People no longer want to figure out how to do this themselves – they do not want to repeat the same mistakes as others and are actively looking for the right people, processes and technology to implement at the right place at the right time. In other words, they are looking to jump-start their global plans in order to speak to and support their global customers in locally relevant ways. Due to e-commerce, improved telecommunications technology and China, there is no turning back.

Jump-start your globalization strategy

Three consistent themes ran throughout the presentations, hallway discussions and evening get-togethers during this Summit:

• How do we develop and implement the right globalization strategy to enable us to get to the next phase within our organization, whether that be an enterprise-wide localization approach, web customer support that serves all of our customers worldwide or an integrated globalization strategy that meets regulatory requirements on a global scale?
• What model should we adopt for our global information management strategy?
• Whatever model or strategy we do adopt, how do we leverage the expertise that exists to avoid making the common mistakes? How do we apply open standards and accreditation to ensure that we reach our goals?

If you’re not there yet, when will you be and how will you get there? And who will be there before you?

In her keynote presentation, Innovation with Impact: Adding Value Through Globalization, April Singer (Globalization Services Practice Manager for IBM) provided one perspective on the global trends and market drivers impacting technology decisions for all businesses, along with the opportunities they are creating for globalization consulting services. More than ever, with all of the very strong local and regional competitors in all markets these days, you truly only have one chance to enter a market and to do it right. With the economies in Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) predicted to grow from 15% to 31% of the GDP of the G8 countries by 2015, this means many, many more buyers, and many, many more competitors. The world’s internet population by language (as of March 2006) was English at 31%, Chinese at 13%, Japanese at 8% and all other languages at 48%. The internet population by region was the U.S. at only 20%, with the rest of the world at 80%.

The demand for global capability is an imperative, as companies move from a multinational model to one that IBM calls the globally integrated enterprise. So many IBM customers are asking them for help to make this transition that it recently announced that it will offer globalization consulting services. Singer believes that there is more business in this area than any of us can possibly handle. She advises that we pick our place along the food chain and start adding value. After all, every time a company adds a new language or enters a new market, or a new company appears, the market for globalization services – including consulting – increases.

And it’s not only consulting at the IT level, as Singer describes, but the support and guidance that companies need to globalize their business processes throughout the entire organization. With localized web sites comes the need to provide order fulfillment and payment systems according to local business rules and languages. Global information management strategies are required. The globalization strategy itself must be integrated seamlessly into the corporate strategy.

Recruit two executives as “Guardian Angels”

Rebecca Ray (Managing Editor and Consulting Partner for LISA) described how to integrate globalization across the enterprise in her presentation, How to Run a Globalization Audit of Your Business Processes. Globalizing a company's business processes requires the creative and efficient management of human capital in order to get it right. In many markets and industry sectors, it's no longer good enough to tailor your original processes as international expansion takes place. Your competition can do that. What is required is for you to really analyze the process in question and determine how to implement it as you compete globally. Ray’s one piece of advice? Recruit one or two executives to act as your “Guardian Angels” to ensure success.

Operating in a regulatory environment adds another level of complexity to globalization and how to implement it enterprise-wide. PerkinElmer's expanding global presence, combined with its objectives of customer excellence and full regulatory compliance, is driving the need for greater globalization and localization of its customer content. Claude Lamoureux (Manager of Multilingual Information Services for PerkinElmer) presented the company’s application of LISA's globalization assessment method in a Six Sigma environment for making the shift to business-optimized compliance in his presentation, Globalization Assessment of Business Processes in a Regulated Environment.

It’s NOT about Global Content Management …

Cost-efficient global information management is key to building the global enterprise. Ann Rockley (President of The Rockley Group) provided a roadmap for developing a successful global information management strategy in her keynote presentation, Optimization Begins at the Source: Developing a Unified Content Strategy. Rockley provided three specific examples (manufacturing, medical devices, finance) to illustrate a unified content strategy (a repeatable method of identifying all content requirements up-front, including structured content for reuse and localization). Rockley’s most important pieces of advice? Bridge the divide and build relationships between the people who create the content and those who localize it. It’s not about Global Content Management, but rather, Content Management.

Enable your management to understand and act

There were several presentations and panels from customers who shared their global information management models, what they had done right and wrong, their ROI figures and their future plans. Heike Caldwell (Localization Manager at Rockwell Automation) revealed how she obtained management buy-in by convincing her executives that there is a direct correlation between localization and global success, and thus enabled them to understand and act. Applying “Lean Enterprise Principles,” Caldwell has saved Rockwell Automation more than USD 6 million since 2001. However, there is still a lot to be done. By 2009, it is Rockwell Automation’s goal to be 50-50 (U.S. versus rest of world) in sales revenues. However, the company currently spends less than 1% of sales on localization. (See the presentation, How to Get Management Buy-in for Strong Localization Support, for more details – Caldwell provided lots of data and figures related to the company’s competitors vis-à-vis localization, vendor comparisons and her future plans.)

A bottom-up approach to creating an end-to-end content management strategy

Andrew Bone (R&D Director for Internationalization/Localization at Computer Associates) described how CA followed basic engineering principles to create an end-to-end content management strategy in A Strategic Approach to the Content Life Cycle. It combined a structured writing approach with an XML authoring environment and enterprise translation management system to reduce translation costs by over 40%, to provide improved quality delivery and to enable product simship in 20 languages. His one piece of advice? Build a productive working relationship with the group who creates your content. If you combine forces, you can gain executive attention and win the funding and resources that you need.

