Cycle Time Crawl, Walk or Run?

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© 2011 Lionbridge

Why cycle time matters in global digital marketing and how to improve it

© 2011 Lionbridge 2

BACKGROUNDWe’ve spent the last three years working closely with leading global companies such as Microsoft and Cisco to develop best practices for global web operations. We also recently partnered with Gatepoint Research on a survey of 973 selected executives, with responsibility for global web operations, to identify key trends in operational practices. Respondents were heavily weighted toward large organizations, with 82% coming from the Fortune 1000. Sixty-three percent of the respondents were Director-level and above, and 36% were VP-level or higher.

One of the main findings of the survey was the large variance in cycle time performance across companies. We will examine why cycle times matter, the causes of long cycle times, and what to focus on to improve them.

Why You Should Read This + VPs of Global Web Operations + Marketing VPs responsible for global digital product or corporate campaigns + CMOs, CIOs

Who Should Read This + Understand the importance of cycle time in global digital marketing + Compare your company’s cycle time to survey results + Understand the key levers to pull to improve cycle time performance + Learn how to apply benchmarking to truly assess your current operations

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Definition: Global Web Operations

Survey Results

Why Does Cycle Time Matter?

What Causes Long Cycle Times?

Operation Model & Digital Asset Management

Global Digital Benchmark

3

3

4

5

6

9

© 2011 Lionbridge 3

DEFINITION: GLOBAL WEB OPERATIONSThere are a number of different terms companies use to describe the operational activities involved in localizing, instrumenting, publishing and tracking the findability and use of digital content. We define Global Web Operations to be the following: All the activities involved in localizing, instrumenting, optimizing and globally publishing content (pages and other content assets) on various digital platforms. We include all of these elements in the definition because, in an operational context, they all become highly intertwined and iterative. They are all components of an inherently common process. If you are not familiar with all of the terms used, here is a quick description:

+ Localizing – translating or transcreating text and audio, selecting different images that are appropriate for each market, and all the related technical work to deconstruct source content from various formats

+ Instrumenting – applying appropriate tracking tags and codes to ads and landing pages to be able to track a campaign’s performance

+ Optimizing – understanding search engine marketing to optimize content for targeted keywords and track rankings and engagement so people can find and engage with your content

+ Digital platforms – not just company-controlled websites but partner sites, social networks, mobile apps, email providers, display ad platforms, search platforms, etc.

SURVEY RESULTSThe histogram below shows the cycle-time distribution of survey respondents that publish in more than five languages. As you can see, there is a wide variance, with top performers “running” along at two weeks and laggards “crawling” at eight weeks.

The cycle time we are referring to is as follows:

Begins – Source content and assets received from Marketing or Agency to begin localization and production process

Ends – All localized content and assets fully quality checked and live in production

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The distribution is broken roughly into thirds, with one group crawling along at a two-month cycle time, another sprinting ahead in two-week cycle times, and the last group walking along in the middle, around one month.

WHY DOES CYCLE TIME MATTER?Most Web Operations groups are constantly being pushed by Marketing to move faster. Here are some reasons why:

+ SEO - New, highly trafficked keywords are emerging every week. The first credible websites to have strong SEO content for those keywords will rank highest on search results, yielding the most traffic and potential customers

+ News - To capture greater visibility, marketing campaigns must align with top trending news and topics, which requires a much shorter cycle time to execute

+ Conversation – Marketing is no longer about just broadcasting the company’s message; it must engage in a dialogue with customers online – requiring much shorter cycle times

+ Localized – Prospective customers expect communication to be in their own language and culture on a regular basis

In short, those companies that are able to “run” with short cycle times will outperform those that are “crawling” when it comes to global digital marketing.

# of Com

panies

Avg. Cycle Time in Weeks

Cycle Time Distribution

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WHAT CAUSES LONG CYCLE TIMES?We’ve seen the large variance in cycle-time performance by company and the importance of shorter cycle times for the success of the business. So why doesn’t every company have short cycle times? What causes some companies to have longer cycle times than others?

Hypothesis #1: The more languages published, the longer the cycle timesThis seems like an intuitive hypothesis. Certainly the level of work goes up as languages increase, so it is reasonable to assume that the cycle time does as well. To assess the validity of this hypothesis, we looked at our survey data for all respondents. The chart below plots company clusters by number of languages and cycle time in days. As you can see, the data points are not correlated. If more languages led to higher cycle time, we would see a nice set of plots moving from the lower left to the upper right. Instead, we see many companies with few languages and long cycle times, and companies with a lot of languages and short cycle times.

