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Singapore 2001
The LISA Global Strategies Summit – ASIA
Where Enterprise Globalization becomes a reality!
Pan Pacific Hotel, Singapore
2-4 May 2001
The Summit examines the changes in the Asia-Pacific markets and what it means to the development of global business, both in terms of those entering the markets, as well as for those seeking the language resources and technologies that only Asia can provide.
The Global Enterprise - Pitfalls and Opportunities in Globalization
Charles Pau - Director, International Product Management, Lotus
Capitalizing on over 20-years experience in Asia regional business, Charles presents why the A-P market represents the most complex challenges for executing global business, while at the same time it offers the highest rewards. He explains how companies that can succeed in this environment can succeed anywhere!
The Asia-Pacific region is the fastest growing Internet market. Despite the financial crises of the past few years, Asia still has the highest growth rate of Internet users and is expected to have the largest Internet population within the next few years. However, it is a fragmented economy with many barriers because of language, cultural, political, and legal differences. With regional groupings such as ASEAN are moving towards open borders, e-business is positioned for exponential growth. Therein lies the opportunity and the challenge.
There are two reasons why e-Business software products (infrastructure, middleware, application) cannot focus on a single country or language:
- With the exception of Japan, none of the other countries is currently big enough to sustain too many competitors in the same segment. One only has to look at the number of Chinese portals that are presently having difficulty surviving.
- Most e-business or e-commerce applications will have to deal with customers across borders. It is common knowledge that a person visiting a website is four times as likely to remain on the site it if accommodates his/her mother tongue.
The Internet has changed the way business is conducted. It has changed the way people communicate, coordinate, and collaborate. It has also changed the way software is designed, developed, distributed, and deployed. Global e-Business requires that a customer can access a server from anywhere in the world, using his/her language of choice to work with applications and interact with other customers and partners.
Therefore, the companies that successfully can provide services for creating such applications like localization workflow tools, localization and translation systems, as well as multilingual application development, and consulting – will prosper.
The LISA Globalization Strategies Awareness Survey - Results
Ivan Wong - Director, Mkt Research, eXage
Lately there’s been a flurry of general market surveys in the business and trade press about the Internet. According to the respondents, e-business budgets are being cut – or they’re not. Activity is declining – or it’s not. Internet executives are market bears – or they’re bulls. Besides offering contradictory views of market, these surveys address only part of the problem that international business managers worry about.
Is the mandate for global e-business still there? What are the real challenges that globalization practitioners face?
The LISA survey is an attempt to undo the confusion. It will reveal what companies are doing in Web globalization and how they are responding to today’s challenging climate.
The Strategic Importance of the Asia-Pacific Market
Moderator: Rose Lockwood - Director of Business Research, Berlitz GlobalNet
Panelists:
Vipul Patel - Director and Senior Analyst, International Research, Jupiter Media Matrix
David Yew - Senior Analyst, IDC Asia/Pacific
Tom Spargo - Co-Founder & President, Geomarkets
Industry Analysts explain the pivotal role of the Asian region in light of market opportunities and market conditions in specific economies. They each deliver their perspectives on the most promising A-P regional markets, for localization and Web globalization.
Tom Spargo draws upon his report, Assessing Asian eMarkets – to open a discussion of Asia’s New Economies with an eye towards prioritization. A framework will be introduced for use in strategic planning of web localization efforts.
Developing a Web Globalization Strategy
Elisabeth Abeson - Globalization Strategist, IBM
This presentation will provide a step-by-step overview of building a global Web strategy in today’s competitive marketplace.
Elisabeth will begin by reviewing leading Web globalization models and methodologies, after which she examines the process for translating strategy into tactics at your own company. Taking a multi-disciplinary approach that touches upon strategic, operations and implementation issues, this presentation will distinguish between the strategy and the framework that needs to exist if a core plan is going to be developed, deployed, communicated and maintained across a global network.
