With almost 11,000 employees world-wide and in 1993 approximate revenues of 7.0 billion dollars, Compaq is paying close attention to their localization and internationalization business. In Europe alone last year, Compaq revenues were over 2.7 billion dollars. They expect that amount to increase considerably in 1994 and also to see improvements in other "foreign" markets. They are organized into 5 regions (GEOs): Europe-Middle East-Africa (EMEA), Latin America, Asia/Pacific, USA/Canada and Japan.

To run a more efficient translation and localization operation, a new function was introduced; European Localization Management. Reporting to the Vice-President of Engineering as part of the EMEA region, Frans Bruinsma is in charge of all EMEA localization projects.

New Localization Strategy

Frans Bruinsma will support all European localization tasks and vendor management. His main responsibilities include finding the right solutions for documentation, software and other localization requirements.

As the main interface between country customer requirements and product engineering, Frans sees a major opportunity to reduce cost by optimizing timely delivery of project work and materials. Another responsibility is organizing a localization "Roadmap" for each new product and to have this analyzed for marketing requirements versus the deliverables.

The Roadmap includes a step-by-step control and evaluation plan covering the entire process. Starting with Customer Requirement Definition, the Roadmap sets milestones and definitions for Development; Country Kit Completions; Translations; Printing; Production and Distribution. Using this type of methodology, the localization operation expects to see a 30% time improvement compared with previous results.

"Documentation quality and local language version availability, are considered very important by our customers" says Frans. The three most important aspects for this level of support are: (1) User Friendly and Competitive - to support numerous languages for both documentation and software and, to have local language country kits available as close as possible to the product announcement date. (2) Legislation - local language support even for the small markets are justifiable due to legal requirements. Different levels of translation will be required for different countries. (3) Up-to-date Content--documentation will correspond to the product shipped as well as the specific software and diagnostics. ISO 9000 will play a significant part in this strategy as all Compaq documentation is written to meet the ISO 9002/services requirement format.

Liaising with International Marketing

A critical aspect of Compaq's localization strategy is the early involvement with US engineering. By making each product manager responsible for a localization business plan, better emphasis and productivity is anticipated for the entire process. A customer requirements matrix is developed by each country and submitted to product management and engineering.

Recognizing the complexity of Compaq's localization business operations, Frans has published a company proprietary Localization Handbook. As a quality enhancement tool, the handbook describes and dates - materials flow, logistics, process definitions and project responsibilities. A comprehensive organization chart and dependencies will track areas of responsibility for each aspect of Compaq's localization and distribution process.

The major opportunity areas Compaq identified to streamline their localization costs and to meet distribution deadlines run consistent with Fran's EMEA Roadmap. In the Customer Requirements stage localization management will specify needs for each product and accurate forecasting will be relied upon both internally and from third party vendors. Modular translations will be positioned for an early start with a central review and tight control by localization management. This will be supported by agency reviews of translation work and benchmarks established with consumer groups. To meet printing demands, alternative media like CD-Rom is being investigated in line with multilingual versus monolingual editions.

Translations Vendor Strategy

Based upon input from US and coordinated with local language support from the local subs, Compaq will out source the localization and translation requirements to qualified vendors, each of whom are managed centrally by Frans Bruinsma, GEO Europe.

Translation vendors are qualified by means of a rigorous analysis performed on-site. Approved partners must meet the following requirements:

• ISO 9000 certification
• Technical competence
• Experienced software localization
• Layout and graphics support
• Format ready for printing
• Communication readiness
• Strong telecommunications infrastructure
• Multilingual and multi-platform support
• International project management success
• Competitive pricing
• Guaranteed customer satisfaction

By writing their new procedures to the ISO 9002 specification and centralizing Compaq's localization and project management, EMEA will give substantial support to their selected vendors. In addition, a communication strategy built around Lotus Notes will have a significant impact on translation file transfers and proof reading processes. All partners and internal support groups will use the same communications infrastructure to ensure cost effective process control between vendors and USA and regional subsidiaries and HQs operations.

Note: Frans Bruinsma is one of the featured speakers at the forthcoming LISA Forum in Boston, August 24-26. He will present his views on how to improve the localization process through better management of quality and logistics.