You already have a global presence. All your translations, production, and printing of Marketing collateral's, User manuals, Documentation and other information sharing are decentralized with branch offices that are given responsibility to translate the material from a source language to in their preferred language. After all, the overseas local office knows the requirement and they can localize the content best while translating. They speak the customers’ language and understand the cultural differences that need to be addressed while localizing.
While it seems to be good to give the job of localizing the content to the branch office, it has some problems.
- Less control on the translation content and quality.
- Difficulty in communicating the internationalization that is very important for consistent communication across all regions and in all languages.
- Changes in content may affect the mandatory requirement and hence will affect brand image.
- The scheduling of brand launch is not in control as you have delegated the localization needs to branch office.
- Professional translators may not be engaged and terminology consistency may miss out in the final translation. Even the translation quality may suffer.
- You will only come to know about the mistakes when you do the back translation after the job is done.
The task of translation for global market should ideally begin with Globalization, followed by Internationalization and then Localization and Translation Services
What is Globalization?
It is conceptualizing the Product line for the global market so that it can be sold anywhere in the world. The Product or the Service or the Software has some basic thoughts or principles or formulations which are the foundation upon which the global communication structure is set. There is no compromise on this once finalized.
What is Internationalization?
It is the process of generalizing the product so that it can handle multiple languages with no negative appeal in terms of brand name, brand color, the tone of communication and the setting. For example United Colors of Benetton have certain style which appeals to certain target group universally. But in regional market it may be a put off or lead to rejection due to extreme stance. Internationalization is taking a position which will go well in global market. In case of United Colors of Benetton, they have taken a conscious position to create a brand value for an International image. The colors, the style of presentation, graphics all are addressing to trendsetters and off the beaten track approach.
What is Localization?
It is adapting the product and product communication so that it is in tune with the customer aspiration of the region without sacrificing the International touch. To take the example of United Colors of Benetton, the job of Localization is to moderate the graphics and idiomatic translation to appeal to socioeconomic and cultural compulsions. Hence in Middle East countries and Asia, localization will mean communicating the brand value with core proposition being kept intact. But copy and graphics suitably modified.
It is the process of converting the source language into target language. An understanding of the context and meaning of the source language is important for translating the content to convey the same meaning in the target language. This is best done by professional native translators with domain knowledge so that you get the right word and sentence in target language for impact of communication and the message is as if it is originally created for them and not translated or dubbed for foreign market.
Shakti Enterprise Global Language Solution is offered for all your technical and non-technical documents by engaging appropriate native translators who have years of experience in the chosen field.
No comments:
Post a Comment