97% of respondents say working from home would be more manageable if the latest version of every embedded asset was easily identifiable

While 92% of digital media pros report general productivity has improved while working from home, over half (63%) say transferring files has become more difficult, according to a new study commissioned by Santa Cruz Software that surveyed over 500 design professionals. In addition to work-from-home trends, the survey asks questions about version control and asset management challenges among digital media pros compared to a similar survey conducted one year ago.

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Time spent working from home skyrocketed this past year due to the pandemic, and respondents expect working from home is here to stay. Over 97% of respondents work from home at least once a week with nearly half (40%) working from home full time, compared to only 19% working at home full time two years ago. Of those polled, 92% predict one year from now they will continue working from home at least once a week. Only 8% expect to return to the office full-time in one year, as opposed to 29% before the pandemic.

Over four in five (83%) of respondents are spending time finding lost assets at least once a week, up from 73% in 2020. In fact, 11% are searching for lost assets hourly. In some cases the productivity losses are enormous. Nearly three-quarters of designers spend at least three hours a week managing versions, and a staggering 15% are spending over six hours a week managing versions. Interestingly, the name “John” was listed as the most common name for the person in their organizations who consistently makes the most asset mistakes, two years in a row!

An efficient way of managing assets remains essential: 97% believe their productivity would radically improve if they had working files/assets accessible from within the Adobe application. The results were similar regardless of the kind of Adobe applications used, though when asked what app they most commonly use Adobe Photoshop was ranked highest.

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“The difficulty of managing digital asset versions has long tormented multi-media professionals, and this has only become more pronounced during the pandemic when many are working remotely,” said Mark Hilton, CEO of Santa Cruz Software. “Time spent managing assets is costing professionals — and their businesses — countless hours in lost productivity. Working from home is here to stay, and this survey confirmed what many designers knew already — streamlining access to files from within apps is the preferred workflow. At Santa Cruz Software, we are pioneering ways for creatives to access their cloud-based content right from Adobe apps, benefiting everyone involved.”

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