Pactivate Ltd is a packaging design company based in the West Midlands. Their aim is to help brand owners and agencies turn a great idea into something tangible by providing constructional design, graphics and technical support along with production ready prototypes. Their customers range from small independent brand owners, mid-sized manufacturing companies to large international businesses. We caught up with Robin Taylor, Pactivate's Director and Packaging Designer, to find out how investing in Third Light's digital media library has helped the business increase productivity and improve customer retention.
Finding a system that's reliable, scalable and affordable
Previously, Pactivate had been using a combination of simple image libraries and overly complicated project management systems. They needed one tool that would reduce the complexities of using multiple systems, be easy to use and provide a central and secure storage platform for their growing library of assets and file types.
Robin says: "As a small business, cost is really important to us, but as the files we create are our main asset, it was really important that we could find a system that was reliable, scalable and affordable. Third Light definitely ticks these boxes. The key benefits of using their DAM system is that as a power user, it is flexible and can be tailored to our needs and as a client user, it is intuitive and simple to use. The file sharing and downloading options are really useful; the flexible solutions such as events, groups and lightboxes that can be emailed means that we can share files quickly and easily without having to go through a complex and frustrating learning curve with each new client regardless of their usage and experience level – we can ease them in at their pace. Not only have we seen an improvement in productivity, the system has helped improve our customer retention as an extension of our service levels."
Re-using design work maximises revenue
Pactivate currently use their Third Light site to both store and manage libraries of work for both structural CAD design and graphics along with large projects for their customers. As many of their customers are international, they save significant time and effort by being able to share a library and get approvals on documents with comments for amendments without having to leave the system. When the final revisions are approved, they can share a lightbox of the final technical artwork and CAD files with the manufacturing and procurement teams, again without having to leave the system.
Robin says that the smart folders are also a really useful way of storing design work that can be used again, which is commercially very beneficial for the organisation.
Robin confirms: "For development and design work, when we have a project which is unbranded or 'reusable' we can tag it and create a smart folder or collection so that we don’t have to re-invent the wheel. This process has saved us time and money while improving our speed of response and customer satisfaction."
Dynamic Smart Folders provide a way to save the results of a keyword search. If, for example, you create a Smart Folder with the results of a search using the keyword 'reusable' it will show all the assets that have been tagged with that keyword. If you then upload an image to a new folder, and tag the image with 'reusable sweet box' it will also automatically appear in your Smart Folder. The contents of a Smart Folder are refreshed each time it's opened with files found to match the search query stored in its settings. Individual files can appear in multiple Smart Folders but physically exist only once in your media library.
Third Light works with leading brands worldwide to help them manage, store, share and distribute digital files more effectively. If you think we could help your team too, just ask@thirdlight.com . Or if you haven't tried our digital media library yet, sign-up today for a 30-day free trial.
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