Recently in Global Content Value Chain Category

Updated April 1, 2011 
The study is now available directly from Gilbane.

Our 2011 report describing the current state of practice for globalizing multilingual marketing content is available now through March 31 exclusively through study sponsors  Across Systems, ADAM Software, Lionbridge, and SDL.

Multilingual Marketing Content: Growing International Business With Global Content Value Chains features a major update of the global content value chain, Gilbane's framework for helping companies plan and manage their globalization practices. The new value chain adds core competencies to the existing functional view of multilingual content processes, and it clearly ties the value chain to business outcomes.

Study data includes top business goals and objectives and the investments that marketing and localization managers are making in programs and initiatives that support those goals. The analysis covers what marketing organizations can learn from product content groups, who are generally further along the content globalization maturity curve.

The report will be available directly from the Gilbane website starting April 1. In the meantime, please visit a sponsor site to access the study, and check this blog for research highlights and insights.

Our readers are familiar with language afterthought syndrome, a term we coined in our report on Multilingual Product Content: Transforming Traditional Practices Into Global Content Value Chains.

Language afterhought syndrome refers to that pattern of treating language requirements as secondary considerations within content strategies and solutions. Global companes leak money and opportunity by failing to address language issues as integral to end-to-end solutions rather than ancillary post-processes. Examples abound. Source and translated content that should be reusable, but isn't. Retrofitting content to meet regulatory requirments in different regions. Lost revenue because product and marketing content isn't ready at launch time. Desktop publishing costs that are incurred soley due to reformatting in multiple languages. The list goes on and on.

One of the most effective defenses against language afterthought syndrome is baking language requirements into the technology acquisition process, thereby embedding support into the infrastructure as it's designed, developed, and built out. OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) recognized this opportunity when it embarked on an ambitious transformation of its web content globalization practices. Debra Lewis, web content manager at OCLC, and our friend Andrew Lawless, principal at Dig-IT Consulting, shared their experiences in a terrific session at Gilbane Boson 2010 entitled "Next Thing You Know -- You're Global!" 

The presentation delivered by Deb and Andrew is available on the Gilbane conference website (follow the link and click on slides for session E3) . Highlights include Deb's characterization of the signs of stress. On the production side:

• Spend more time finding “creative solutions” than creating new content or managing site strategy
• Use features of your CMS in ways not originally intended
• Can’t upgrade to new releases without corrupting your pages

On the business side:

• Localization addressed at the point of publication
• Turnaround for day-to-day edits increases—affects relationships with internal clients
• Distributed authors “give up” and relinquish editing rights
• Team stress increases

These stress points led OCLC to commit resources to evolving its global web content strategy.  Deb and Andrew then walked our audience through OCLC's three-phased transformation:

1. Get a translation service provider
2. Get a new CMS that would scale
3. Get a translation management system

The portion of the presentation on selecting a web CMS with well-defined multilingual requirements will be especially valuable to any organization wanting to eliminate the negative impacts of language afterthought syndrome. Deb and Andrew described OCLC's selection process and timeline, CMS selection criteria, prioritized globalization features, key standards that would need to be supported, text and language requirements, and requirements for integration with translation workflows.

Many global companies are now rearchitecting their web strategies for global presence and audience engagement. We see this as a major technology and investment trend for 2011. The insight offered by OCLC couldn't be more timely.The organization's experience offers a treasure trove of guidance for companies who are evaluating new web content management systems with language requirements among their priorities.

Thanks to Deb and Andrew for a great contribution to Gilbane Boston.

Gilbane's webinar calendar was laden with at-your-desk educational opportunities during the final quarter of 2010. Here's a quick round-up of the events on content globalization:

Cisco's Localization Journey: Capitalizing on Global Opportunity. We talked with Tim Young, Senior Operations Manager at Cisco, about the company's transition from localization and translation silos to a centralized shared services platform. Young's presentation was chock full of great metrics. Gilbane will publish an in-depth case study in February.

The Holistic View: Connecting Global Product Content and Marketing Content. We examined the current state of practice for multilingual marketing content and the successes that global enterprises are realizing when they overlap their multilingual marketing, brand, and product capabilities, treating business content holistically rather than as separate practices.

Game-Changing Approaches to Engaging Global Audiences and Managing Brand. The online version of our presentation at Localization World in Seattle. We shared insights into how leading practitioners are improving and advancing their global content value chains for marketing content, drawing on the research for our upcoming report on multilingual marketing content:

And although this webinar on Delivering Compelling Customer Experiences with DITA and CCM wasn't specifically about content globalization, it examined next-generation XML applications and how global companies are realizing new value with smart content. The case studies covered in the webinar and in Gilbane's Smart Content report touch on XML for localization and translation.

Our new year's resolution is to get back to regular blogging. We'll start with an easy but time-sensitive post.

After three years in Berlin, Localization World moves to Barcelona this year. The event takes place 14-16 June.

