Embedding Localization in Digital Transformation

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Article Image Digital transformation and acceleration strategies may be thought of as being seamlessly global by default. On the one hand, digital is global by nature as it enables and empowers you to cross physical borders and grow your business beyond your horizon. On the other hand, embarking on such a journey does not mean that global engagement and execution will go without saying and without dealing with much local complexity. This is where localization considerations and imperatives often play out in order to synchronize digital transformation with global expansion.

In each step of your roadmap you have to define priorities, negotiate trade-offs and make decisions with local entities that are tied to objectives that are really SMART (i.e. specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound in each and every target market). Here are a few criteria and examples that can help you think about these dependencies upfront and adjust your digital transformation plans accordingly if needed. You should realize that localization impacts what you have to do, and also how you have to behave when communicating and collaborating around the world. It is a business process as much as it is a human challenge.

Equally important, the following points can give you some ideas of how effective localization can get you out of trouble, whether it relates to your content, products or customers in and outside your company. Essentially, cost- and time-effective localization has to be considered a performance driver of your international digital transformation rather than a financial burden.

Digital transformation has to be accessible in each market. Localization enables you to reach out to your audience and customers where and when they want it. Internally, it means ensuring that local stakeholders understand the goals of transforming processes and adopt a digital mindset. To make this happen, evangelizing and training them requires different channels (e.g. in-person sessions in Asian countries or remote sessions in Western Europe) that are more or less preferred and efficient. Externally, localizing means engaging with local customers in their ecosystems and environments. Therefore you have to test and use platforms that are familiar as well as channels that are convenient for them. You should also localize all touchpoints where local customers need to see evidence of your digital strategy and potentially know more about it. For example, considering Yandex as your immediate target for search optimization in Russia is as sensible as doing the same thing with Google in the U.S.

Digital transformation has to be valuable in each market. Localization enables you to resonate with your audience and customers. Internally, it implies focusing on local experience requirements to accommodate variances and anticipate evolutions. You should focus your localization readiness efforts on understanding linguistic and cultural expectations in each target market. It empowers your stakeholders to make decisions and priorities about how to align product or service value chains with realistic business goals locally. For instance, they must be aware that digitized information has to be more concise, and in mobile-first countries, it has to be mostly portable and shareable. Externally, localizing means delivering local customer experiences and not just translated words or adapted visuals. Your digital strategy must truly resonate with local customers naturally. As part of digital transformation, you have to design and develop global content according to customer research and metrics while considering the creation of local content when it makes business sense.

Digital transformation has to be actionable in each market. Localization enables you to lead your audiences and customers to act, react, and interact without friction. Internally, it means providing tools, features, and assets that help your stakeholders to perform their daily tasks within a digital framework. The best digital content in the most relevant channel is not going to cut it if users cannot leverage it for their purpose. A typical example of locally actionable assets is data visualization tools that your sales or marketing teams must use on a daily basis. If they do not have the functionality they need locally to create, update, or export charts and dashboards they end up making limited and time-consuming use of critical data. Externally localizing means converting leads to become customers and convincing customers to come back as quickly and often as possible to your digital platform(s) or application(s). Customer acquisition and retention is a major cost driver and the success factor in local commercial strategies. Therefore you should invest in localizing components of your digital products and content which assist and prompt your local customers to perform actions intuitively. Business generating features in customer journeys such as acquisition and purchase are particularly at stake. Online payment frequently comes up as an example of a localized feature. If you intend to move away from the usual money transfer and go for options based on credit cards, cryptocurrencies, or mobile payments, you should use options that are functionally and legally relevant in each market.

Digital transformation has to be timely in each market. Localization enables your audiences and customers to benefit from digital transition and implementation when it is most impactful. Internally, it implies phasing processes that should be removed, updated, and added in line with local dependencies. The level and the scope of digital maturity is not the same around the world. So some digital operations must be calibrated and planned to match local facts and keep up with the local competition. It is sensible to introduce – and localize – a sophisticated analytical tool in selected developed markets where stakeholders have the capacity to use it rather than deploying it simultaneously worldwide. Externally localizing means launching or accelerating digital cycle times in full synchronization with local customer journeys. You have to respond to customers with agility, whether it is through a campaign promoting your product or an assistance application for buyers. A linear value chain must be translated into smaller projects or experiments that localization facilitates. Timely digital transformation may also require a combination of digital and physical touchpoints in some markets to avoid disruption, at least during a certain time. Localization also comes to play in such cases by delivering the right mix of content formats and categories.

