This is a guest post by Milen  Epik from Epik Global Solutions. Connect to Milen on LinkedIn.

If you have ever been involved in a globalization initiative of a website, portal or application, especially a first time attempt of such, you must have probably come to realize there were many misconceptions about going global within your company. Unfortunately, many of us are plagued by these misconceptions, and it’s only when we look back that we come to see the hard learned lessons that helped us separate the myths from the truths about globalization.

If you have not yet been part of such an initiative or been exposed to a globalization project, but plan to do so, read on.

There are several myths about globalization, but I will cover three of them in this blog series.

Globalization, Localization and Internationalization

Before we get started, here are some useful definitions:

• Globalization (G11N) is the process of defining the business and technical requirements, processes and resources necessary to launch and sustain a multi-market initiative or initiatives to address international target audiences and stakeholders. It is broader in meaning, and includes internationalization and localization.

• Localization (L10N) is the process of translating and adapting existing source content to meet the local preferences and/or conventions of a specific target or market (a “locale”). It addresses content language, culture, display or local units of measure, etc.

• Internationalization (I18N) is the process of generalizing a technology platform and architecture to efficiently support and adapt to multiple languages and local/cultural conventions. It is an ongoing development process that eliminates the need for re-design and reduces the cost of localizing a software or web application or architecture.

Myth: Let’s Go Global with Our Current English Website

Often times, global organizations create a web presence in English and believe they can grow their business globally with the status quo. This is a common misconception stemming from the thought that English is the universal business language, the common denominator. So, why can’t everyone be reached with your English website and be served with the web tools and portals in English?

While it’s correct that English is the common business language, most sites are created with a local English audience in mind, such as US English, UK English, Canadian English, etc. For the purpose of this post, we will assume it’s US English. When a site is biased for its local US audience, this means that the use of the English language is US centric and the notions are relevant to US culture, and so on. But when going global, organizations should think globally and create content useful for the entire global users, and only after that localize and adapt specifically for each locale. US English should be treated simply as one of the localized versions, not as the root of all the content.

Here are four reasons why organizations cannot push aside the need to invest in globalization.

#1: Different Search Tools

First of all, the topic of globalization includes not only translation, but it also includes cultural adaptation, software internationalization, international SEO, technology and processes to support it, and other topics.  You need to consider that even though your site is in English, you have English readers elsewhere on this planet, they may not use the same search tools as you do.

Instead of Google, Yahoo!, and Bing, you will now need to consider tools such as Baidu for China, Yandex for Russia and local tools owned by known big names. Other local search tools used in other countries include Naver, Daum, Nate for South Korea; Yahoo! Taiwan in Taiwan, Netsprint, Seznam for Czech Republic, and Eniro for Nordic countries in Europe, among others. This starts becoming confusing and one may wonder if its not sufficient to optimize on Google only.

Here are some data points as to why it’s not sufficient to only optimize for Google:

• Yandex (for Russia) – reaches 83.3% of the users with 91.2% of all page views (Google only reaches 3.4% of the users with 2.6% of all pageviews)

• Baidu (for China) – reaches 87.5% of the users with 94.7% of all pageviews (Google reaches 1.8% of the users with 0.8% of all page views)

• Yahoo! Japan – is the 1st most popular site in Japan, with 97.5% of the users coming from Japan and generating 98.1% of all pageviews.

The map below shows the most popular search apps per country:

Most Popular Search Apps Per Country (Based on Alexa traffic data, updated on 10 Aug 2013)

As you make your decision on which engines to optimize for, consider the search engine market shares per country:

Although Google has a high market share in countries around the world, companies need to also consider optimizing for other search engines. Source: Search Engine Market Share Per Country from Return on Now

Thus, even if you keep your site in English, you will need to put some effort to make sure that it can be “reachable” by others.

#2: Variations in Terms and Spelling

The search words that individuals use in English across the globe also need to be considered, as users in other geographies have different terms to search for the same information, such as “cell phone” in the US versus “mobile phone” in the  UK.  Many other examples with local language variants exist, not only for English, but also for Spanish, Portuguese, French, and others.  Lets stick to English for an example. Consider a car manufacturer, such as a GM, Ford, Toyota or other, who wants to advertise and provide information on their different models. Now consider a user in the US who is searching for a “truck” and is directed to various trucks available under that brand. If the manufacturer’s website was created in US English, a UK user who is searching for the same type of product with the word “lorry”, which is the British equivalent, will not be able find any of the trucks, unless the site has also a localized variant for UK English which uses “lorry” as a key word, as well as in its textual content.

