picture' to DAM success story.
How Broekhuis found structure in their Image bank
Irene Sienot, Marketing Manager at Broekhuis
Sometimes you don't know how messy something is until you start cleaning it up. For Irene Sienot, Marketing Manager at Broekhuis Holding, that moment came when she took a close look at the old Image bank . "The system had lots of options, but we were using maybe two percent," she says. "It felt like having a complete toolbox, but only using the hammer."
Marketing with 35 specialists and a mountain of images
Irene has now been working at Broekhuis for ten years and has seen her department grow from 5 to 35 colleagues. Together they handle the marketing for everything that drives (cars, bikes, motor homes) and even what is stationary (the leasing company). With such a diverse range, one thing is guaranteed to come along: a mountain of imagery. And that requires order in the chaos.
The search for a partner, not a supplier
When the internal developer recommended switching to a professional system, Broekhuis went looking. The first conversation with Comrads immediately felt right: "No slick sales pitches, but an open conversation. From moment one I thought: you want to think with me and not just sell something. That really made the difference." Moreover, choosing a small-scale Dutch company gave confidence: no anonymous American helpdesk, but a team that knows exactly what's going on here.
From plan to practice
After being chosen, Laura took over the implementation baton, with Henk as technical support. "You guys were always there for us. We could call whenever we wanted, got a quick answer and above all: you thought along with us," says Irene.
The result? A smooth process with practical advice on metadata, based on experiences with other clients.
Phased going live
Going live was deliberately divided into three manageable steps:
Marketing - Original images available to the internal department.
Website linking - 3,000 pages provided with the right images, without local upload hassles.
The rest of the organization - Scheduled for Q4, to avoid chaos.
From an Image bank that was only 2% utilized,
to a solution that advances the entire organization -
That's the difference between software and collaboration.
"Are you guys actually sleeping?"
The collaboration resulted in a remarkable number of compliments. "The service desk responds so quickly that sometimes I think: are those people asleep?" laughs Irene. And it's not just about speed: the transfer from sales to project management also went smoothly. "It didn't feel like you were dumping the project over the top. Laura picked it up, Henk stepped in where needed and that gave a lot of confidence."
Initial reactions internally
Even colleagues who are not yet working with the new system are getting excited. "Last week someone was looking for images and I had to look at the old disk. When I showed him the new system, he said, 'This is really cool, though.' That's energizing."
From teething problems to compliments
Of course there are small start-up issues, but thanks to the quick turnaround, they don't linger long. "Even if something is too long to explain by email, Laura just makes an appointment to clarify it. I think that's really super."
Ready for the next stage
For now, the focus is on a flawless organization-wide rollout. But Broekhuis does not rule out adding additional modules in the future. "The most important thing is that we now have a system that makes our work easier AND that we have a partner who understands what we are doing."
Also done with folder searching?
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