July 2007 Archives

The results to our poll on the Growth in Language Translations are in. Take a look:

A couple of data points jump right out:
-- There is clearly a significant decline in those who are currently translating to only 1-3 languages when we look at plans for 2008/2010.

-- In terms of changes from 2007 to 2008, the increase in language translations appears to be moving up from 3 languages maximum to 10 languages maximum. That’s more than doubling “translation capacity” over a relatively short period of time.

Adding to some of the stats in Mary's blog on Emerging Markets: The Brass Ring?, economists agree that a revolution in the global economy is well underway. Donald Hepburn, corporate economist for Unilever, notes that “companies that do not understand the economics of developing nations will miss out,” and predicts a major shift in consumer consumption by 2010. The Economist concurs, noting that the shift is not just about China and India. And a Goldman Sachs study takes it a step further, predicting that by 2040, the world's ten biggest economies will include Brazil, Russia, India and China, aka BRIC.

Begs the question, how are companies preparing for the increase in demand for translated content and localized user interfaces? Mary and I are on vacation next week, July 30 through August 4, but we'll have more commentary when we return. Happy summer!

We conducted our occasional poll on most pressing business drivers for providing localized content to customers during our July 11 webinar with Idiom and EMC. (See below for results.) A post-webinar email exchange about the results stimulated a discussion on the business impact of established versus emerging markets (geographic regions in which economies are still developing). How are global companies approaching growth strategies? We set out to look for indicators.

Two of the 12 Megatrends in B2B Marketing indentified by the Economist Intelligence Unit in a recent survey underscore the importance of emerging markets in reaching global executives. From the report:

"The geographic demographics of today will bear little resemblance to those of the next ten years. . . by 2017 China will become the world's largest economy when growth is measured on purchasing power parity. . . for 2006, [study] sponsoring organizations are targeting Asia and central/eastern Europe more than the Americas and western Europe."

"...there is a growing belief that the high-flyers of the next decade will arise from the ranks of today's domestic companies (domcoms) in emerging markets."

We also looked at the performance of companies reporting quarterly earnings this week. On an interactive Earnings Cheat Sheet available on wsj.com, analysts say that IBM's expansion in Asia is a positive factor:

"In the first quarter, IBM's Asia-Pacific revenue rose 10% to $4.5 billion, on growing demand in China and India and a turnaround in Japan. Management said in May that it plans to increase staffing in China by at least 10% in each of the next few years."

And in commentary on Merrill Lynch's global reach:

"Merrill's non-U.S. revenue has been setting the pace and now accounts for more than half of its GMI total. In April, Merrill said it's taking a $2.9 billion stake in Resona Holdings, the largest foreign investment ever in a Japanese bank."

One question pertinent to Gilbane readers is the timing of real investment in content technologies that will enable businesses to realize potential in these markets. For what should enterprises plan, and when?

July 11 webinar attendees see other factors as more pressing drivers today. Time-to-market for simultaneous product shipments is the most important, global and product brand management least important.

These results are not surprising considering that the topic of the webinar was technical documentation for global markets. Participants were naturally inclined to be more concerned about shipping the documentation with the product and less concerned about brand management.

A quick addition to my previous entry about the language requirements inside the European Union: New Approach Standardization site gives a list on EU directives for 22 product types at http://www.newapproach.org/Directives/DirectiveList.asp. Omnilingua has made a good summary on the language requirements of these directives at http://www.omnilingua.com/resourcecenter/eulang.aspx, although their list contains only 18 product categories.

Having a look at one of the directives, such as http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31989L0106:EN:NOT, also gives you an idea about the amount of translation work that happens inside the EU. All the directives have to be available in all EU languages, which keeps translators busy. It could also give the Europeans an advantage in developing solutions e.g. for multilingual content management.

Still, the thought of the US being a monolingual country needs to be revised, too. Spanish has become the second language in the US, with practically all the big companies offering customer service and printed materials also in Spanish. Once a company needs to offer even just one additional language, it will need solutions for handling multilinguality. It is also good to remember that a big part of multilinguality is verbal communication, which requires multilingual personnel. This will create interesting requirements for language teaching both at schools and at work. More on that later.

In her entry on brand management, Leonor gave a link to the 4000+ languages of the world, all of which have speakers buying things and thus being prospective consumers. The largest language groups are obviously interesting for all companies, but sometimes even small languages are worth noticing.

I recently spent a few days in Reykjavik, which is an interesting city. Iceland, with its 300,000 people speaking Icelandic, is number #13 in the GDP per capita list of CIA Worldbook https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html. Reykjavik was definitely showing the its high position in the GDP list, with its very nice restaurants and fashion and jewelry boutiques. All the young and middle-age people seemed to speak very good English (much like in my home country Finland), and all information was available also in English. But everything was also written in Icelandic – of course.

So, even a small amount of native speakers can be a good reason for translation, if those natives are affluent. Or who knows? Maybe after a few decades everyone in Iceland is happy to receive all their information in English? I would not bet on that, however.

As regards to the European Union, it has legislated what must be translated if you want to sell your goods and services to an EU country. Here are some links for more information:

http://europa.eu/scadplus/leg/en/lvb/l32036.htm is the European Union site which gives a summary on the EU legislation. To get some of the legalese in a more comprehensible text, you can have a look at the summary put together by the Australians at http://www.export61.com/export-tutorials.asp?ttl=eteu. And Sophie Hurst of SDL has put together a good summary at http://www.sdl.com/printer-friendly/localization-information/white-papers-articles/white-papers-list/white-papers-europe-legal.htm.

To summarize all these summaries: if you want to sell your product in the EU, always translate consumer information, such as user manuals, labels etc., into the local EU language.

As a final note: My sister in Finland had just bought a new dishwasher. It came with a bunch of manuals in different EU languages. Although ecologically it seemed a waste of paper, that is what one gets in EU now from big manufacturers. It seems to be cheaper to deliver manuals in several EU languages to consumers, instead of sending just one printed manual in the correct language. A good process in logistics might change that...

This week's topic: Growth in language translations.

5 questions,
30 seconds,
Promise.