The Survey

As many Newsletter readers already know, LISA’s 1999 Localization Industry Survey Report is the latest in a series of surveys of the industry performed every year since 1994/5. The exercise, which grew out of LISA’s mandate to document the fast-growing localization industry, is designed to provide basic data on this still underresearched sector and offers a particular focus on operational issues. It thus complements other, commercially available market research reports underwritten by professional survey organizations.

The 110-page 1999 report—the most extensive ever—is based on replies received from 127 service providers, clients, and tools developers from 22 countries. 60% of respondents had their registered office in the Americas, 33% in Europe and 7% in the Asia-Pacific region. Participants included many of the world’s largest IT companies and service providers, and were drawn from both LISA members and non-members. Their responses are captured in a total of 96 graphics, and supplemented by appropriate analyses.

The Methodology

Traditionally, LISA distributed two survey forms—one for IT publishers and one for localization service providers. However, the increasing differentiation within the localization community and in particular the crucial role played by tools and technology dictated a change in approach in 1999. As a result, three forms were produced —for localization service providers, for “clients” (i.e. all demand-side players rather than just hardware and software companies), and tools providers. At the same time, however, the questionnaires still built on those of previous years in order to allow historical comparisons where relevant.

As in the past, the questions asked in all survey forms in 1999 were reviewed by leading industry players to ensure relevance as well as participants’ willingness and ability to answer. Furthermore, many questions were expanded to provide a greater level of detail than in the past, as well as being updated to cope with the impact of the Internet/Web on the globalization and localization community.

The questions in all three forms focused on business issues, workflows and structures within the localization industry, as well as on tools and quality. Concrete information obtained includes:

• 1999 budget/sales figures and service breakdowns
• Budget/sales forecasts for 2000
• Key product areas, vertical sectors, platforms and language coverage
• Key business and operational challenges
• Client and supplier deadline/budget compliance, and key delivery problems
• Localization production models and staffing levels
• Quality assurance and project management practices
• Concrete evaluations of 21 categories of tools according to real-life criteria.

Sampling for the 1999 Survey took place from September 22 through November 15, 1999. All three survey forms were distributed to LISA members and contacts via the Web and in paper form. In addition, the service providers’ form was distributed in the September issue of The International Journal for Language and Documentation, while the tools providers’ survey was also announced and distributed at the Singapore conference of the International Association for Machine Translation in September 1999. A Press release advertising the Web version was sent to a wide range of publications, and the American Translators’ Association also publicized the client and service provider forms among its members.

Responses received by LISA were stripped of their identifying headers and sent to a third-party institution for data entry. In this way absolute confidentiality of the information provided was ensured throughout. The aggregated results were then analyzed against the background of previous surveys published by LISA and others, and of information obtained from LISA Forums and other events.

Key Results

The 1999 Survey revealed and/or confirmed a number of interesting results. The detailed figures and analyses are given in the Report itself. In general terms, key findings include the following:

Figure 1: LISA 1999 Survey Report - Client Localization Services (Budget Percentages)

• The localization industry experienced continued growth in 1999, and expects this upbeat scenario to improve still further in 2000.
• Translation is and will remain by far the largest budget item for clients, although a slight easing of overall prices seems possible for 2000 (see Figure 1 for the sample graphic concerned).
• English is and will remain the source language for over 80% of localization work outsourced by clients, followed at a considerable distance by German, French and Japanese (equal rankings).
• A substantial majority of all respondent groups will be recruiting additional staff; however, this will place further strains on an already overheated labor market.
• Further opportunities for service providers will present themselves as clients outsource additional work to meet their growing time to market, quality and cost requirements.
• However, there will be a certain level of supplier consolidation among clients, potentially resulting in service providers handling fewer, but larger, accounts.
• Rapid growth is likely to continue to tax resources, particularly in the case of the large number of smaller service providers and tools providers.
• Clients, on the other hand, must improve their internal organizations, workflows and communications to ensure products are designed for globalization and localization, and to obtain adequate information for reliable project planning.
• The relative dearth of mature tools providers is a potential source of concern, since the localization industry is highly dependent on linguistic and other technology.
• However, continuing high levels of in-house development by clients and service providers compensate for this scarcity to some extent.
• Last but not least, there is a need across all groups surveyed for education on a broad range of business and technical issues and the development and dissemination of best practices.

Deborah Fry
Co-Director
Fry & Bonthrone Partnerschaft
In der Witz 29
D-55252 Mainz-Kastel
Germany
Tel +49-6134-2046-0
Fax +49-6134-2046-47
E-mail: info@fb-partners.com