Is Media Asset Management about cutting costs or adding value?

Germans try to compare everything with soccer and here's my try: a keeper catching every ball doesn't win the game for his team - he just avoids losing the match. It's the striker who's roling in the points.
Same in cutting the costs: ultimately: just stop using media assets alltogether and you'll cut every expenditure down to zero.
The interesting story in Media Asset Management is, in my point of view, shifting costs, gaining efficiency and creating new value.
Yes, every dam solution helps you to find assets whenever you search for them. So you save extensive effort in retrieving this asset. And of course you produce further costs in using this asset.

And that's where a lot of dam strategies end flat out.

A sustainable dam strategy should concentrate on exactly that: sustainability.
Media assets are not liabilities, they are business opportunities.
Open up the archives to every user, who can potentially create value from your media assets. Use simple technology to give your expensive images a new audience.
Don't hide your packshots in archives. Whatever is published is already out on Yahoogle, but you decide whether google images shows a crappy or a brilliant pack shot.
You decide, whether your product makes a compelling visual impression - all over the internets, or people have to use crappy digital photographs to talk about your product.