Salt River Project

To create content, SRP previously relied on paper forms and email. For instance, to obtain a photo for a slide presentation, an employee would first submit a written request. Creative staff reviewed possible matches, selected a photo and emailed it to the requestor. The process proved tedious and time-consuming for both the marketing team and business users.

“We needed a digital asset management solution,” noted Bill Garmen, senior technical strategist of Creative Productions with the Salt River Project. “We had photos and assets that spanned as long as the organization has existed, and we needed tools and processes to manage and find them.” For efficiency beyond communications, SRP sought an enterprise-class solution that could streamline other efforts and continue to scale with the organization.

SRP ultimately selected OpenText™ Media Management and OpenText™ Hightail™ for streamlined collaboration. Media Management proved a robust deployment for the SRP creative services team while opening opportunities for other departments to utilize it as well. Together, the solutions help users meet the day-to-day demands of operations while acting as editors and producers of high-value content.

For instance, to obtain a photo, employees view a digital gallery directly, comparing and selecting images as needed. They have a larger creative base since SRP ingested its archives into Media Management. Old photos previously locked away behind a digital barrier or even in a file drawer are now available for the entire company to utilize.

When drafted content is ready for review, Hightail accelerates the delivery and approval process for internal and external users. “The key benefits the OpenText solutions provide SRP is our ability to search and find our assets. But it also gives us the ability to build collections to share out to the rest of the company and beyond,” explained Garmen.

Hightail serves as a single source of truth for digital content, such as videos, design work, photos and other collateral in development. SRP employees create a space for a project, upload assets and mark the material for review and approval. Notified via email, SRP users and outside vendors view, mark up and approve or deny content directly within the Hightail application. Editors may then upload revisions, maintaining the cycle until completed. As a SaaS solution, Hightail allows SRP to share content internally and externally without the security hoops of an on-premises solution. Managers can seek review and approval from anyone simply by adding an email address.

As an integrated system for storing and creating new assets, Media Management and Hightail extend SRP’s outreach. “OpenText enables SRP to reach out more efficiently and more precisely with our messaging so we can deliver content faster to market,” said Garmen. “Media Management and Hightail let us focus more on the customer and spend more time creating the best products possible without getting slowed down in the workflow and processes.”

While the marketing communications department stands as the largest deployment for Media Management and Hightail, SRP continues to onboard other SRP groups, including water measurements and engineering field teams. With its long history, the organization has grown into a unique blend of a power and water company and marketing agency. According to Garmen, OpenText scales to support every department with the same reliability and simplified collaboration, as well as tailored flexibility and focus. “One of the strengths I really see in OpenText Media Management is that it’s not just a digital asset manager for marketers, it’s a digital asset manager that you can utilize for the entire enterprise,” noted Garmen.

Future plans include uploading SRP’s entire video collection into Media Management. The integration of an advanced video management solution allows SRP to keep the hefty content on its fast local storage, then employ Media Management as an easy interface to find resources and maintain necessary workflows.

For installation of its solutions, SRP partnered with OpenText Professional Services. Support continues with the product team— addressing questions on the spot—and within the user community as SRP compares and extends operations. “I’ve found it a very welcoming and embracing community,” said Garmen. “It surprised me the level of support and community built around this space.”

OpenText applications fulfill SRP’s need for an enterprise-class digital asset manager that grows with the organization, supporting the demands of a shifting market. Without Media Management and Hightail, content producers would still slog through email attachments and scattered reviews and spend most of their time on project management rather than creative progress. With OpenText’s reliability and efficiency, “We can move as fast as we need to,” said Garmen. “We can be agile as our industry is going to require us to be, currently and into the future.”