From a local customer perspective, digital transformation has to be simple. This may sound provocative considering it is a significant cross-functional and time-consuming effort for you. But above all, it should be simple to understand so that it can be adopted and implemented by engaged people locally. Leading digital transformation across many markets is challenging and complex. It should be unfailingly positioned and sold to each local team or resource in charge of making it happen. Localization paves the way to local engagement, collaboration, and delivery.

This post originally appeared on Econtentmag.com

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LANGUAGE INDUSTRY VERTICALS AND LSPS LEADING THE SEGMENTS

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The language industry consists of segments that move at different speeds and have different sizes. Companies that specialize in a fast-growing and sizeable vertical can enjoy a steady increase in business.

For buyers of language services, it makes sense to select a provider with the appropriate portfolio size in their vertical. Those companies will speak the business language and know the challenges of that sector. Also, they will have resources such as specialized translators, translation memories, domain MT engines, glossaries and training materials.

How to read this chart

  1. The chart includes revenue from all language services, including translation, interpreting, transcription, and media localization. Where possible, we excluded revenue from non-language services such as game testing and user support.
  2. Our chart groups verticals on three levels. For example:
    Regulated > Life Sciences > Medical Devices
  3. Companies with larger portfolios are positioned closer to the center, while specialists with smaller portfolios have been placed further away from the center.
  4. The full version of the infographic, which is available to Nimdzi Partners, includes individual company revenues per sector and their estimates.

The chart is based on data obtained via responses to The Nimdzi 100 survey earlier this year and on annual reports of publicly-traded firms such as RWS, SDL, Honyaku center and Keywords Studios. We added estimates in cases where we had reliable third-party information, for example, Nordic interpreting companies that disclose their revenues via online business registries. The resulting sample size is USD 4.6 billion.

 

Segment leaders generate over USD 100 million in their vertical

Being number one brings a lot of perks. In almost every vertical we looked at, the largest player derived more than USD 100 million from that vertical alone: TransPerfect in Life Sciences and Legal, SDL in IT, Keywords Studios in Games, SDI Media in Media Localization, RWS in Patent, and Canadian Translation Bureau in Public Sector. In almost every vertical there is a huge gap between the number one provider and the rest of the flock.

Top contracts make a colossal difference.

Local markets offer a different distribution

Zooming into regional markets, we find a very different distribution of revenue by sector.

  1. Medium-sized language service providers (LSPs) in the US receive close to 50 percent of their sales from Public Sector and Healthcare interpreting, the ALC study found in 2019.
  2. In Russia, technical translations accounted for 30 percent of the volume due to robust demand from the energy and oil and gas enterprises, according to a 2019 study.
  3. In the UK, key providers derive a high percentage of revenue from eCommerce and travel translations.
  4. In France, luxury, fashion, wine, and cosmetics translations make a specialized market with premium prices and significant volumes.
  5. Large Chinese and Japanese providers derive a big portion of their revenues from intellectual property and patent translations.

Countries have specialty areas, and it makes sense to coordinate vertical and geographical expansion strategies to achieve the best sales potential.

Top-100 LSPs focus on verticals with bigger budget concentration

Technical translation may have a huge volume globally, but it is a fragmented market that spreads across hundreds and thousands of LSPs. In the Top-100 distribution of revenue, Media localization is a bigger vertical than Technical, because sales are concentrated. They come from a few top clients, such as the Hollywood studios and Netflix, and capturing this market has propelled leading companies into hundreds of millions of revenue.

Smaller LSPs likely have more revenue in technical translations and general business. These are segments with a lower concentration of business and a higher fragmentation of vendors. They also have revenues from sectors not reflected in the chart, such as retail. Certified translations for private persons exist as a business in every country. However, companies do not come into millions of USD by working in B2C.

The conclusion: to grow large, focus on sectors with low client fragmentation.