The adaptation to a website search terms and content also needs to concern itself with spelling differences in English. Consider now a user who is looking for a product catalog or information on how to obtain a license. Will he find what he is searching for regardless of whether he typed “catalogue” versus “catalog”, or “licence” versus “license” in his search term?

Differences between language variants are important reasons as to why the meta information, as well as the words in the content itself, would need adjustment to  increase global SEO effectiveness, pushing us towards the creation of localized sites.  These differences in English are not only limited to US versus UK English, but other variants also do exist and include other markets such as: Australia, New Zealand, and India.

#3: English Tolerance versus Intolerance

According to J.P. Morgan — reporting for the Department of Commerce — only 27% of online shoppers speak English.  Thus, unless you localize you will be missing a 73% of the global market.  But is there a way to optimize your efforts, so that you don’t need to localize for all of your target countries at the same time?  If you want to take a phased or tiered approach to creating your localized versions, consider who can you reach with your English content already.

English tolerance varies across the globe. You will be more successful serving Scandinavian and Middle Eastern countries in English, than Japan, China, Korea and Russia where the English tolerance is low. Therefore, if you would not be creating localized versions at all, you are likely to miss part of the world even if English is supposed to be a global language.  When it comes to Western and Eastern European countries and Latin American countries, you will have more of a tolerance for English, but these audiences would prefer localization. Obviously, English would be the language for US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, and Canada, yet even for these the differences in language and culture would require to be considered, a careful decision should be taken on whether to create different localized English versions, rather than going with an internationalized English version.

The map below indicates the various levels of English tolerance across the globe:

Although English is a spoken and accepted in countries around the world, localization is preferred and strongly suggested for companies going global.

#4: Users Satisfaction and Comfort Level

Finally, studies show that visitors to a website are three times more likely to remain on the site, if they “feel” that the site has been created for them, in their language, with examples, images, cultural references and FAQs that are representative of their way of life. Remaining on the site means consuming more of the messaging that is likely to result in reaching and influencing the mindset of a user with educational information, such as anti-smoking or other health related websites.  It also means providing competitive information on products to help make a purchasing decision. As far as web portals are concerned, this means more utilization of the tools to help the organizations reach the goals for which these portals were designed, whether these are for registering new opportunities, obtaining customer feedback, or other.

In a recent article, Lucrative Supercell, Finnish game-maker raised $130 million. This capital put them and their combat strategy app, Clash of Clans to the second most lucrative app spot.

Closing Thoughts

These are only a few reasons why it’s not possible to successfully go global. The main reason being that no globalization related effort is made on the existing web site.  Even if English could be used as the global language across the globe, one would still need to make an effort to make this site reachable across the globe. Companies could not expect the same level of tolerance for English across the globe. The site would not yield the same level of success in the region as a localized site would where low tolerance for English exists.

Here are additional links you may find helpful in doing your preparing your website for globalization:

• The Most Popular Search App Per Country: http://www.appappeal.com/the-most-popular-app-per-country/search
• Market Share Reports on Top Desktop Browser Share Trend: http://marketshare.hitslink.com/
• Useful tool for differences in British and American English spelling: http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/british-and-american-spelling
• Top 500 sites in each country: http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries
• Countries where English is spoken: http://geography.about.com/od/politicalgeography/a/englishcountry.htm
• Targeting the Right Search Engine for Your Market: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/targeting-the-right-search-engine-for-your-market/41863/
• 12 Tips for Selling to a Global Audience: http://www.copyblogger.com/global-marketing/

If you’re moving to global markets or have gone global, what lessons have you learned? Have you busted the English-only website myth? 

This is a guest post by Milen  Epik from Epik Global Solutions. Connect to Milen on LinkedIn.

In my previous post, we saw that many organizations have misconceptions and think they can successfully go global with their existing English website.  In this blog, I will discuss another common misconception. Often, organizations believe that they do not need to globalize their website or other content, simply because they are not going to go global and that their market is strictly local. However, in today’s global world, with multiple languages and cultures in one location, it is difficult – if not impossible – to entirely avoid the need to plan for either globalization, internationalization, localization, or at least to support multiple languages.

Here are a few reasons to consider the need for a globalized web site:

#1: Some local markets have more than one “official” locale

Let’s first define the word locale. A locale is a geographic location with a specific language, culture, way of life or way of doing business. In computing terms, a locale is a set of parameters that defines the users’ language, country and any special variant preferences that the user needs to see in terms of functionality and user interface to fit their culture.  A locale should be defined based on a language and country/region combination (ISO 3166-2, and ISO 639-1), such as “en_US” for United States English.

