The thorough preparation helped us well

Grolsch has been working with a DAM system for years. So the way of thinking is not new to them. But their old application needed drastic replacement. Manon Veldman, responsible for Marketing Resources at Grolsch, went looking for a future-proof system. In this blog she explains why the choice fell on Comrads Solutions.

Out of date

Our old DAM system dated back over a decade. It was getting slower and slower, had more and more bugs, and was simply not up to date. It no longer met what we at Grolsch expect from a DAM system. But how do you choose something like that? My first step was to google. A number of potential suppliers came up, which we invited. With Comrads, we quickly felt that they were a good fit for us, not only in terms of the solutions they offer but also in the way they work. We were able to speak with a number of Comrads' customers and then the choice was actually quickly made.

Lots of personal attention

We chose the Digital Asset Management system, including the Brand portal and the Workflow Management module. For our previous supplier, the DAM system was something they did on the side, for Comrads it is their core business. So our question was quite simple for them and their system just does exactly what it needs to do. That is very pleasant, but what we especially liked was the cooperation. Comrads is a relatively small party. That means there is a lot of personal attention. We were really taken by the hand and guided through the implementation process. Erwin Klinkenberg, the co-owner of Comrads gave a number of workshops that helped us a lot and Erwin also did not shy away from asking us critical questions about what we had thought up ourselves. This thorough preparation certainly did us good during the implementation.

Bound by rules

We have been live since the beginning of this year. We have really taken a big step forward in the way we work. The colleagues who only use the system sporadically still have to search, but those who use it more often already feel completely at home with the system. The Workflow Management module is also very nice for us. As a producer of alcoholic products, we are bound by quite a few rules when it comes to our communication to the outside world. For example, all our advertising must contain slogans such as "No 18, no alcohol" and "Proudly brewed for you. There are also a number of commandments and prohibitions. An internal committee of five people must approve all expressions before they are printed or put online. By e-mail, that's quite a hassle. Now the project owner can see who has approved or disapproved what and why, and the committee members can see at a glance what they still have to do.

Steps forward

Soon we will have an appointment with Comrads for an evaluation. We would like to do something more with reports and we could use some tips to make our homepage more lively. For example, we think it would be nice to be able to automatically show a top 10 of downloads and highlight some notable or fun things. And we need to work on managing copyrights and other author issues. The platform is fully equipped for that, now we have to take a step in that ourselves. But with the help of Comrads, we will certainly succeed.

Curious?

Want to talk further about what a Digital Asset Management system can do for your organization and how to make its use a success? Feel free to contact us for a free on-site demo. We are happy to think along with you.