BUSINESS WHITE PAPER. Meeting the Localization Challenge. Delivering Seamless Localized Experiences Across All Digital Touchpoints.

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1 BUSINESS WHITE PAPER Meeting the Localization Challenge Delivering Seamless Localized Experiences Across All Digital Touchpoints

2 BUSINESS WHITE PAPER MEETING THE LOCALIZATION CHALLENGE ACROSS ALL TOUCHPOINTS According to Deloitte Digital, global e-commerce sales are set to reach some $1.4 trillion by 2016, up 14% since 2012 despite a significant global slow down in many markets. 1 The analyst firm gives four main reasons for this surge in global trade: a continued shift to online business, the rise in demand for global products from emerging markets, the growth in global shipping thanks to more flexible shipping and fulfillment options, as well as a surge in mobile purchases particularly from markets such as Brazil and China. We clearly operate in an unprecedented period of global commerce and international communications, and the pressure on organizations to engage effectively across many countries and continents is stronger than ever. In consequence there s an escalating requirement to create and maintain an ever-increasing number of corporate Web properties delivered in a growing number of languages. Meeting this localization challenge is becoming more and more important for organizations and their marketing teams as they work to deliver optimum customer experiences regardless of the geographies, languages and cultures involved. While an optimized local engagement strategy is essential, achieving this requires more than simply translating existing Web properties. This white paper examines the specific issues that collectively contribute to a successful localization approach, with a particular focus on how organizations can put their digital experience (DX) platforms to work to help streamline the localization process. Enabling amazing digital experiences for all customers regardless of location The very things that make this a great time to be a digital consumer also make it incredibly challenging to be a digital marketer, media publisher or e-commerce professional. As the number of touchpoints customers interact with continues to increase, it becomes incrementally harder for organizations to deliver a truly unified customer experience especially as today s always-on, empowered consumers are increasingly looking for online services to meet more and more of their daily needs. They want consistent, real-time interactions and expect to have access to experiences that go way beyond traditional static websites. Not surprisingly, with millions of customers wanting to engage in this way, the organizations they deal with online are facing enormous creative, operational and technical challenges. 2 If the explosion of digital engagement and the rise of the 24/7 empowered consumer are making online business so complex, imagine how much more difficult things can get when organizations need to apply the same level of diligence to customers worldwide. While a company may initially expand into its own native market, the real challenges come in terms of infrastructure, people, regulations or technology when a brand starts going global.

3 Initially the barrier to international expansion might be focused around multi-language support, however the reality is that simply creating the same content in the same format in multiple languages isn t true localization. Organizations need to factor in regional and cultural preferences, and consider how they re going to address localization by successfully managing their multiple online properties in terms of multiple regional sites and potentially different brands. Analyst firm Forrester Research sees the shift from translation to localization as an important stage, defining translation as a simple transposition of text from one language to another. With localization, however, it s more about adapting online properties to meet the specific needs of each country or region. Of course this requires translation, but it also needs a focus on market-specific content, design elements, layout preferences as well as other local features. While organizations clearly need to optimize their localization investments, it s also important that the online experience offered to global customers is as compelling as that offered to people in the home region. At their core, successful omni-channel digital experiences are all about seamlessly adapting to shifting customer demands and expectations. So the localization of online properties needs to be focused on enabling amazing digital experiences for all customers regardless of where they are and the channels they re using. That s a bold goal, and one that demands the right centralized management and publishing systems be in place if organizations are to master the multi-site challenge. Reaching global customers has never been more critical When a television advertising campaign promoting an Indian mobile phone company in Africa failed to deliver the desired results a few years ago, the firms were keen to investigate. Failing to appreciate the scale and breadth of Africa, they used standardized images, actors from only one part of Africa, and focused on coins when many Africans only use paper money. A spokesperson from a leading Nairobi-based marketing services agency summed up the dilemma: this is where multinational companies go wrong. They come with their global brand positioning and they want to just cut and paste. This is just one example of the kind of marketing disconnects that serve to highlight the many challenges that can impact localization programmes. However, despite the inevitable barriers, there s no doubting the imperative for organizations to succeed in reaching out to global customers. 3