The theme of this year's conference is innovation. Based on what we saw happening with content globalization practices throughout the second half of 2010, innovation is top-of-mind for all industry constituents. Services business models are evolving, driven by strategic collaboration among buyers and sellers of translation services. Technologies for automating the manual tasks associated with content globalization are maturing rapidly. Gilbane's research shows steady progress towards overcoming language afterthought syndrome, as more and more companies realize that one or two key investments can stem the money drain caused by redundant processes. Innovation, indeed.

The call for papers closes 21 January 2011. 

When working with enterprise clients, we are inevitably involved in helping our operational champions sell investments in content globalization practices and infrastructures. Sometimes business case support is a formal part of the engagement, and sometimes it just evolves as part of what we do to help companies create competitive advantage with content in multiple languages.

In a recent joint Gilbane/SDL webinar, we made the point that the last pitch to top executives -- the one required to seal the deal for funding -- is fundamentally different from the others made along the way. If you've made it to the executive suite, you've done a good job so far. But too often, we've seen clients fail to secure investment because they use the same approach to selling that's enabled them to pass through the previous gates. Some common points of failure when selling globalization technology to executives include:

• Investment focus that is too tactical.
• Poorly expressed pain points.
• Lack of strategic value proposition tied to the top line.
• Vague ROI.
• No vision that ensures sponsorship and ongoing support beyond the initial project.

These points of failure can be addressed by recognizing that the funding conversation with executives is truly different, and by restructuring the approach to presenting the value propositions related to the investment you're seeking. For the webinar, we developed a value-oriented framework for selling globalization technology within the highest levels of the organization. Its four components, as illustrated above, can guide you through the process of creating and delivering an executive sales pitch biased for success. We used the framework to examine six ways to recast an executive sales pitch. We backed up brief analyses of weak and strong answers with data from Gilbane research and real-world customer experiences.

The recorded webinar is now available on the SDL website.

Last year as we pursued our research for the Multilingual Product Content study we saw an opportunity for further study of the role of machine translation (MT) as an element in the global content value chain (GCVC).  To this end, Gilbane Group is now conducting an online survey on MT adoption and buyer / user expectations.  The survey covers domains using MT, target applications, integration, benefits and business drivers, as well as obstacles to adoption.

Adoption of MT in some form or another is gaining acceptance and use (we anticipate) will soon be prevalent, especially as a strategy for managing user-generated content in multiple languages.  We are seeking input from IT, content, and language professionals within global enterprises as well as service providers.  Current adoption of MT is not a requirement for taking the survey.

The survey is online and will take less than 10 minutes to complete.  In exchange for participation, respondents will receive aggregated survey results and the executive summary of the analysis. Take the survey now.  Contact us if you have any questions about the research.

We're featuring multlingual content strategies, practices, and technologies in four sessions on the San Franciso program:

• Reaching Global Audiences: Case Studies in Multilingual Multisite Web Content Management
• Breaking Out of the Silo: Improving Global Content Value Chains by Collaborating Across Departments
• Content Metrics: Tools for Measuring ROI in Global Content Infrastructures
• Eliminating the Multilingual Multiplier: Addressing the Cost of Producing Formatted Content in Multiple Languages

These topics are among the hot spots on Gilbane's 2010 Content Globalization Heat Map, which identifies a set of key investments that companies can make today to advance their content globalization practices and overcome language afterthought syndrome. (See this presentation for more information on these concepts.)

We're in the process of populating the sessions with top-notch speakers. Check the Gilbane San Francisco conference site for updates. Twitter is #gilbanesf.

Sixth in a series of interviews with sponsors of Gilbane’s 2009 study on Multilingual Product Content: Transforming Traditional Practices into Global Content Value Chains.

We spoke with Kent Taylor, VP - Americas for acrolinx, a leader in quality assurance tools for professional information developers, The acrolinx information quality tools are used by thousands of writers in over 25 countries around the world. We talked with Kent about the growing importance of Natural Language Processing (NLP) technologies across the global content value chain (GCVC), as well as acrolinx’s interest in co-sponsoring the research and what he considers the most relevant findings.

Gilbane: How does your company support the value chain for global product support?

Taylor: Our information quality management software provides real-time feedback to authors and editors regarding the quality of their work, enabling quality assurance in terms of spelling, grammar, and conformance to their own style guide and terminology guidelines.  It also provides objective metrics and reports on over 90 aspects of content quality, therefore delivering quality control.  The value of formal information quality management across the information supply chain is reflected in reductions in translation cost and time of 10% to 30%, and reductions in editing time of 65% to 75%.

Gilbane: Why did you choose to sponsor the Gilbane research?

Taylor: To help build awareness of the contributions that Natural Language Processing technologies can bring to the global product content value chain.  Natural Language Processing is no longer just a laboratory curiosity; it is in daily use by many of the world's most successful global enterprises.

