Best-of-breed or Integrated suite
Which Solution Best Suits Your Business?
When buyers experience content management issues or bottlenecks pursuing omnichannel excellence, solution exploration quickly narrows from the vast and complex martech landscape to digital asset management solutions.
However, the search for the right martech vendor is a different story, as buyers need to make the distinction and consideration between two "purchasing strategies":
Integrated suite or Best-of-breed
Integrated suite refers to the pursuit of buying proprietary several martech software solutions (including digital asset management) from one supplier
Best-of-breed refers to buying a dedicated digital asset management platform based on the consideration that the organization requires the best solution in the market.
Naturally, advantages and disadvantages exist within best-of-breed and integrated suites, but what strategy should you consider when exploring solutions? You probably already know the right and somewhat cliché answer to that question, because: "It depends". Spoiler alert: It has something to do with a rope.
Let’s take a more in depth look of what a purchasing strategy consists of as well as what common pitfalls you should be aware of:
1. Integrated suites with digital asset management capabilities
Convergence and consolidation have been, and still are, significant trends in the martech landscape for quite some time. Mega vendors help companies answer an increasing number of challenges within marketing, be it mobile, analytics, e-commerce, automation, and much more.
So, when buyers aim to purchase one single solution to answer a broad group of challenges, the answer would be an integrated suite.
The benefits of a one-stop shop are primarily that buying organizations avoid spending time handling and managing many providers. They experience easier and more convenient collaboration with vendors who supply a holistic martech stack, including a consistent user interface – compared to best-of-breed solutions with different software interfaces.
A common pitfall for integrated suites with DAM capabilities: The perceived value of "free"
Integrated suite providers often offer modules with DAM-like functionalities or features. Sometimes free of charge. "Free of charge" may sound appealing. Still, it is crucial to assess the hidden costs that go under the radar if you choose a free tool with limited functionality within content creation, management, and distribution.
2. Best-of-breed digital asset management solutions
The martech community has more or less agreed that best-of-breed digital asset management solutions ensure better functionality, more capabilities and increased flexibility compared to integrated suites. They are developed by vendors who are not distracted by other martech domains but instead fully dedicated to digital asset management.
Also, studies show that best-of-breed platforms usually lead to greater marketing effectiveness and results through faster and broader platform adoption.
A common pitfall for best-of-breed DAM solutions: Integration capabilities
From a feature and functionality perspective, finding the best solution in the market does not always guarantee buyer satisfaction and optimal adoption post-purchase.
Implementing a best-of-breed digital asset management requires that it integrates with other platforms in the martech stack such as your PIM, CMS or other platforms to ensure efficient workstreams and avoid information and assets get lost in the digital jungle.
Marketing technology leaders prefer best-of-breed
When Gartner asked martech leaders what best describes their company's preferred purchasing strategy related to martech, 56 percent of respondents preferred a best-of-breed approach, growing from 50 percent in 2018. Only 31 percent now state they prefer an integrated suite approach, marking a decline from 38 percent (see below).
Why is that happening? While the functionality of the solutions has a say, the dedication, consistency, and continuity that a collection of specialized solutions can provide speak volumes:
Why marketing technology leaders prefer best-of-breed
Marketers have found that a best-of-breed vendor will stick to its core competencies and offer robust integration capabilities, far more valuable than a vendor with a broader reach point. Digital asset management is rarely the main priority for these companies – but a bolt-on to their main products (whether it is CMS, creative workflow management, or PIM).
Today, digital asset management platforms vary in functionalities and capabilities, which has led enterprise marketing leaders to select open, best-of-breed digital asset management platforms over suites. Best of all, these best-of-breed solutions integrate seamlessly with other platforms, regardless of the vendor.
The digital asset management capabilities of integrated suites do not provide the full breadth and depth of functionality as purpose-built, best-of-breed digital asset management systems do.
While martech leaders are leaning towards best-of-breed solutions, the choice between the two purchasing strategies ultimately depends on what type of company buyers represent and ultimately what the business objectives are.
How thick is your rope?
Joe Salling, one of our customers who heads up the digital division in Volvo Trucks, frames it perfectly through the following analogy:
"The Swiss army knife is a great little pocketknife. But if you want to cut a very thick rope, would you use a Swiss army knife, or would you go and get a large, sharp kitchen knife to do the job? In my opinion, that is the main difference between an integrated suite and the best-of-breed."
In other words, the determining factor when choosing what purchasing strategy to pursue, is what type of rope you need to cut. Is it a small string or a tight rope?
In the case of digital asset management, the thickness of the rope represents how important content (including the creation, management, and distribution of content) is to your business. Suppose the rope is very thick (in other words, content is pivotal to the company).
In that case, you don't want to purchase a Swiss army knife (integrated suite), but instead, buy a sharp kitchen knife (best-of-breed digital asset management). A sentiment echoed by Forrester:
"Don't be fooled by solution convergence; platforms that offer digital asset management-like capabilities can replace niche digital asset management solutions that serve as a parking lot for content, but enterprises need best-of-breed digital asset management when their rich media needs to become more advanced."
Conclusion
The real question is: How thick is the rope you need to cut? Or, to put it more explicitly: How important is your content strategy to your company’s objectives? Is creation, management, and distribution of content a potential source of competitive advantages in your company and industry?
If yes, you may want to buy a sharp kitchen knife, a best-of-breed digital asset management solution, from a dedicated vendor in that domain.
Suppose that is not where your company's priority lies. In that case, you want to buy a Swiss army knife, an integrated suite that covers more than just content management, where the marketing stack is centralized, and the user face is consistent. It saves you time from communicating and handling several martech vendors.
We help companies cut thick ropes
At Digizuite, we help companies cut thick ropes. We concentrate on building the highest performing best-of-breed digital asset management platform for global enterprises.
With Digizuite, our customers experience a vendor who has no distractions, redundant features, or competing priorities. This razor-sharp focus ensures fast and focused platform development in line with global enterprises' evolving needs.
We know that realizing the value of your digital asset management platform depends on fast, widespread user adoption across borders, user groups, and functions.
Through our platform's intuitive user interface, extensive automation capabilities, and unmatched integration capabilities, we consistently see activity levels and the number of users increase rapidly once our platform goes live.
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