Hachette Book Group tells a story of a successful DAM upgrade
Hachette Book Group (HBG) faced many challenges with their outdated digital asset management (DAM) system. Hindered by speed and reliability issues, users bypassed the tool, disrupting daily operations. With over six hundred thousand products, HBG needed a scalable DAM solution. Teaming up with Avyre and Aprimo, they found a cutting-edge system that streamlines workflows and engages users effectively.
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Challenge
Hachette Book Group (HBG) had a legacy DAM that did not serve their needs. Users experienced issues with speed, reliability, and search functionality and many were bypassing the digital asset management tool all together in their day-to-day work. Due to these limitations, the team was spending precious time and resources chasing down book covers to ensure proper distribution.
To date they have more than six hundred thousand products, including Catcher in the Rye and the Twilight series. Each product has hundreds of metadata fields, numerous relationships with other assets, and has a variety of distribution points. Additionally, authors and contributors have their own specified metadata fields further elevating the need for a DAM that can scale to their needs.
HBG had a mission-critical need to anticipate any potential risks or challenges. Integrations with HBG’s other tech systems are complex. The “inbound” integration moves metadata from Title Management (PIM) to the DAM. The business depended on the smooth transition to this new eco-system along with integration with over twelve existing systems. It was understood that taking their time was important to get the right DAM and the right configuration for their unique needs.
“We realized that we really needed a DAM that was super stable, super fast and had really dynamic search capability, all of which Aprimo does have and really delivered on.”
– Dave Caplan, vice president, creative director for Little Brown Books Young Readers
Solution
HBG needed something better. Hachette engaged Avyre, a professional services organization specializing in DAM eco-systems, to help clarify our core business requirements and help HBG find a new modern enterprise DAM that would positively engage Users and make work easier.
“We wanted them to be able to drop their assets and go and not have to worry about whether or not their data was going to be correct.” Chris Whalen, managing partner at Avyre.
HBG partnered with Avyre to thoroughly review DAM vendors in the marketplace to determine the top solution to fit their current and future-scaling needs. Stakeholders from across the company participated in demos, scoring, and selecting the Vendor of Choice. After thoroughly reviewing and evaluating options, Hachette Book Group selected Aprimo as their solution.
To ensure a successful transition, Avyre helped Hachette Book Group work through the data model, build the configurations within Aprimo, and determined what other additional extensions and customizations were needed to meet the variety of requirements from their users. The implementation streamlined metadata processing, asset uploads, and distribution to their various audiences – book sellers, retail platforms, and internal teams. Aprimo’s user-friendly interface allowed for immediate availability and easy access with proper permissions, preventing version confusion.
‘The best part of working with HBG was their willingness to dive in and work through the questions and really educate themselves. They rolled up their sleeves and had the patience and the willingness to be creative. And they were just incredible champions for the project and change management across the rest of the organization.? ? John Price, senior solution consultant at Avyre.
“Within the Aprimo DAM itself, we now have this very clean one asset system, but when we’re distributing to retail sites, Aprimo will automatically replicate the file using whichever naming convention we need. It’s this beautiful automatic system.”
– Rina Mody, senior product analyst at Hachette Book Group.
Results
The transition to Aprimo DAM was remarkably successful, with a rapid shift from the old system to a new one over a weekend. This effort, marked by effective communication and coordination, resulted in a seamless experience. Aprimo efficiently distributed thousands of book covers the following day. HBG sends book covers and their variations overnight automatically to retailers now.
“We went down from one system on a Friday and then started a new system on Monday, which is an extremely large effort from the project team; it required a lot of communication. It was an incredible transition to flip that switch and then it was relatively seamless. The next day Aprimo started distributing thousands of book covers.” Nick Rourke, director of publishing products.
The migration to Aprimo also enabled HBG to address issues such as duplicate assets, corrupted files, poorly named files, and invalid identifiers. Moving everything to Aprimo DAM gave HBG the ability to clean up duplicate assets (they found they had 779 copies of a single asset in their old system), corrupted files, poorly named files, invalid identifiers and more.
Amazingly, onboarding over 800 users required minimal training thanks to meticulous configuration planning by HBG and Avyre as well as the intuitive, simple-to-use nature of Aprimo DAM. Since launch, users have reported improved efficiency. Tasks that previously took hours and fueled frustration are now completed efficiently in approximately 20 minutes.
DAM is not just for marketers. All companies have the need for intelligent information platforms and Hachette Book Group’s success is undeniable. Overall, HBG significantly enhanced their digital asset management capabilities and streamlined their operations with the power of Aprimo’s DAM.
“I feel like there’s always been this sort of culture of excellence here. You know, we care so much about the books we publish, you know, And I think that mindset extends to all the tools we use to support that.” Dave Cramer, senior product analyst at the Hachette Book Group.
About Hachette Book Group
Hachette Book Group (HBG) is a leading U.S. general-interest book publisher made up of dozens of esteemed imprints and they also provide custom distribution, fulfillment, and sales services to other publishing companies. Their books and authors have received the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, Caldecott Medal, Newbery Medal, Booker Prize, Nobel Peace Prize and other major honors. HBG is committed to diversity in their company and publishing programs, and to fostering a culture of inclusion for all employees and authors.
About Avyre
Avyre specializes in consulting, architecting, and implementing modern digital asset management solutions and DAM/PIM ecosystems to ensure your teams can control, secure, easily find, and leverage your digital content across your organization. Avyre’s mission is to combine strategy, technology, and expertise to relieve the digital disorder and chaos associated with intelligent ecosystems.