Gilbane: What is the most interesting/compelling/relevant result reported in the study?

Taylor: The fact that "quality at the source" is now being recognized as a critical success factor in the global information supply chain.

For more insights into the link between authoring, quality assurance, and multilingual communications, see the section “Achieving Quality at the Source” that begins on page 28 of the report. You can also learn how acrolinx helped the Cisco Leaning Network with their quality assurance service, which now projects cost savings of 28% for Cisco certification, beginning on page 59 of the study.  Download the study for free.

Fifth  in a series of interviews with sponsors of Gilbane’s 2009 study on Multilingual Product Content: Transforming Traditional Practices into Global Content Value Chains.

We spoke with David Smith, president of LinguaLinx Language Solutions, a full-service translation agency providing multilingual communication solutions in over 150 languages.  David talked with us about the evolving role of the language service provider across the global content value chain (GCVC), their rationale for co-sponsoring the research, and what findings they consider most relevant from the research.

Gilbane: How does your company support the value chain for global product support?

Smith: As a translation agency, we’ve realized that our involvement with global content should be much earlier in the supply chain. In addition to localization, we support clients in reducing costs and increasing efficiencies by providing consulting services that revolve around the content authoring process – from reuse strategies and structured authoring best practices to maximizing the inherent capabilities of content management and workflow systems. Rather than just adapting content into other languages, we assist with its creation so that it is concise, consistent and localization-friendly.

Gilbane: Why did you choose to sponsor the Gilbane research?

Smith: Of the many organizations and associations we belong to, we find that the research and topics of Gilbane studies and conferences alike most closely align with our interest and efforts to diversify our services and become a turn-key outsourced documentation consultancy as opposed to a traditional translation agency.

Gilbane: What is the most interesting/compelling/relevant result reported in the study?

Smith: The findings present two major points that we feel are relevant. First, there is definitely wide-ranging recognition of the benefits derived from the creation of standardized content in a content management system integrated with a localization workflow solution. 

Secondly, there are many, many different ways of approaching the creation, management, and publishing of global content.  There’s often a significant gap between the adoption of global content solutions – such as authoring software, translation management software, workflow linking different technologies – and the successful implementation of these solutions among those responsible for day-to-day content creation and delivery.  A major manufacturer of GPS technology is actually authoring directly in InDesign to a great extent even though it utilizes an industry-leading translation workflow tool – which provides an example of the lengths to which internal processes must be changed to realize truly efficient global content processes.

For more insights into the link between authoring and translation and localization, see the section “Achieving Quality at the Source” that begins on page 28 of the report. You can also learn how LinguaLinx helped New York City Department of Education communicate with 1.8 million families across 1,500 schools in which 43% of students speak a language other than English at home. Download the study for free.

Providing education on the business value of global information through our research is an important part of our content globalization practice. As we know however, the value of research is only as good as the results organizations achieve when they apply it! What really gets us jazzed is when knowledge sharing validates our thinking about what we call “universal truths” – the factors that define success for those who champion, implement and sustain organizational investment in multilingual communications.

Participants in our 2009 study on Multilingual Product Content: Transforming Traditional Practices into Global Content Value Chains told us that eliminating the language afterthought syndrome in their companies-- a pattern of treating language requirements as secondary considerations within content strategies and solutions -- would be a “defining moment” in realizing the impact of their efforts. Of course, we wanted more specifics. What would those defining moments look like? What would be the themes that characterized them? What would make up the “universal truths” about the remedies? Aggregating the answers to these questions led us to develop some key and common ingredients for success:

• Promotion of “global thinking” within their own departments, across product content domains, and between headquartered and regional resources.
• Strategies that balance inward-facing operational efficiency and cost reduction goals with outward-facing customer impacts.
• Business cases and objectives carefully aligned with corporate objectives, creating more value in product content deliverables and more influence for product content teams.
• Commitment to quality at the source, language requirements as part of status-quo information design, and global customer experience as the “end goal.”
• Focused and steady progress on removing collaboration barriers within their own departments and across product content domains, effectively creating a product content ecosystem that will grow over time.
• Technology implementations that enable standardization, automation, and interoperability.

Defining the ingredients naturally turned into sharing the recipes, a.k.a. a series of best practices profiles based on the experiences of individual technical documentation, training, localization/translation, or customer support professionals. Sincere appreciation goes to companies including Adobe, BMW Motorrad, Cisco, Hewlett Packard, Mercury Marine, Microsoft, and the New York City Department of Education, for enabling their product content champions to share their stories. Applause goes to the champions themselves, who continue to achieve ongoing and impressive results.

Want the details?
Download the Multilingual Product Content report
(updated with additional profiles!)

Attending Localization World, Silicon Valley?
Don’t miss Mary’s presentation on
Overcoming the Language Afterthought Syndrome
in the Global Business Best Practices track.