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From Good to Great: How to Beef Up Your Localization Program

“Some localization managers are borngreat, some achieve greatness, and

some

have greatness thrust upon 'em.”

From Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, 1602 (adapted)

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You’ve Come a Long Way…

• Essential localization processes set up

• Consumers of local content reasonable happy

• Some metrics and KPIs in place

• Localization budget exists• Solid internal buy-in and

visibility• “Things work, but…”

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What’s Different Now• Reuse lags behind industry

standards• Inconsistencies• Scalability is an issue• Increasing # of internal

customers and stakeholders• Multiple LSPs to manage• Multiple in-country resources• Workflows are now more

complex• Local audiences more granular• Localization assets scattered• Translations technologies not

integrated, or missing completely

Establish a Central Localization Team as a “Shared Service” 1

Localization Program

Localization Production

International Brand

Oversight

Localization Support

Infrastructure

Emerging Globalization Program Management

• Supports all business groups neutrally

• Easier to scale• Maximizes

economy of scale and buying leverage

Linguistic Quality Program Manager & PMs• Manage and track

linguistic quality program via clearly defined metrics

• Satisfy linguistic requests of market stakeholders in all regions

Localization Technology and Workflow Manager• TMS• Localization tools• Workflow automation

Localization Program Manager• Oversee logistics of

global program• Satisfy internal

customers• Oversee Quality

Program• Manage vendors

Localization Brand / Product Manager(s)• Oversee brand/product quality• Ensure quality and on-time

project delivery• Standard localization project

management functions

Localization Program

Localization Production

International Brand

Oversight

Localization Support

Infrastructure

Emerging Globalization Program Management

Linguistic Quality & Review Process2

• You don’t really know how good (or bad) your quality is

• You have lots of quality data, but it’s difficult to interpret it and share internally

• Negative feedback from your in-country reviewers

• Lower user acceptance than expected• High rate of linguistic bugs logged in

testing• Disproportionately high support

demands in one or more markets• Inconsistencies over time and across

languages and products • High site traffic bounce rates• Multiple quality frameworks, often after

an acquisition

Typical Pain Points & Symptoms

• Start adopting an enterprise-level LQA program…

• …but take it step by step

• Look at the big picture: quality is as an ecosystem with many interrelated parts

Solution

Content audited Quality

metrics set

Content strategy

Workflows defined

Review cycles

defined

SLAs and KPIs

established

Linguistic review team

in place

Language assets

managed

Dashboards, BI and

analytics available

Set Your Priorities Right

• Fix a translation before release as needed• Diagnose recurring problems• Create/manage your language assets

– TMs, style guides & glossaries

• Build a dedicated reviewer program• Aggregate program-wide quality data• Monitor and analyze performance

Quality metrics set

Workflows defined

Review cycles

defined

Linguistic review team in place

Language assets

managed

Phase I Focus

Content audited

Content strategy

SLAs and KPIs

established

Dashboards, BI and

analytics available

Phase II Focus

Get Your Language Assets in Order3

Aim for Quality at Source

Effective asset management aligns stakeholders, translators and reviewers around clear guidelines, resulting in: • consistency• faithfulness to brand• efficiency• cost savings

CreationManageme

ntAutomation

Glossaries• A list of

approved product or industry terms, defined and translated

Translation Memories• Database of

past translations that can be reused

Style Guides• Clearly defined

stylistic preferences such as voice, tone, grammar and punctuation

Suggested Clean-Up Activities

• Consolidate and classify existing assets• Create or update style guides / branding guides• Audit / clean up current TMs and glossaries• Schedule regular maintenance of assets • Deploy tools to build / manage these assets• Deploy automatic language checkers to enforce consistency• Create a blueprint so you can quickly ramp up with new

languages

Dashboards and Analytics

• Aggregate quality data from across your linguistic program to get hard data and insights that inform business decisions

• Make custom reports and dashboards that deliver the most important views of real-time data with click-through access to details by:• language

• vendor

• content type

• business unit

• date range

• other segments

• Data analysis; trends, patterns

Create Your Own Voice and Tone4

Recommendations

• Understand the style and terminology of major platforms as used in individual locals– Microsoft– Apple– Google

• Align yourself first, distinguish yourself later• Understand target demographics and user profiles

Make Sure Your Voice Stays Current

• Watch for gradual x radical changes

• If your product speaks the language of your users, they tend to develop a much tighter, personal relationship with them

• Trends– Consumerization– More personal language, using everyday words– Simpler terminology– Even colloquial and playful expressions

Example: New Microsoft Voice & Tone

Build or Buy Decisions on Localization Platforms5

Sequence of Implementing Translation-Related Technologies (Simplified)

Translation & localization tools

Translation Memory (TM)

Terminology Management System

Content Management System (CMS, WCMS)

Content Authoring System

Translation Management System (TMS) & Workflow automation

Content Optimization

Machine Translation

Community translation platform

Quality Assurance checking tools

Yes, You Will• As you consolidate and centralize

localization, you WILL need a TMS and workflow automation at some stage

• Don’t invest in or rely on obsolete technologies

• There are dozens of TMS’ on the market today

• All marketed as the “right” solution to the enterprise customer yet each caters to a different set of needs

• No one system is right for everyone regardless of the hype

• With average investment of no less than $50,000 for an enterprise implementation, carefully evaluate how well the system conforms to your needs

Recommendations

• Involve all key stakeholders that touch translation in any way– Including any groups utilizing freelance translators,

LSPs, in-house reviewers, in-country resources, SMEs, subsidiaries and resellers in linguistic tasks on a regular basis

• Gain a big picture view of current globalization strategy and how the translation cycle fits into that process– Including types of content, company priorities,

content creation & translation workflows, critical needs, technology budget, long and short term goals and company policies regarding adding new technology

• Pay special attention to customizable workflows, offline/online capabilities for translators, and integrations with your existing systems

Build

• Your product, process and/or business model is truly unique

• Standards support ineffective• Uncomfortable tie-in to

localization services• Limited customization options• Not truly enterprise scale• You have the resources and

capabilities

Buy

• You don’t have the resources nor capabilities

• Time is of the essence• Capabilities to customize TMS to

suit your specific needs• By coding your platform to meet

your specific needs, you would tie your hands and prevent future agility

Reach “the Next One Billion” 6

Reach “the Next One Billion”

• Expand your language coverage

• Focus on long tail languages• Expand into content for new

audiences in existing locales• Re-prioritize content for

translation• Get serious about Machine

Translation• Involve local communities to

help accelerate market penetration

Marketing and demand

generationSales tools

and collateral

Public relations

Local social media

Product

User InterfaceUser Assistance

Website and online

presence

Multilingual SEO

Customer and product support

Training

Legal

Update Your Key Metrics7

Update Your Key Metrics & KPIs

• Concrete ROI– Contribution to top line revenue– Efficiency increases– Include internal costs

• Productivity metrics• Comparison with industry benchmarks and peers• Language quality metrics are evolving

– Drop LISA, think levels of quality for individual target audiences

– Local user feedback and engagement

• Make them 100% transparent and visible

Final Recommendations8

• This is an exciting stage of development

• Use newly available resources to increase scalability and efficiency

• Make quality a non-issue• Increase your visibility and

importance internally• Invest into future; be ready to

drop the old• Get ready for the next stage

Q&A