As the Myth Busters would say, “This hypothesis is busted.”

# of Languages

Cycle Tim

e in Days

More Languages Do Not Lead to Higher Cycle Times

Hypothesis #2: The bigger the company, the longer the cycle timeAnother highly intuitive hypothesis is that larger companies have more complex processes, signoffs, and approvals that lead to longer cycle times. Again, we looked to our survey data, and the chart below shows the plots of company clusters by revenue and cycle times. If larger companies had longer cycle times, we would see plots moving from the lower left to the upper right. Instead, we see a distribution that shows no correlation between company size and cycle time. Companies of all sizes have short and long cycle times. Another hypothesis busted.

R2=0.076

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OPERATION MODEL & DIGITAL ASSET MANAGEMENTSo what does cause longer cycle times? Through our client work, we have found two factors to be the main causes of long cycle times: the operational model and an effectively deployed Digital Asset Management system.

Company Revenue ($MMs)

Cycle Tim

e in Days

More Languages Do Not Lead to Higher Cycle Times

R2=0.001

Marketing Management

Content Execution

Content Development

Factor #1: The operational modelThe most common problem we find with long cycle time companies is that their operational model artificially separates a single process into two, which results in more handoffs, delays, errors, and longer cycle times. The graphic here shows the three core processes involved in the execution of global digital marketing content: marketing management, content development and content execution. The table lists core activities of each core process.

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Most long cycle time companies artificially separate content execution into two parts (localization and web production) and partner with separate providers for each.

Core Process

MarketingManagement

ContentDevelopment

ContentExecution

Activities

– Go to market strategy

– Campaign planning, creative briefs and budgeting

– Campaign performance tracking and improvement

– Campaign concept and message

– Campaign creative elements

– Localization (copy translation, appropriate image selection)

– Web production (deploying web assets and pages)

– Instrumentation (applying analytic tags to all assets, pages)

– Content marketing (organic search/social driven traffic to compelling content)

Marketing Management

Content Execution

Content Development

Corporate Marketing

IT OutsourcerLocalization Agency

Digital Agencies

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This artificially separates a highly iterative process and spreads it across two vendors with separate and uncoordinated policies, procedures, and incentives. In addition, the other two components of content execution (instrumentation and content marketing) often fall through the cracks.

Short cycle time companies have found a way to “run” by managing content execution as a single, coherent process that is optimized through a relationship with a single vendor.

Factor #2: An effectively deployed Digital Asset Management systemOnce a streamlined process is in place for content execution, short cycle time companies enable it through a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system. The main activity in content execution is centered on content assets of various digital forms that explode in number as they are translated, localized, revised and quality checked. On a global marketing campaign, all versions of these assets and pages can easily number into the thousands. Trying to manage this process through email and file servers becomes a time-consuming and error-prone activity. Every time an asset is emailed, copies are created for each of the recipients; when one copy is edited, all of the others become outdated and review time is wasted. To make matters worse, all of the assets, ads and landing pages must be correctly instrumented and the correct version must end up in production.

Digital Asset Management systems are designed specifically to fully enable, streamline and error-reduce this process. Fast cycle time companies employ DAMs to enable their processes.

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GLOBAL DIGITAL BENCHMARKMany companies we speak with are interested in benchmarking their performance in global web operations against others to find areas for improvement. We do offer a benchmarking service that combines both an external, customer-oriented benchmark and an internal, process-oriented one.

+ External customer benchmark – reviews digital marketing platforms (web, mobile, social) from the perspective of in-country potential customers and benchmarks against competitors

+ Internal operational benchmark – compares operational models and processes to other organizations

Together, the external and internal elements form a Global Digital Benchmark that provides a clear assessment of current strengths and areas for improvement. If you are interested in discussing a Global Digital Benchmarking study in more depth, please reach out to us at globalmarketingops.com/contact.

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ABOUT LIONBRIDGELionbridge is a market leader in the globalization services industry. Through offices in 26 countries and more than 90,000 in-market experts, we help companies manage and improve their digital presence around the world with our suite of global marketing solutions.

To learn more, visit globalmarketingops.com/contact