This post originally appeared on Nimdzi

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How to Choose the Right Language Service Provider: A Guide for Product Managers

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No matter the nature of your product or service, in order to create a connected and flawless experience for the consumer across the globe, your content needs to be perfectly localized and accessible. Localization can create big headaches, as translation management adds a lot to your already bursting plate of responsibilities. If you have no in-house localization team, you, as an efficient product manager, are in need of a sustainable, successful and long-term partnership with a language service provider (LSP).

 

How do you choose the language service provider (LSP) that is right for you? What are the red flags to watch out for in order to prevent pitfalls further down the line? And how can you determine the quality of the translated content provided? These are only some of the questions that might pop up when thinking about how to best go about outsourcing the localization of your content. This guide seeks to clear up any doubts you may have, so you can get started easily and with confidence.

Laying Down Criteria for Choosing a Language Service Provider

Before you even get down to selection, you need to get straight on what your actual requirements for an LSP are. As a product manager in the global environment, you might be dealing with different offices, different design methods and different versions of your product in order to address your international consumer base (so, efficiency is key). To say that this challenges you to the core while balancing feedback, reporting, and iterations with developers, designers, executives, and other departments, is not an exaggeration.

This means, when you go on the hunt for the perfect partner for your localization process, you need to decide on what is right for you. Not everything will be perfectly matched for everybody. Your future LSP should fit you like a good pair of jeans or your favorite sneakers. You want a provider that has a good structure for meeting your needs, is resilient in challenging situations and relies on the best resources to work on your content. But overall, you need a provider that does not add more to your plate but instead, frees you from pressure and time.

How to Choose Your Future LSP?

In order to ensure your product’s success on a global scale and therefore lay the proper foundation for the success of everyone involved in the process up until launch, many characteristics that are required for your team and your internal processes will apply to your search for finding the right language service provider as well.

What languages will you need? Which markets do you serve?

This is an important question, as it helps you determine whether a single LSP can meet your needs. Even if you plan to launch in the majority of global markets, one LSP is often enough. For example, Globalme offers localization services in 35+ languages. However, if you plan to truly go global, you might want to think about distributing localization orders to different LSPs who specialize in specific target languages – or simply ask your potential LSP about their ability to cover additional languages.

Which workflow did you implement (agile, lean, traditional)?

If you have implemented a specific workflow, you want to make sure that your future LSP knows how to handle that workflow and how to adapt to preferred communication flows for handling requests and orders as well. If you decided for a continuous flow, your LSP should, at the very minimum, be able to handle and sort all new content in the preferred time frame and deliver it back to you in the preferred formats.

How much content do you produce per day, week, month?

Most translators work with a variety of clients and can handle a specific number of words per day/week. Taking that into consideration, you should ask any LSP you are interested in working with, how they can guarantee that your volume is being handled by a few translators as possible (in order to ensure consistency), the presence of native speakers and experts in the field (to ensure time necessary for the translation and revision is the shortest possible time) and the use of translation management systems (TMS) that provide translation memories, termbases and glossaries.

If they love to put the cherry on top of the cake, they will be working with a TMS that even allows for contextualization (e. g., with screenshots), direct communication between content producers and translators, and extraction of new content over the old in updated content versions to ensure efficiency and minimization of risk for errors and omissions.

Will you roll-out in specific markets first?

If you are planning for a joint launch in all markets, your LSP will have to manage your localization differently. This means more content needs to be ready simultaneously, more resources need to be monitored and good communication needs to be in place. Your dedicated localization manager (or team) at your future LSP should be able to explain exactly how they deal with such a challenge and how they ensure that there is no potential loss of quality or increase in cost.

Can you do QA in-house or do you need it to be outsourced as well?

If you have the possibility to handle QA in-house with your subsidiaries in the respective markets, you might want to look into the possibility of not outsourcing the final revision. Instead have a colleague, who is a native speaker, do a final revision (this particularly applies when there are big cultural gaps to bridge and you have no clue what is appropriate in the cultural context of your target market). This allows you to involve your non-domestic team already and also to have real feedback on the quality of your LSP. If that is not an option for you, you can look into outsourcing final revision and QA to an LSP that is different from the one producing the localized content.

What programs and source file formats are you working with?

