SMEs: how do you manage your digital assets?

Customer data, product catalogues, contracts, patents, websites, multimedia content, business tools... Your digital assets are more than just a collection of files: they are at the heart of your SME's value creation. But how do you organise, secure and make effective use of these digital resources? Discover the best practices for avoiding the pitfalls of improvised digital management.

Your customer data, product catalogue, contracts, patents, website, multimedia content, business tools... all these files represent your company's digital assets.

But they're not just a collection of files: these assets represent a considerable proportion of your company's value.

That's why this valuable data needs to be easily accessible and protected against theft.

Poor management usually results in time wasted, which affects productivity and credibility with your partners, and at worst, the theft or loss of your data in the event of a cyber-attack.

💡 Did you know?  

On average, an employee loses 7.5 hours per weekA day's work searching for misplaced documents. 

Sources : IDC, Abby, McKinsey, Copernic, 2024

Between 50 and 60 % of SMEs hit by a cyber attack end up closing down within 18 months according to Orange Cyberdefense.

Given these facts, organising, securing and making effective use of your digital resources is an absolute necessity.

What are the best practices for avoiding the pitfalls of improvised digital management?

1. Identify and classify your digital assets

The first step is to know what you have and how sensitive it is. It's impossible to protect or add value to data if you don't know it exists or how important it is. A rigorous mapping of your digital assets is therefore the foundation of any management strategy.

1.1 Taking stock of your digital assets

List all your assets (marketing, legal, technical, HR documents, etc.), whether they are stored on servers, workstations or in the cloud.

Don't forget databases, company emails, backups and archives. Involve each department in identifying the data it generates or uses.

For an SME, this inventory includes a wide variety of files:

• Marketing and sales : website, images, infographics, white papers, customer testimonials, logos, graphic charters, product photos, advertising videos, brochures, sales presentations, publications for social networks, etc....
• Administrative and legal : contracts, invoices, estimates, tax documents, company articles of association, proof of compliance (RGPD), etc.
• Technique and production : design files (CAD), source codes, patents, technical manuals, process documentation, etc.
• Human resources : employment contracts, payslips, annual appraisals, candidate CVs, etc.

Once these assets have been identified, it is crucial to categorise them logically, for example by department, project, file type or date.

Classify files according to their degree of sensitivity

However, simply categorising these files is not enough. Classify each asset according to its importance and sensitivity, in ascending order:

-  Public data information that can be freely distributed (e.g. sales brochures, press releases)

-  Internal data Business information of a non-confidential nature (memos, current project documents).

-  Confidential information sensitive strategic or financial information (business plans, commercial strategy, internal financial data).

-  Personal data (RGPD) data identifying individuals (customer files, HR data, CVs) subject to strict legal obligations.

-  Strategic data (NIS2, DORA) information relating to your critical information systems, business continuity or regulated financial services.

For an SME, workshops with the heads of each department are often the most effective way of carrying out the initial mapping. Print out lists of known assets, have them completed/corrected in a meeting, and define together the sensitivity of each piece of information.

💡 Did you know?  

Only 5 % SMEs have a complete and compliant documentation to the RGPD7 years after its entry into force   

Source : francenum.gouv.fr

What's more, barely 28 % hold a data processing register of personal data (an essential document in the event of an inspection by the CNIL). More than half admit that they lack the time or skills to look after them properly. These figures illustrate the importance of identify and document your digital assets from the outsetIf you don't, you'll be sailing blind when it comes to compliance.

1.2 Mapping sovereignty

For each type of data, identify where it is physically stored (country, supplier) and what legislation applies.

For example, data hosted outside the EU may be subject to extraterritorial laws such as the US Cloud Act - which can give the US government access to your data, even if it is stored in Europe by a US company.

This mapping helps you to identify sensitive data outside your legal control and plan for its eventual repatriation to sovereign infrastructures.

2. Centralise storage in a secure, compliant location

Scattered files on different computers, external hard drives and unsecured cloud services is a major source of inefficiency and risk.

Centralising your digital assets is therefore a priority. Provided you choose your "digital safe" carefully, i.e. a storage space that is secure, sovereign and compliant with regulations.

The solution: DAM (Digital Asset Management)

DAM software is a centralised digital library for storing, organising, retrieving, sharing and managing all your digital assets.

It's a much more powerful tool than a simple online storage service like Dropbox, OneDrive or Google Drive, because it offers advanced features:

• Faster file searches : associate keywords, descriptions and other information (metadata) with your files to make them easier to find.
• Version management : track changes and ensure that everyone is always using the most recent version of a document.
• Access control : define precisely who has the right to view, download or modify each asset.

For SMEs, there are suitable DAM solutions, often cloud-based, with flexible pricing. These include Oodrive, Wedia and Bynder, as well as more economical options such as Filecamp.

Choose storage or DAM solutions that guarantee that data is hosted exclusively within the European Union. Look for certifications such as SecNumCloud (issued by ANSSI in France), which today represents the highest standard of security and sovereignty. This highly demanding label is only awarded to a handful of cloud offerings (nine to date, including Oodrive, Outscale, OVHcloud...), proof of the level of confidence it guarantees.

For SMEs with an IT department, there are self-hosted open source solutions such as Nextcloud or Seafile that can be deployed on your own server or on a sovereign cloud. In this way, you retain total control over the application and data. Be careful, however, to secure the server and ensure regular updates.

3. Establish clear processes and rules

Technology is not enough. Human and organisational processes must integrate right from the design stage the principles of compliance and security. These are the approaches "Privacy by Design and Security by Design.

In practical terms, this means incorporating controls and best practices at every stage in the lifecycle of your digital assets, rather than adding patches after the event.