Globalization of a B2B Exchange
John Hammond - Product Manager International Trade Management, Standard Chartered Bank
Collectively the world’s leading commercial and investment banks are making rather a mess of moving their businesses to the Internet. Many are committing fundamental business mistakes that they would never allow in their traditional operations. Leadership of Internet initiatives is often confused, as are their objectives. A few banks may have built good sites for specific businesses but none has come close to putting together a complete set of Internet offerings.
Learn why and how Standard Chartered is implementing a comprehensive e-Banking strategy covering trade, finance and full banking services. John explains the role of globalization and localization planning, costs and execution in developing the bank’s “gateway to a world of services”.
A Behind-the-Scenes Look at IBM’s Recent Web Redesign
Elisabeth Abeson - Globalization Strategist, IBM
Elisabeth presents ibm.com’s global objectives and examines the project management, Web design and workflow processes that support specific business sections of IBM’s current site.
In addition to providing a visually compelling overview via screen shots and site navigational flows, Elisabeth reviews development scenarios and illustrates how a global team of IBM stakeholders, business partners and vendors created a multi-market Web system for 166 countries.
Ask Jeeves Answers in Japanese
Tammy Young - Director of Quality Assurance, Basis Technology
Ask Jeeves’ search technology combines natural-language processing techniques with an editorial staff to provide end-users with a focused, highly relevant search experience. After opening their first European site in March 2000, Ask Jeeves International consulted Basis Technology for help in readying their product suite for Asian markets. Ask Jeeves and Basis worked together to internationalize and localize this complex software. The newly established Ask Jeeves Japan KK is poised for a successful launch of Japanese Answers software in 2001.
Balancing Budgets and Needs
Katarina Bonde - President & CEO, Glides Inc.
Globalization can benefit companies of all sizes and budgets. Many people are concerned about the effort of creating an international web site and not having a sufficient budget to outsource all of the work.
Katarina explains how you can internationalize your web site with moderate cost and effort. Her presentation will explore how companies can start with their existing web site, take one country or language area at a time, and not feel that they have to “globalize” everything immediately.
Solutions Out of the Wall
Bert Lenderink - Managing Consultant, Alpnet
Bert highlights Alpnet’s approach to the multilingual information process including translation and localization. He will describe how they integrate technology for an enterprise solution.
Real-time Translation on the Web
Jay Marciano – Product Development Director, SDL International
Jay presents the practical role that MT plays depending on application and globalization objectives. His views offer an exciting opportunity to learn how today’s ‘real-time translation’ applications can solve practical business issues.
Multilingual Enterprise Email
Angela Wee - Chief Executive Officer, EWGate
Automated language translation with its current state-of-the-art is now widely acknowledged as the technology that can facilitate businesses in this global market. Angela explains how the technology is being used through the Internet for enterprise applications.
Formal Aspects of Knowledge Management in GIL
Jörg Schütz - IAI Saarbrücken
“Knowledge management” is one of today’s buzzwords, and a term that receives a lot of marketing hype. For consulting organisations, knowledge management is essentially about new business management techniques that are designed to address the fact that people and the expertise they possess are the primary assets in an increasingly knowledge-based economy.
Globalisation, internationalisation and localisation (GIL) are prominent areas in which knowledge management is getting more and more into the focus. This is because companies are restructuring their processes and operations to fully account for global markets. In this context, knowledge sharing and knowledge exchange must be facilitated by appropriate technical means in an integrated multilingual and multi-cultural processing workflow environment.
The LISA OSCAR group is working on standards for the exchange and interchange between different tools and utilities deployed in GIL processes. The most visible work so far is the TMX (Translation Memory eXchange) format, which has been adopted as the de-facto exchange standard by several TM vendors. OSCAR is currently working on a lexical and terminological exchange format, codenamed TBX (Term Base eXchange), in close collaboration with the European SALT (Standards-based Access to Lexicons and Terminologies) project and the European OLIF (Open Lexicon Interchange Format) project. Yet another area of work is the identification, specification and implementation of an SGML/XML based set of formats for GIL processes and operations, which is codenamed GTS (Globalisation Tag Set). All OSCAR work so far as been founded on the SGML/XML paradigm and on already existing standards such as the ISO 12620 for the data categories used in term banks.