Canada and Switzerland are some common examples of countries with multiple official languages, laws, and therefore locales.  If you are representing a company or organization based in one of these countries, your local market already requires localizations of your content. For instance, if you are in Canada and targeting all of Canada as your local market, you are going to have to support both Canadian English (en_CA) and Canadian French (fr_CA), at least to the extent of satisfying the laws around the French Charter for Quebec, and reach out to other pockets of French speaking Canadians in other provinces.

According to 2011 statistics related to Switzerland, “German is spoken by about 64%, French by about 20%, Italian by about 7%. Romansh is spoken by less than one per cent of the total population.” Therefore, if you are based in Switzerland, you will most likely need to support at least Swiss German (de_CH) and Swiss French (fr_CH) as locales, in order reach a large portion of the market.

These are just a couple of examples of countries with multiple official languages, but it’s easy to add others as well such Philippines, Belgium, and more. For such countries, companies or organization that target only their local market, end-up needing to provide their content, software products, and documentation in more than one language, and therefore are supporting multiple locales, and thus localization.

Language differences are not the only reason why your website may need to support multiple locales (and/or variants) for a single country. Changing the language does require the content to be translated and culturally adapted to the new locale.  However, even if the language remains the same, the content may still need to be adapted for different portions of a country, and thus different content variants come into play.  For instance, in Switzerland, each Swiss canton has its own constitution, parliament, government, and its own laws which are enforced by the canton or municipal police. In the case of Canada, Quebec has its own laws and and regulations that companies need to follow if they are to do business in this province. These differences, are important to keep in mind, as any content that refers to a specific governmental agency, a law, business regulation, legal process, etc. would also need to be adapted accordingly, managed and presented as specific “locale variant” to the appropriate target audience.

#2: Significant minorities with differences in language and culture

In the United States, many verticals including finance and education have been providing content in languages other than English for quite some time. In fact, about a decade ago, Wells Fargo was one of the first banks to provide financial training programs for adults, teens, and elementary school students in English and Spanish. Today many financial education sites, such as the FDIC site, and government-related websites, such as the US Labor Department, support at least Spanish in addition to English.

The graph below shows the reasoning behind the need to localize into Spanish for the US. In 2008, the US was ranked 3rd in size of Spanish speaking population.

The United States has the second highest Spanish speaking population in the world, not counting Mexico.

According to the US Census Bureau, US is now ranked as the second largest Hispanic population with over 52 million people, not counting the 3.7 million from Puerto Rico. This 2nd ranking was obtained in 2010, and “only Mexico (112 million) had a larger Hispanic population than the United States (50.5 million).”

The size of the Hispanic population in the US is large enough for many organizations to consider as a separate market or target audience and provide content, messaging and services in Spanish.  The US Spanish content, can additionally be adapted to fit the cultural needs of this group, acknowledging important dates, celebrations and other cultural elements such as Cinco de Mayo, or Quinceañera.  Thus, even though Spanish is not an official locale of the United States, US Spanish (es_US) is a commonly used locale after US English (en_US), not only for governmental organizations, but also for non-profit organizations and the private sector.

#3. Language support mandates

In the US, insurance companies and pharmacies in certain states have to provide information in the languages of ethnic local populations.  This means providing content in Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Russian and more, depending on the demographics of the state and the laws applicable to the industry.

Since around 2009, Walmart, CVS, Target and other pharmacies have had to spend effort to internationalize and localize their Drug labeling SIG solutions, as well as warning labels, HIPPA related privacy information, etc. for end customers. These requirements come from state specific mandates. While for New York, the initial set of languages to support were Spanish, Chinese, Italian, Russian, Polish and French, California law prioritized Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Russian and Vietnamese.

• “In April 2009, Mr. Cuomo signed an agreement with seven large pharmacy chains – Target, Walmart, Duane Reade, CVS, Rite-Aid, A&P, and Costco. These companies have agreed to provide New York customers with prescription medication instructions in their primary language. Under the terms of these agreements, the companies will counsel all pharmacy customers about prescription information in their own language and provide written translations in 6 specific languages—Spanish, Chinese, Italian, Russian, Polish and French.” (Source:  RX Tran: Regulatory Environment for Pharmacies Serving Customers with Limited English Proficiency)

• “California Senate Bill SB 472 was signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on October 11, 2007. The Bill required that by January 1, 2011, California adopt a standardized prescription drug label. Specifically, the Bill tasked the California State Board of Pharmacy to design such a standardized, patient-centered, prescription drug label and mandate its use by state pharmacies on all prescription medication dispensed in California.”  “The CA Board of Pharmacy shall re-evaluate existing pharmacy language requirements by December 2013 to ensure optimal conformance” (Source: RX Tran: California Regulations of the Provision of Translation and Interpreting Services by Pharmacies)

Similar mandates are in discussion or at different points of the legalization process in other states. Additionally, such mandates are also expanding from pharmacies to other health insurance and medical service providers.  Obamacare is also a good example of that, as it includes a mandate for “linguistic appropriate services”. It is only common sense to assume that language requirements are here to stay and expand geographically and across various sectors in the future. Therefore, it is best to plan for a framework that will support localization, even when one remains focused on a local population or market.