The rules of use must be clear and shared by all employees:

3.1 Naming convention

Adopt a uniform structure for naming files.

• Coherence always use the same format, without exception
• Legibility clear, understandable names, avoiding obscure abbreviations
• Standardisation no spaces, no special characters (%, &, é, à...), prefer _ or -.
• Automatic sorting using the ISO format YYYY-MM-DD for dates to ensure chronological order
• Versioning Include a version indicator (v1, v2, final) to avoid confusing duplicates.
• Signature add the initials of the last person to edit the file

A file name can be structured as follows:

[Date]_[Department/Project]_[DocumentType]_[Subject]_[Confidentiality]_[Version]_[Initials][Extension].

 

Examples:

• 2025-02-15_Commercial_Contrat_ClientX_CONF_v1_AS.pdf
• 2024-12-01_Marketing_PlanCampagne_Print_INTERNE_v3_JD.docx

(AS = André Sobriquet, JD = Jeanne Dupont)

Fields defined :

• Date : YYYY-MM-DD → guarantees correct chronological sorting
• Department/Project ex. HR, Finance, Commercial, ProjectX
• Type of document : Contract, Invoice, Report, Procedure
• Subject keyword or client (Budget2025, ClientX, AuditCNIL)
• Confidentiality : PUB, INTERNAL, CONF, STRAT
• Version : v1, v2, Final, Approved
• Initials identifier of the last person to modify the file.

The archives end with _ARCH and are stored in a dedicated folder.

Centralise the rule publish a naming charter within the company.

 

3.2 Workflows

Define processes for creating, validating, archiving and deleting assets. Who must approve a new brochure before it is published? When should an old logo be archived?

Add legal validation or compliance steps to your content creation and management processes. For example, before publishing a new marketing campaign that includes customer data, a workflow in your DAM may require prior approval from the Data Protection Officer (DPO).

Similarly, the publication of a sensitive technical document may require the agreement of the CISO (or security manager). These "by design" control points avoid costly mistakes such as unknowingly distributing personal or confidential data.

• Retention and archiving policy : Determine the lifespan of each type of asset as soon as it is created. Legal documents need to be kept for several years, whereas visuals from short-lived campaigns can be archived more quickly. The RGPD requires that personal data should not be kept for longer than is necessary for the purpose for which it was collected. A good document management tool can be used to define rules for archiving or automatically deleting files that reach a certain date (e.g. deleting CVs after 2 years, archiving invoices after 10 years, etc.). This ensures ongoing compliance with the principle of data minimisation without constant manual effort or oversight.
• AI user charter With the rise of AI tools and the European AI Act, it is becoming crucial to regulate the use of these technologies by your teams. Define in writing what types of data can - or cannot - be subjected to external generative AI such as ChatGPT or Gemini. For example, prohibit copying and pasting customer data or proprietary code. The aim of this internal charter is to prevent confidential data leaking out via poorly controlled tools.

4. Prioritising safety

The loss or theft of digital assets can have disastrous consequences. So security is non-negotiable.

There can be no digital asset management without robust protection measures tailored to your SME context. This means not only preventing intrusions and leaks, but also ensuring the resilience of your business in the event of an incident (attack, disaster, breakdown).

• Raising employee awareness : train your teams in good cyber security practices (phishing, strong passwords, etc.). Regular awareness-raising greatly reduces the risk of human error - the cause of many incidents (e.g. 19 % of SMEs have already had to send documents by mistake to an unauthorised third party, according to francenum.gouv.fr). Security is everyone's business, not just technology's.
• Access management (IAM) : apply the principle of least privilege. Each employee should only have access to files that are strictly necessary for their job. A sales rep doesn't need to open HR's employment contracts, and a developer doesn't need the accounting file. Use role-based rights management (RBAC - Role-Based Access Control), defining access profiles by function. Set up security groups in your DAM or file server (e.g. "Management" group for strategic documents, "HR" for personnel data, etc.). Revalidate these rights regularly.
• Multi-factor authentication (MFA) : impose the Double authentication for access to any sensitive platform (cloud storage, business email, VPN, etc.). A password alone is no longer enough. Activating a second factor (one-time code mobile application, SMS, U2F key, etc.) blocks all access to a sensitive platform. 99.9 % attacks by credential stuffing according to Microsoft. This is a basic requirement now included in NIS2 and DORA for critical sectors, but any SME should comply now, given the widespread use of phishing attacks and password theft.
• Regular backups : set up a automatic back-up policy of your asset repository. Periodically test the restoration of these backups.
• Updates : make sure that all the software you use, including the DAM system, is constantly updated to protect you against new threats.
• Traceability and audit logs Make sure that your asset management solution records all actions performed on files (consultation, downloading, modification, deletion, external sharing, etc.). In the event of a security incident or audit, these detailed logs are essential for understanding what happened.

5. Analyse usage and continuously optimise

To ensure that your strategy is effective, track the use of your assets. Modern DAM systems often offer analysis tools that can answer questions such as:

• What are the most downloaded assets?
• Who uses what and how often?
• Are certain files under-used or obsolete?

This information will help you to optimise your future creations and regularly clean up your asset base to retain only what is relevant.

Compliance and good digital asset management are not one-off projects that you tick off and then forget about. They are a continuous improvement process. Technologies evolve, so do your business and your data, and so do regulations. So it's essential to establish a regular cycle of review, audit and optimisation.

By adopting an approach structured around these five pillars, an SME can transform the management of its digital assets from a potential headache into a genuine competitive advantage.

Every well-filed document, every piece of data properly protected, every process optimised strengthens your company's intangible assets. The result is a more efficient, resilient and trustworthy in the eyes of your customers and partners.