Don’t assume that people will know what to do with a process

Jeffrey Klein (Dade Behring) also brought an engineering perspective to the global information management issue in Managing Globalization Workflow: A BackShoring Blueprint. He explained the company’s integrated workflow model and how it designed the build process environment for maximum automation. Based on this model, Dade Behring has been able to slash its total localization costs by 91% in a single year! Klein’s two pieces of advice? It doesn’t have to be overwhelming to bring certain aspects of software localization in-house. Dade Behring is proof. Don’t assume that people will know what to do with a process – train them.

A 3-year journey at Symantec …

In CMS Localization at Symantec, David Shannon shared the three-year journey that yielded a mature, two-fold strategy for content management and localization that now includes worldwide content reuse, a “write once use multiple times” process and the localization of content deliverables (print, online, and multi-platform help systems) into 27 languages. Shannon also revealed that Symantec’s overall cost savings is projected to almost double to USD 6 million. Shannon’s one piece of advice? Content creators have to be allowed to let go – they no longer own “the book” or the style, only the subject and topic.

Will our standards adapt to what’s coming in 2-3 years?

To ensure the success of the integrated globalization strategies described above, open standards are required, along with accreditation. As Rocio Txabarriaga (Director for Translation and Localization Services for NetworkOmni) so aptly expressed the issues during the final session of the Summit, What types of organizations will need globalization over the next three years, e.g., there will be many Chinese tourists arriving in many tourist destinations – what are we doing to prepare for them? Are we preparing adequately to leverage the huge leaps in natural language processing that are now taking place in speech recognition? Our standards must be adaptable to this new world.

Standards as Legos

Andrzej Zydroń (CTO for XML-INTL and Member of LISA’s OSCAR) presented his vision for global information management for the next ten years in The Future of the Localization Industry. He believes that the change that has been predicted for several years will start to kick in very, very soon since hardware, software, telecommunications and internet infrastructure have now converged to support radically new ways of doing things. In his second presentation, Global Ready Operations: A Focus on Open Standards, he explained all of the localization industry’s related standards (TMX, TBX, SRX, XLIFF, TWS, GMX, DITA, OLIF, xml:tm and Unicode) and showed how these XML-based, open standards can be used together to improve the localization process. He provided the overall picture as to how open standards can be integrated as the building blocks for efficient and cost-effective multiple language production processes.

Successful partnering based on XLIFF

Michael MacGregor (Software Globalization Advisor for Dell) and Vivek Anand (Software Localization Manager for Adams Globalization) illustrated how successful partnering based on XLIFF can provide significant process improvements, decrease turnaround times, enable cost efficiencies and allow both partners to retain the highest quality standards for software localization in their presentation, Implementing the XLIFF Format – Reducing Production Costs and Increasing Quality.

A panel with users and service providers of multilingual content reuse solutions discussed how to apply the best practices of multilingual content reuse to improving the localization process and reducing translation costs in Technical Publications With DITA – Optimizing Localization Multilingual Content Reuse.

Why we need accreditation … desperately!

Donald Barabé (Vice-President of Professional Services for the Translation Bureau of Canada) made an eloquent business case for accreditation in his presentation, Why We Need Accreditation … Desperately. Innovation is based on diversity, and diversity is based on language. This is because language is not a way of speaking, but rather, a way of thinking. We must overcome the linguistic/cultural barriers to communicate and to ensure the free flow of information. YET, at the same time, we must protect them to protect diversity. Translation / localization is the ONLY solution to this dilemma. The demand is soaring for people in this field, while qualified supply is dwindling. According to Barabé, there has been a 30% decrease in rates over the last ten years in constant dollars. The perception is that anyone can translate / localize, and this is more and more the reality since there are no barriers to entry in this field. The profession has reached a turning point, and it is now time for it to professionalize and structure itself through an accreditation process.

For the past year, LISA has entertained the pros, cons and implementation models associated with accrediting localization services companies. During the panel discussion in which Barabé made his presentation, a consensus was reached, and LISA will move forward to put together a draft accreditation program.

Thank you, Sponsors!

LISA gratefully acknowledges the support of its sponsors for the Summit: HP, IBM, SDL, CLS Communication, translations.com, acclaro and The Language Technology Centre.

LISA Events in Washington, Warsaw and Cairo

Hope to see you at one of the other LISA events this year: the Digital Economy Forum 2006 in Washington, D.C., USA from October 5-7, the LISA Forum Europe in Warsaw, Poland from November 13-17 or the LISA Forum Middle East and Africa from December 9-12.

LISA’s newest publications to help you jump-start your globalization strategy

If you need to jump-start your globalization strategy and gain executive buy-in, check out our newest publications – better data to help you make better decisions:

(1) the 2006 Global Business Practices Survey Report, in partnership with the World Bank and the Monterey Institute of International Studies

(2) the 2nd edition of our very popular Best Practice Guide: Managing Global Content

(3) the results of the LISA's 2006 Best International Web Support Sites Awards, in partnership with the Association of Support Professionals