#4: Likelihood to expand beyond local boundaries

Many organizations create and model their business with only a single market (their local one) in mind. This is an erroneous assumption, as in this global economy, the chances that one’s business growth would never expand beyond its country boundaries are slim at best.  With the overall average GDP growth in the BRIC and CIVETS countries being at least three times higher than in the US, sooner or later, there is likely to be a need to reach target audiences and users in other parts of the world.   (See How Global Global Can Help You Grow Your Business Faster by Jorden Woods)

Closing Thoughts

In conclusion, the reasons for which organizations need to support other languages and locales is not only driven by outward global expansion but also for local growth and compliance to an increasing number of legal regulations.

Here are a few links you may find helpful in thinking beyond the local market:

• Doing Business in Canada: The Charter of the French Language
• International Service of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation: Daily Life in Switzerland
• GlobalLex: The Swiss Legal System and Research
• Wikipedia: Law Enforcement in Switzerland
• Wikipedia: ISO 3166-2
• Wikipedia: List of ISO 639-1 Codes

This is a guest post by Milen  Epik from Epik Global Solutions. Connect to Milen on LinkedIn.

In our previous blog series, we discussed two common misconceptions, first, the belief that going global with an existing (English) web site is a viable approach,  and second, the belief that globalization related efforts can be ignored if one’s market is strictly local.

In this third post, we will discuss two opposing views, both of which are misconceptions about the simplicity or complexity of globalizing a web site.

Globalizing a website is simple, it just needs translation

Often times, when a decision is made to create localized sites, it is misunderstood at one level or another of the organization and results in a directive to “get the site translated”. The terms “globalize” or “localize” are reduced to mean only translation. Surely, translation will be part of the effort to get a local site, but there is much more to globalization and localization. In fact, translation is just the tip of the iceberg.

Globalization can be described as a set of activities grouped in different levels of a pyramid, with each level supporting the one on top. The figure below is a representation of the different levels of globalization activities, and demonstrates that good translation for a target locale cannot be possible without localization, which in turn cannot be successful without internationalization. Furthermore, all of the above depend on a platform that involves a variety of technical, financial, organizational and other support functions.

The Globalization Pyramid takes into account Translation, Localization, Internationalization and other elements organizations should consider when going global.

Let’s take a look at a few of the elements to take into consideration when trying to go global:

• Translation  - Looking at “translation” as the main effort, would consider only the top of the Globalization Pyramid.  This would be looking at the tip of the iceberg and is deceiving. The content should not be translated per se, but also adapted to the local version of the target country. This means that the terminology and phrases selected during translation should reflect the specific linguistic norms of the geographical location, as French, spoken in Canada is different than the French spoken in France; as UK English is different than US English, or other such variations.

• Localization – Localization means cultural adaptation to suit the locale. Obviously, translation is the first adaptation that makes the language suit the locale. But, at the localization level, the content as a whole including text, images, graphics, etc. will need to be adapted to  the culture of the target locale, so that it reflects the way of life, how business is conducted, and norms of that culture such as measurement units, time zones, monetary units, addresses, phone numbers, and paper sizes.

• Collecting localizable content – The source content needs to be collected and made ready to send to translators to translate and localize based on the target “locale”. Once target localized content is ready it will need to be loaded back into the web development and content.  This means that smooth processes with least number of human touch points for localization handoffs should be identified.  Unless software developers were already developing with internationalization best practices in mind, UI elements, error messages, and more will be hardcoded in the source code of the application, and will need to be extracted from the code so they can be translated. Collecting content may also include meta information for search terms or other use, that should be also extracted and sent to translation and localization.

• Localization Processes – Processes that are needed go beyond the delivering of source and translated content, but need to cover all elements of the localization cycle, including translation, review, localization testing, user accepting testing.  Translation Management Systems or Globalization Management systems facilitate the workflow for localization. However, processes are also needed for management of content as a whole, which includes content management systems, source control systems, databases, and integrations with these.

