Category: Content management & strategy (Page 138 of 480)

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.

Having gotten my feet [soaking] wet with briefings from Web Content Management vendors, I’ve come to a realization: the Customer-Vendor feedback loop is one of the strongest keys to long-term success for all parties. A blinding flash of the obvious? I don’t think so.  Let me explain…

I have seen, and written, a lot of RFPs seeking “the perfect” WCM product. The natural tendency in these “quests for the holy grail” is for the tool-seeker to list as many WCM features as one might possibly use […maybe…at some point in the future… if only…] and for the vendors to respond, in turn, by listing all of their capabilities and feature sets. As one might imagine, this scenario typically results in responses which provide the decision-maker minimal product differentiation information.  Why? Because like it or not, most WCM products offer similar feature sets, and if they don’t offer a particular feature today, one can be sure it’s “on the roadmap”.  [I’ll spend more time in a future post describing how one can craft an RFP to elicit valuable responses which actually help one decide which product(s) align most closely with needs of the author.] But today’s capabilities are tomorrow’s old news, so how can one be sure they’re selecting a vendor whose product will meet tomorrow’s needs? Take a look at the vendor’s track record and approach to collaborating with customers to expand and hone its offering.

As I delve into some of the top-rated [by users] WCM vendors, I see a consistent “customer-is-key” theme being played out in the form of both formal and informal feedback channels.  These “conversations” with customers can be either synchronous or asynchronous, direct or indirect, two-way or multi-way…or all of the above.  The point is that successful vendors [pro]actively engage their customers, and then respond in a meaningful manner to enhance their offering in a way that ensures that the product’s “roadmap” is *always* aligned with the needs of both current and future customers.

In a recent briefing with a vendor [who I feel has a great approach to managing this feedback loop], the last slide in their presentation listed four of their key differentiators…but all of them were technology-related and failed to mention my aforementioned favorite. Why not?  Is it because they aren’t proud of this factor? Absolutely not…they are very proud of it and have worked hard to create such a valuable dialog with their customers. My sense is they left it out because this subject is not yet a key criteria in the minds of decision-makers.

We are failing to ask the right questions.  Why wouldn’t customer service and engagement be the key in such a huge purchase decision? It should.  Innovation is essential, but I believe it is critical that we, the customers, ensure we have a place at the table to refine the direction of such innovation. After all, innovation without purpose or utility is useless.

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