How Localization Can

Double Your Revenues

The world’s

your oyster.

The world’s

your market.

Let’s face it:

You won’t get there in Year 1. You cannot build first-class

localization infrastructure overnight.*

* Rome wasn’t built in a day either

On the flip side:

You CAN still compete effectively with entrenched local

competitors, and global brands even without their major

local presence, or their budgets.

You can leapfrog many of them with the right approach

taken from the start — no extra baggage.

How?

• Take a staggered approach

• Invest smartly

• Avoid unnecessary mistakes

in the early stages

• Get the basics right, and

grow from there

Building a Business Case for

Localization1

Top Companies Grow Globally

Among S&P500 companies, an average of

46.6% of all sales are generated outside the

United States.

The largest sector is Information Technology,

with more than 56% of its declared sales

crossing international boundaries.

28 of Germany’s top 30 companies on the

German stock index (DAX) generate 75% of

their sales outside the country.

• The value of communicating in

your prospect’s local language

begins at the first encounter

and gets more pronounced

throughout the sales cycle.

• Conversions are more likely in

the prospect’s local language.

People don’t buy what they

don’t understand.

• Start by localizing pre-sale

information. Quality of after-

sale support will not close the

sale.

Can’t Read,

Won’t Buy

Case Study: Rocket Internet

• Rocket Internet has replicated the strategies of successful ecommerce businesses in start-ups launched around the world, in niches ranging from mobile payment to food delivery.

• Goal is to make Rocket the biggest internet group outside the US and China. It operates in more than 100 countries using proprietary technology.

“We are focused on markets

outside the US and China

because these are

underserved.”

Source: FT.com

Example: Indonesia

“Facebook, Twitter and Uber are all opening offices in Jakarta, but only a handful of international companies have made sizeable

investments in the Indonesian tech sector. These include Japan’s Rakuten and Sumitomo, and German ecommerce conglomerate Rocket

Internet.” (FT.com)

Money, Money, Money2

How Do You Compare?

Understand Locale Specifics3

Your Audience

Tips for a market-specific buyer profile:

• Research market demographics and your industry

• Identify your local competition and its strategies

• Learn local purchasing behavior

• Identify the tools and channels that your buyers are using to get

product information & support

• Conduct focus groups

in-country to understand

local preferences and

sentiments

• Create locale-specific

customer profiles

• Shape local brand and

positioning

Evaluate Languages & Markets and

Prioritize Content for Localization4

Key Considerations

• What is the number of languages that you target?

• Are they among the world’s top common languages or rare ones?

• How large is the project’s volume?

• Does your company’s industry involve such specialized terminology

that it calls for industry subject matter experts?

• Do you have tight time-to-market requirements that require

around-the-clock localization teams?

• Does the content call for regulatory review and approval?

• Focus on the major markets

• Hand-pick promising, ripe, high-growth markets where you can

build competitive advantage

• Keep full long-tail languages for later

• Attractive markets for entry

– Hard and soft data on potential markets

– Language preferences — must vs. customer delight, segmentation

Prioritize Your Geographies

Marketing and demand

generation Sales tools and collateral

Public relations

Local social media

Product

User InterfaceUser

Assistance

Website and online

presence

Multilingual SEO

Customer and product support

Training

Legal

Set Your International Brand &

Content Strategy Right5

Set your brand, style and

terminology carefully from

the start…

…because changing this later

is going to be like trying to

turn an oil tanker.

Your Content Choices

Translation

Transcreation

Copywriting

Where to Invest and How to

Build and Grow Your Team6

• Get executive buy-in

• Establish cross-functional

visibility & approach to

localization

• Be strategic

• Staff

• Educate

• Engage your in-country staff, if

they exist, in a managed way

• Work to establish a clear budget

(ideally centralized) and tracking

Take It Step by Step

Translation Technologies You Need

— and Don’t Need — Early On7

Tools & Technologies Are NOT the Solution

• Establish your core workflows first

• Start by using essential tools

• Add more advanced technology and automation over time

• Integrate with upstream processes

• Don’t reinvent the wheel

• Involve hands-on localization staff and use their experience

Sequence of Implementing Translation-

Related Technologies (Simplified)Translation & localization tools

Translation Memory (TM)

Terminology Management System

Content Management System (CMS, WCMS)

Content Authoring System

Translation Management System (TMS) & Workflow automation

Content Optimization

Machine Translation

Community translation platform

Quality Assurance checking tools

Key Process Considerations8

• Document and implement

core processes

– As company-wide business

processes

• Inventory your content. Look

for building a centralized

content repository

• Learn to analyze root causes

of issues

• Establish a way of collecting

and analyzing local market

feedback

Key Process

Considerations

• Localization workflow for

individual content types

• Terminology management

• Query management

• Style guide development

• Quality metrics

• Linguistic quality review,

including arbitration

Essential Processes

to Get Right

Set Metrics and Start Tracking

Actual Performance Early On9

You can’t measure

everything in the early

stages of your

localization program…

…but if you don’t start

measuring the right KPIs,

you can’t improve over

time.

• On-time deliveries

• Project extension requests

• Average turnaround time

Project Management

Metrics

• Trending volumes (recycling

effectivity)

• Average cost per word

• Localization budget and your

contribution to new language-

related revenue

Financial Metrics

Downstream

• Satisfaction & user experience

of your in-country users

Upstream

• Language quality passes/fails

• Review rejection rates &

arbitrations raised

• Terminology queries

Quality Metrics

• Bugs by category & product

language

• Bug turnaround time

• Reactivated bugs

• Technical accuracy of

deliveries

Engineering Metrics

• Net Promoter Score (NPS) with

your key internal customers

– Product development

– Marketing & demand generation

– Sales

– Local offices

– Support

– Executive sponsor

Internal Satisfaction

Final Recommendations10

• Think long-term

• Get the essentials right

• Move from operational to

strategic

• Think upstream

• Think new markets

• Treat localization as the engine

of your growth

• Make yourself indispensable