• Technical effort – Much of the data presented to the pages are programmatically created, and translators never get to see that. Examples of such data include representations for dates, times, numbers, currencies, calendars, address and phone formats, and many more.  These will need to be formatted based on the country-specific local conventions.  Failure to do so will make a poor quality website regardless of how great of a job translators did on the rest of the content.

• Images, graphics and multimedia – Non-textual content such as images may have text in them, which needs to be replaced by localized text. Also, the actual graphic which depicts elements of one culture, usually US, would not necessarily be suitable for other countries. As a result, each of the images would need to be reviewed by cultural experts, and those that are not suitable would need to be replaced with one that is more suitable for that locale.  Audio, video, or other multi-media content, would also need to localize its visual and linguistic content, which brings additional complexity and expenses related to subtitling and/or dubbing, finding language speaking talent, recording studios, and so on.

• Local content and customizations – Formatted representation of data, images are only two examples of how web site globalization goes beyond translation and localization. It may also be the case that the source content created does not support or represent the needs of your target locales, in which case local content will need to be created, and managed. Some examples of where local content may be needed include which products to sell, announcements for local promotions, job listings, conferences for location. Other areas that affect the application logic and local content are:  taxation, law, use of elements related to the social and business life, such as use of social security vs. personal identification numbers, holidays, food, use of insurance, medical/educational/financial systems, and more.

In short, you don’t just need the site to be translated, you need it to have a localized  presentation. Actually, you don’t need the web site to be just localized, you need the web application itself to be internationalized. In fact, you need to make sure the entire content and logic of the site suits the local habits and ways of functioning in the geographies, and thus you need it globalized.

Globalizing our web site is too difficult and too expensive

The opposite notion to our point above is also a common misconception, and points to how misunderstood the web globalization space is.

In fact, one of the biggest factors that contribute to an organization’s decision to not globalize, right away and early on, is that the effort is believed to be too difficult, time consuming and very costly.  In fact, the effort may appear to be insurmountable to executives who are tasked with making the decision, and who struggle with getting large budgets approved.  The lack of understanding about how to globalize effectively and the worry of the effort for IT, staffing and budgets can turn into paralysis, which then result in further postponement.

While localization/globalization efforts are complex, they certainly are not insurmountable. What is needed is to follow proven methodology, with step by step approaches, prioritization of tasks based on goals, and management of the risks based on priorities of each organization’s specific needs.

Not only are these not insurmountable, but also the sooner globalization challenges are addressed, the easier the effort will be. Ideally, each web application is built from the get go with support for globalization, which will make the overall effort smoother and cheaper. Leaving globalization support (including internationalization code changes, or localization process support) for later, and as an afterthought, is a beginner’s mistake and not a sound approach.

By addressing internationalization early on, organizations avoid a insurmountable costs that will be acquired over time. Source provided by Lingoport on a Xerox data study.

The Solution

The solution to make the globalization effort manageable and yield success is a step-by-step approach, based on globalization best practices. Translation should not be done in a void, but as part of localization process to include cultural elements as well.  Localization of software should be based on using a foundation of internationalized code base. Most importantly, any globalization effort should begin by analyzing all the different aspects of globalization that come in to play, and creating a strategy for it. That is at the base of the pyramid.

The picture below depicts the different types of issues in the globalization pyramid, as well as the methodology and bottom-up approach to overcome the globalization challenges and bring the project to a success.

An in-depth look at the Globalization Pyramid, and showing the bottom-up approach for dealing with the different levels.

It is paramount to get the base solid, so that the rest of the levels have a chance at succeeding.  The base of the pyramid  is what represents all the other globalization components that will drive the internationalization, localization and translation efforts. A strategy needs to be defined that will lead to decisions about which markets to target and how to phase them,  what content to select, which technology platform to build the globalized solution on, which processes to use,  which systems to implement to  best manage your globalization project, how to select vendors, establish budgets, schedules,  and long term maintenance plans, and how to roll out the solution, communication plans to establish, metrics to assess and more.  A Globalization Strategy reviews all of the parameters that come into play, defines the direction, sets the priorities, puts plans in place to mitigate the risks.    

Once the strategy has been identified based on globalization best practices (an experienced globalization veteran with ample experience can bring this guidance forward), a Globalization Program can be executed on, with the management of the different activities involving  various different teams such as IT, development, content authors, local content reviewers,  technology vendors, localization teams, testing teams, internationalization experts, and trainers.

For more information on Globalization Strategy consulting, and Globalization Program Management services, contact Milen Epik via LinkedIn, or inquire via a request on www.epikglobalsolutions.com.