What’s the best thing
you can do to make localisation a success?
To clearly define what localisation means and should achieve for your company – considering your business strategy, goals and priorities, and everyone involved in driving them.
Invest in localisation to meet your business goals, not the language industry standards
I might be the only localisation specialist who has first learned about localisation and internationalisation in a business school.
This makes it easy for me to speak the same language with people for whom these terms mean a type of strategy for competing worldwide and the process of international expansion.
​
But imagine my surprise when, fresh into my new role as a localisation project manager, I realised that the company hired me to coordinate translation tasks.
In the business case for localisation, they defined it as “the capability to translate copy” – because that’s how localisation is “most commonly understood” (thanks, the language industry).
Later on for the product team it became “adaptation of a product to meet the language, cultural and other requirements of a specific target market”.
​
One marketing team saw it as what “helps build a glocal brand that inspires emotional connection”.
For the expansion team, it was a list of dimensions – from holidays to laws and regulations – that impacted product, marketing and hiring decisions, sales tactics and expansion timelines.
​
How do you manage localisation here when your localisation manager was hired to deal with translations?​
Depending on your objectives and audience, your vision for localisation might need to be very high-level.*
​
Or it could be detailed and comprehensive, explained and documented in a strategy document.**
* Like in the video script I’ve written for SAP featured here. It explains localisation to executives when it has nothing to do with language.
** Like what I’ve developed for a startup – this webinar recording shows how those vision and strategy came together.
Still think you should hire a localisation manager first?
A client of mine wanted to hire a localisation manager who would define their vision for localisation and bring it to life.
To choose the right person, they added an offline assignment to the interview process.
Candidates were asked to propose how to structure localisation based on the company’s situation and expansion goals.
Out of 9 candidates, 8 proposed plans for managing translation for a new market launch.
What’s worse, they all ignored that the company had already launched in the region they were expanding into, and quite a few customers were using their (poorly) translated product.
​
And the person who got the job still needed help developing that vision for localisation and managing change, despite having twice the expected experience.
​
Need something better? I can also assist with job design, job descriptions and interviews.
“Why would we need help with change management and job design?” you might ask
If you look at job ads for localisation manager roles, you’ll notice a trend: most companies need additional hires to “evangelise” localisation. Why?
Because teams who need localisation to drive international growth don’t follow the processes localisation managers set up. Why?
​
Few realise that with the need for localisation comes the need to redesign existing business processes, implement new ones and manage change.
​
Want to bypass this by hiring a language specialist, just to find yourself hiring more to handle the fallout?