If you are working with state-of-the-art software and tools, but your future language service provider is still not ready to process anything other than .xls and .doc files, they might not be a good fit. Being up to date with file formats, formatting in general and knowledge on programming languages in order to separate programming language from content can be a challenge for some LSPs. If they value their craft, they will at least implement the use of programs that can take care of format conversion and reconversion without producing errors or breaks in the layout.

The LSP that is a good fit for you will not only know what file format you are talking about, they will also explain to you exactly how they ensure that your files stay intact and are not compromised in any way during the localization process. Don’t be afraid to reject an LSP if you have the feeling they are not equipped with the necessary technical know how to handle everything well.

Do you need a lot of context-based translations or is your content self-explanatory?

What kind of content do you need localized? Is it very technical? Is there a lot of room for interpretation? Is it very suggestive or rather straightforward? Will it be addressing native speakers only or will it aim at a consumer base that is mostly comprised of second language speakers? Whatever the answer to this question, if your LSP uses a TMS that allows for in-context translation through screenshots and discussions between translators and product managers or content producers, you can relax and watch as the magic unfolds. Otherwise, you will need to ensure in your revision and QA-stage that all content has been translated correctly given your context. This would add more time, cost and potential headaches. So, if you can, better avoid it.

In a perfect workflow, how quickly do you need the localized content to be ready for publication?

This is kind of a tricky topic. You might have found a small or mid-sized LSP that checks all your boxes, but they might not be able to deliver the content as quickly as you need it. There are two possible answers to this dilemma. Either you completely let go of the idea of working with an LSP this size and revert to one of the big players, that is able to deliver as you wish. (Smaller businesses rely on fewer resources and thus cannot provide the same volume in the same amount of time.)

Or, if you really feel comfortable about the idea of going with a smaller provider because everything else is exactly how you want it, you can consider extending your time frame in order to adjust to their capacity. This will work only if your internal timelines allow for it, of course. But, it could be worth it. A lot of smaller LSPs are constantly undervalued. However, they can oftentimes produce excellent quality at fewer costs because their operating costs are not as high.

How frequently do you plan to update content or publish new content? What are your plans for scaling?

If you plan on frequent updates and new content production for your product, but don’t need high volumes and only a few languages, then a medium-sized language service provider might be a good fit for the long term. However, if you constantly produce big volumes and need many languages covered, then it might be difficult for any LSP to ensure to have the same dedicated translators working on your content all the time; unless they can put their in-house resources on the tasks (instead of relying on freelance translators). Scaling is a difficult task. You should try to go with the flow as much as possible, but it doesn’t hurt to ask any candidate trying to get your business to explain to you how they handle scaling and how they can ensure quality stays consistent when the operation grows.

How are quality and time issues handled? How do you define service level? How does payment work?

Last but not least, you need to look at potential conflict and how that will be handled between you and your future LSP. Are they straightforward about it? Do they avoid talking about it? Do they have a legal framework in place that explains the definition of service level and which steps you need to follow if you are unhappy with the quality? What happens if they do not adhere to the timeframes you discussed? And how does payment work? Do they hold money in escrow? Also, do not forget to ask how they deal with payment for their translators? Do they pay them quickly after completing the tasks? Do they withhold payments to their translators for specific reasons? A mature LSP will not flinch when facing these questions. They will keep everything transparent. Your success is their success.

How Can You Know If You Have Found Your Perfect Language Service Provider?

The right localization partner for you will put your mind at ease and turn hassle and pressure into a non-existent threat. You know that you are a perfect fit if the provider understands your requirements clearly and is not afraid to answer all of your questions and concerns. Furthermore, they will be able to respond quickly and in a transparent manner when issues arise or extra workload needs to be covered.

Such a provider will be using cutting-edge TMS, will be able to work on a wide range of file formats, and will have localization automation in place to ensure competent handling of your data. Your future localization partner will also be familiar with agile and continuous workflows and be able to integrate their management systems flawlessly with your content management systems. On top of that, the LSP you are looking for will have a proper QA and a vetting system for translators in place.

Your future language service provider will be an important asset for your endeavors and will accompany you on your journey to becoming a successful product manager. Localization is an essential part of product development – make sure you give it proper attention!

This post originally appeared on Phrase.com

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