If you are just preparing to enter the Middle East, this issue of the Globalization Insider will help you get started. The good news for people used to doing business in the U.S.? The business elites are composed of relatively small numbers of people, so it doesn’t take much time to find out “who’s who.‿ The bad news? You must invest in long-term relationships by physically spending time in the markets yourself. The relationship is the business and the business is the relationship in this region of the world – perhaps more than in any other. In other words, it is not possible to have ‘just a business relationship,’ as people often do in the U.S. There must be other links as well, to establish and maintain confidence as partners – all built at the appropriate time and under the appropriate circumstances.

In Leave That Heavy Cultural Baggage at Home! (premium), we asked the attendees at the LISA Forum Cairo in December the following question:

What are the three most common mistakes that companies still make when entering the Middle East?

In their own words, we provide the answers from the point of view of localization service providers in the Middle East.

Ahmed Ezzat explains why dealings in the Arabic-speaking world can be complex in Bridging Business Cultures to Ensure Success (premium). There is no magic key to success, but Ezzat provides 11 tips to put you on the right path for doing business in the region.

IBM has had a local presence throughout the Middle East for many years. If you want to know what pitfalls to avoid when developing software products for this region, Tarek Abou Ali, Advisory Software Engineer Project for IBM Egypt, provides some important guidelines in Why Isn’t My Software Product Selling Better in the Middle East? (premium)

One of the most significant results from the LISA Cairo Forum in December was the discussion surrounding a terminology standardization initiative for Arabic. Oracle and Saudisoft responded to our solicitation for input on this initiative for this issue of the Globalization Insider. We outline their suggestions in A Terminology Standardization Initiative for Arabic (public).

If you are interested in participating in a terminology standardization initiative for Arabic, please send your comments to editor@lisa.org.

Tex Texin, Founder and Chief Architect at XenCraft, looks at some of the issues associated with different scripts and the directionality of scripts in our article from the Globalization Insider Archives, Which Direction Is This Language Written In? (premium). Even if you know what script to use for a given language, your software may not support the direction you need, or your product, document or web site requires substantial modification to look right when “reversed‿ or rotated to deal with other scripts. Texin provides background on these issues and shows you where to find answers to your technical questions.

If you are gearing up to enter the Middle East, I recommend that you also check out the following resources available from LISA as you prepare your business plan:

All About Arabic Workshop
Internationalization and Localization Testing Workshop

All of the presentations from the LISA Cairo Forum (December 2005)

LISA’s next event is coming up fast – the LISA Forum China Focus in Shanghai from April 18-21. If you are operating in the Asia Pacific region, you really can’t afford to miss this event for the latest trends in globalization/localization best practice. Here’s a sneak preview of the content we have planned (click here to review the full agenda and here to review the workskhops that we will be offering.):

China: The Next Multilingual Gateway?

Making Your Applications Not Only Work, but Work Well in China

Click here if you want to check out your colleagues who have already registered for the China Focus Program. If you want to sign up for the last few spots that are available for exhibitors, please click here.

The LISA Publications Group has been very busy these past two months. If you are working on strategic business/marketing plans, don’t miss out on our latest data and best practice guides. Here they are:

The 2nd edition of our very popular Best Practice Guide: Managing Global Content has been released. The new edition includes benchmarking data and case studies for decision makers, and specific do's and don'ts for all aspects of implementing GCMS. The emphasis is on how to manage a successful implementation from the user point of view. Learn how to develop your own International Content Model and how to prepare your Request for Proposal (RFP) from two of the world's most experienced GCMS implementers from HP and the World Bank. Order Managing Global Content today.

What do companies like Sony, Microsoft, HP, Intel, ATI and Dell all have in common? Aside from being leaders in global information technology, they are also winners of LISA's 2006 Best International Web Support Sites Awards. Designed in partnership with the Association of Support Professionals to recognize companies that excel in supporting their customers around the world, the Awards are given by LISA to the ten sites selected by a panel of expert judges as the best at providing international web support. For the 159-page book that includes (1) the judges' analysis of the ten sites selected as winners and (2) essays by the developers of the winning sites outlining in detail how they developed their winning sites and how they were able to integrate international support into their organizational priorities, click here. (The report is available free to LISA Corporate Members and at a significant discount to LISA Individual members and ASP members.)

We have had an overwhelming response to filling out the LISA Global Business Practices Survey. Thank you! We will start analysis next week and let you know when the full report is ready.

Fill out Opening an International Office and receive a copy of the survey results – absolutely FREE!

Our site visitors constantly ask us for concrete data on how to open an international office. There is not a lot of usable data available to help those of you who must create the strategies and implement the plans for opening international offices. To support you, LISA is conducting Opening an International Office to examine the business priorities and plans of your colleagues who are opening new internatinal offices over the next 12 months. Fill out the survey by Friday, March 24 and receive a copy of the survey results – absolutely FREE!

That’s it for this month. See you next month in Shanghai!