Better Known for Digital Asset Management (DAM), Fast-Growing International SaaS Company Has Worked Closely with European Brand and Creative Teams to Ready Technology for EU Market
Lytho, the brand and creative operations platform, announced the launch of its creative workflow software in Europe. Creative workflow helps creatives bring order and efficiency to the creative lifecycle – from creative briefs and project management – to the approval process and reporting on creative operations. Lytho creative workflow is different from other project and task management tools because it is designed around the unique needs of creative and brand teams.
“As European companies have begun shifting more creative work to in-house agencies, the volume and complexity of work requested of creative teams has grown while deadlines have shrunk and human resources remain flat,” said Lytho CEO Douglas Thede. “When we ask creatives working in the space, they’ll readily admit their environment is hectic and exhausting – creative workflow helps tame the chaos.”
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The Lytho DAM solved many of the market challenges facing European creative teams on the post-production side of the creative lifecycle – with creative workflow, we’re supporting the creative process further upstream – in essence providing greater support to the creative teams behind every brand.
With its European headquarters located in the Netherlands, Lytho is better known in that region for its digital asset management (DAM) software. It added creative workflow software to its product offering last year after merging with a U.S.-based company called inMotionNow. That merger unified both tools under a single company rebranded as Lytho – and now supports the entire creative lifecycle.
As such, the creative workflow software has an established track record of success in the U.S. Indeed, Lytho has loyal customers in a range of markets including retail, higher education, consumer packaged goods, insurance, and professional sports teams, among others. In the time since its merger, Lytho has worked diligently with European brand and creative teams to prepare creative workflow for general availability across the European Union (EU).
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Some of the major components of the creative workflow software include the following:
- Creative project management. Lytho creative workflow gives creative leaders the tools they need to organize and manage all their projects. These range from automated templates for setting up projects, assigning work, and adjusting schedules – to dynamic Gantt charts and Kanban boards that show the status of any given project at any given time. The software keeps team members and stakeholders alike informed with in-app and email notifications.
- Streamlined review and approvals. For many creative teams, feedback in the review and approval process is often unclear and provided out-of-sequence. This slows progress and adds undue stress to the entire team. Lytho solves this problem by automatically routing proofs along a customer-defined approval path. It consolidates feedback and ensures the right reviewer is responding at the right time. It also offers in-app comments (i.e., @mention) for clarification, version control, automated reminders, and an audit trail detailing the approval process which brings greater accountability and transparency for all involved. The review process can be completed on a mobile device, which makes it simple for stakeholders.
- Facilitate creative briefs and project requests. Too often creative requests are tossed over the proverbial wall to the creative – and these lack the necessary information. Creative workflow solves this problem with a library of dynamic creative request forms developed over years of experience and identification of best practices. This allows creative teams to confidently kick off every project, ensure alignment, manage stakeholder expectations, and avoid false starts and rework.
- Resource management. Burnout among creative teams is a growing problem – especially as businesses have increasingly brought work traditionally performed by outside agencies in-house. In response, Lytho recently unveiled resource management, a collection of features for managing resources across a framework Lytho calls PAWS (priorities, availability, workload, and specializations). Resource management helps leaders keep track of which team members are working on what projects and who has availability by specialty.
- Creative operations metrics and personalized dashboards. Lytho pulls together all the data about projects in the system, analyzes it, and presents it in an easy-to-understand and personalized dashboard. Stakeholders can see the status of their requests while individual contributors, like graphic designers, can observe their projects and deadlines. Finally, creative leaders can view aggregate totals across their entire team and even create executive scorecards to demonstrate value.
Today’s announcement is just the latest example of the company’s momentum on both sides of the Atlantic. For example, Lytho was recently named one of the three “best performing SaaS companies in the Netherlands” by MT/sprout, a publication that tracks technology startups and scaleups.
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