What are the best strategies for dealing with the challenge of the increasing internationalization of the Internet and how will extranets be localized to better serve a worldwide constituency?

What follows is h is commentary. I welcome you to send questions for him as this investigation of the emerging role of the medium proceeds. --- RA]

When it comes to doing business online, clear communication is key. This is doubly important when building a multinational, multilingual extranet.

Used properly, a multilingual extranet can:

• improve communication between your organization and its employees, customers, and suppliers, and make your worldwide business run more efficiently;
• allow an organization to deploy and maintain a global corporate Intranet to unify far-flung operations and increase the ease, frequency, and quality of communications; and
• enhance existing work processes and advance strategic organization-wide goals.

Some Things to Consider

To wit:

• Don't just translate -- Creating a successful global corporate extranet is more than simply swapping one language for another. Sure, you'll need to translate content between languages but for the message to really be effective in each target market, you also need to *adapt* content to specific audiences and create unique content for particular markets.
  
  
• Manage the complexities -- Establishing and maintaining a consistent, high quality global extranet across multiple countries, languages, time zones, and cultures is a complex undertaking. You will want to establish clear responsibilities and implement business rules to synchronize your information between headquarters and local employees, suppliers, and partners.

  Sometimes this can be done through existing processes. More likely, however, is the case where current systems need to be adapted extensively.
  
  

• Maintaining a global brand -- Throughout all this, you need to be aware that your efforts are affecting your corporate image. An extranet is a powerful weapon in the marketer's global branding arsenal. If used carefully, it can be used to enhance the corporate image and message and to add to an organization's brand value.

Possible Approaches

1. System integrator
2. Machine translation
3. Translation vendor

There are advantages and disadvantages to all three of these approaches.

System integrator - The bigger system integrators and "web builders" provide the software, knowledge, and services you need to deploy and maintain an effective multilingual web presence. They can help you develop a synchronized global web strategy and an efficient, coordinated global web team.

This approach makes sense for companies with deep pockets who wish to outsource the entire process. Some of the specific services that are typically offered include:

• Business rules and workflows -- Your partner can help develop processes for creating and sharing of content across multiple locales and across markets. These can then be used to initiate globalization tasks based on the specified business rules of the content. Workflow systems track the roles, responsibilities, and status at each step of the globalization process, based on the specified business rules.
  
  
• Translation -- Integrators may not perform the linguistic work themselves but they will contract with and coordinate a team of qualified linguists.
• Open, scalable architecture -- Depending on which integrator you work with, you will end up with an infrastructure that is more or less open. This is an important part of the initial planning stage: make sure that you don't end up with an architecture that is inadequate for your future needs.

Naturally, all of this service comes at a price. Any time you call in a consultant, expect to pay big bucks!

Machine translation - The idea of machine translation is still largely unrealized but is beginning to draw renewed interest and investment, thanks largely to the rise of the Internet as a platform for global communication.

Machine-translation systems can be deployed to translate the text portions of web pages, email messages, and chat sessions. Machine translation isn't perfect, though. A user can get the basic meaning of a document ("gisting"). However, machine translation systems have never managed to accurately capture all the nuances or meanings of written language. The differences in syntax and semantics, particularly between Western languages and Eastern languages, often provides for funny or even unusable translations.

Often decried as a joke, machine translation appeals to organizations on a tight budget or with specific needs:

Machine translation costs about 1/10th of human translations. For many organizations, that's enough of a price difference to warrant the lower translation quality.

In some situations, it really is the only option available. In some situations, the volume of text to be translated is simply too large to translate with human translators.

Where the subject matter is clearly defined (and, as a result, the vocabulary used is limited), machine translation will "learn" and will gradually improve the output quality delivered.

Localization vendor - A sort of "middle-of-the-road" approach is to coordinate the effort in-house and to outsource the localization work to a qualified vendor.

There is no single "right" vendor, however. Depending on a company's industry, language needs, product cycle, budget, and organization, different vendors will be appropriate. The trick is to know what kind of vendor is appropriate for you.

Look for a vendor that offers:

1. Specialization -- Regardless of what vendors tell you, they cannot handle every subject matter in every language. Demand specialization. You need a partner who knows your business, understands your jargon, and is up-to-date on regulations affecting your industry.
   
   
2. Translation process -- If your organization has a process in place, be sure that your vendor understands this process and fits into the process (i.e., technology, engineering, language specialization, ASP expertise, turnaround time). If no translation process exists, a vendor who has experience developing such processes will prove helpful.
   
   
3. Communication -- When selecting a vendor, learn who will manage your account. How comfortable are you with your contact, with other team members, and with company management? Who do you call if things go wrong? Is it easy to reach a person or are you caught in endless games of phone tag?

The "right" localization will be the one that understands your business and can provide a specialized solutions to your organization.

ForeignExchange Translations, Inc.
Web globalization * Software localization * Technical translations Boston * Denver * Providence *
http://www.fxtrans.com