This technical session will introduce and discuss the work that is currently ongoing within the SALT/OSCAR collaboration and will include:
- Essential prerequisites of successful GIL processes and operations — the terminology case
- Important existing and emerging (GIL) standards — the LISA/OSCAR case
- Beneficial next steps in GIL — the style case
How to Enter Korea - Secrets to be Successful in Korean Market
Stanley Park - Waltts Corp.
This session will profile the Korean market from a global business perspective. Stanley will discuss the investment requirements to be successful for software products, support services and Web-based business models.
The following topics will be discussed:
- Market demographics in terms of end-user requirements, hardware and software and Korean vs. English installed base.
- Key growth markets and projections
- B2B vs. B2C opportunities
- Globalization/localization impact on market infrastructure, education, companies, tools and quality assessment criteria
- Business sectors, market divisions, and the importance of the Korean language
- Business, culture, and political issues
Evolving Markets and New Opportunities
Moderator: Andrew Draheim - Business Manager, General Services Department, The World Bank
Panelists:
Hwee-Boon Low - Sr. Director in Charge of Strategy, Kent Ridge Digital Labs
Simon Lim - Head, Info-Comms & Media, Services Development Division, EDB
Today there are 4.8 billion people representing 80 percent of the world’s population -- these have access to 20 percent of a global income amounting to $30 trillion dollars. Twenty-five years from now, 6.8 billion out of a total of 8.0 billion people worldwide will be living in developing countries. Europe and the USA will remain the same size as today with approximately the same financial powers -- whereas South Asia is likely to remain in poverty.
It is increasingly difficult to develop a stable global economy in a world that remains financially imbalanced. How can the constructive elements of business globalization foster growth and employment for the developing regions of the world? How do we motivate business to invest? What types of investments are likely to stimulate growth? How can enterprise globalization help countries prosper in a global economy?
There is a fundamental need to address the business issues associated with creating an atmosphere that fosters economic growth. On issues of governance, it is essential that transparent and sound business practices are instilled in emerging economies. After all, with foreign investments in developing countries at $250 billion a year, it is clear that the business opportunity is substantial. We need to help everyone realize the true potential. Realistically, what role can business play?
This panel will address the globalization imperative in terms of Asia-Pacific local and regional programs aimed at stimulating economic and technological growth.
Investing in the Globalization Business: Asia - the Immediate Opportunity
Moderator: Alison H. Rowles - Director, SMP Marketing Sarl
Panelists:
Patrick Woodrow - Manager, Burlington Consultants
Jimmy Vong - Director, I&J
Virginia Cha - Executive VP, The 8th Network
Funding of US Internet companies has now encompassed one full investment cycle. In spite of their stock value, few US Internet success stories really understand the issues of Globalization and Localization, the prerequisite of most Asian businesses. Traditionally, the Asian market has lagged behind the US by three to five years. This also appears to be true in the investment area, with new Venture Capital groups and risk taking investors beginning to appear in a traditionally conservative investment climate. The UK and Europe and Asia now support multiple web and internet investment funds along with the usual array of investors, from seed, to incubators, accelerators, angels, first stage, second stage, institutional and private. Governments are finally beginning to evolve funding programs to foster start-ups and Singapore is no exception.
This panel will address the current status of the Asian investment climate and its expansion. Will it follow the US example or approach new ventures more cautiously? What role does Globalization play in these models, and how can LISA members position themselves both for investment and as advisors to these newly funded ventures? The audience will have the opportunity to ask panelists these and other questions.
Why is it that the business community still doesn’t recognize the true value of localization? Is it just the lack of publicity? Or is it the inability to correctly label this business sector? Will it make a difference to the investor if we are Localizers or Globalization Solutions Providers? These and other questions can be asked, and hopefully, answered by these experts.
Patrick Woodrow’s presentation will focus on what businesses should expect during the due diligence process and how to preempt and prepare for the VC’s questions. The presentation will also include a recent case study from a due diligence exercise within the global localization industry.