4 BUSINESS WHITE PAPER For organizations targeting the Chinese market, for example, the sheer scale of the opportunity is daunting. According to The Economist Intelligence Unit, China s retail market is set to grow to US$8 trillion by 2022, that s double what the US home market is forecasted to achieve over the same period. Given the scale of the opportunity, it s perhaps surprising that according to research by the Globalization and Localization Association (GALA) only one percent of US-based online retailers offer sites specific to China. GALA goes on to confirm that an effective online localization strategy is essential for engaging Chinese consumers successfully. They report that 95% of online consumers in China say they re more comfortable with websites that are in their own language, while over half suggest that having access to relevant local websites is even more important than price when it comes to making the buying decision. Making localization a key business priority HSBC, the global banking business, spent some ten years and many millions promoting its brand strategy of being the world s local bank with a memorable series of ads focusing on how cultural differences can impact international trade. The bank has now ended the campaign to focus instead on positioning itself as the world s leading international bank. Analysts at Citi reflected on the switch, suggesting that the local campaign was a better marketing slogan than a business model. 2 What the HSBC example shows is that organizations can t just advertise their way towards localization success it s actually a discipline that needs to be applied not just to make sure that global brands remain consistent when operating multi-nationally, but also as a process that can help businesses optimize their international investments. Often, firms find it hard to look beyond the inevitable costs associated with localization initiatives. However effective localization can have a very positive impact on a business brand, customer engagement and overall performance. A key reason for this, and a measure of corporate commitment towards localization, is the recognition that any successful localization programme will inevitably cross many business units. Because localization delivery requires time, budget, resources from IT, marketing and global operations, it s no surprise that it s those businesses that appoint Chief Globalization Officers, and give them the resources they need, that achieve the best results. According to recent Common Sense Advisory research, the localization of key online properties ought to be considered as a logical extension of existing Web personalization and contextualization activities. Put simply, the research firm suggests that people won t buy what they can t understand. 4 With emerging markets representing a growing proportion of online customers, the pressure to increase revenues from global operations is considerable, with Forrester Research reporting that international growth is now one of the top three ebusiness priorities. The CMO Council also recently reported in its Localize to Optimize Sales Channel Effectiveness study 3 that 41% of marketers already allocate between 20 and 50% of their budgets on local marketing activities.

5 In other words, global growth has quickly become a strategic issue. Companies of all sizes not just major firms now need to ask themselves what steps they will take to drive their localization activities. Even smaller companies that operate internationally need to take account of the diversity of the countries, cultures and languages they engage. They too stand to benefit from successful content localization. Language complexity leaves plenty of opportunity for misunderstanding One way to gain a better sense of the scale of the localization challenge is to consider that there are around 7,000 different languages around the world, although 90% of these are spoken by fewer than 100,000 people. Many of these are regional variants Europe for example has some 260 languages for its 50 independent states. In Asia, however, the numbers change dramatically with the continent accounting for some 2,200 of the world s languages 832 in Papua New Guinea alone. 4 No localization initiative will ever be able to fully address this kind of linguistic complexity. Companies aspiring to be truly global organizations can reach 80% of the world s population with just 83 languages. However, the smarter organizations will be those that look beyond translation to build in repeatable processes and start treating localization of their online properties as an integral part of their operational activities. Addressing online localization s operational and technical challenges As the online experience becomes increasingly fragmented, the ability to reach customers wherever they are, regardless of region, language, platform or device, becomes an imperative. However, it s also important that organizations recognize that the potential benefits of online localization can be completely overwhelmed by cumulative operational costs. Many organizations perhaps for legacy or structural reasons still maintain their corporate or regional content in separate systems, leading to increased costs and wasteful, redundant processes. This can make it extremely difficult, costly and time-intensive to manage the quality, consistency, and accuracy of marketing content and product information that is shared across multiple corporate brand sites or global sites. The challenges of global roll outs are also often compounded by the complexity of local laws, customs, and usage rights. 5

6 BUSINESS WHITE PAPER Because of this, companies operating internationally are quickly coming to terms with the fact that localization has to mean much more than simply translating content for a website. That s not to say translation isn t important, indeed according to Common Sense Advisory, the business of translation interpreting and software localization now generates global revenues of some $37 billion a year. 5 True localization, however, is all about the process of adapting or developing a product or brand to meet specific local market needs. From an online perspective, this requires a far more comprehensive approach, combining a mix of tiered content, specific UI functionality, simplified templates, translation approaches as well as localized content. It s also not just the websites that need to be localized. Omni-channel strategies that have been successfully developed and implemented in home markets also need to be implemented internationally. Similarly where an organization also needs to provide support for multiple brands, they will all need supporting by a core localization infrastructure. Given this complexity, it s important that organizations adopt a localization approach that not only allocates necessary resources but also sufficient time to identify and address target market needs. Launching localized websites and supporting them through international facilities is never going to be an easy task. Instead what s needed is a powerful digital experience (DX) platform to help address specific market and organizational factors such as hierarchies, integration with existing corporate online structures, support for local presence, workflow and page assembly criteria, as well touchpoint and personalization concerns. Addressing specific localization needs with a digital experience platform For organizations to successfully address the escalating workload associated with global, multi-site experiences, it s important that they look beyond their traditional IT and Web teams and start equipping their business users with smarter systems and processes that can help them carry out localization tasks much more efficiently. This demands an integrated approach to content management and digital experience delivery that provides users with a platform to manage a broad range of localization activities including translation. This approach must enable greater synchronization of global marketing campaigns, ensure that content is consistent across regions, and also help reduce overall costs by eliminating unnecessary processes. Organizations will also need to think about the localization implications of other online properties, including: J J Compiled content: content such as images, Flash and video with embedded text or audio can be challenging to alter post-creation. More open Web standards such as HTML5, CSS and JavaScript can make it easier to prepare content such as interactive banners, tools and calculators to be more translation friendly. 6

7 JJUser-generated content: the explosion of social content and greater consumer reliance on reviews and ratings present a major challenge when it comes to localization. The best longer term UGC localization strategy would be to encourage the creation of local content as early as possible. JJMobile sites: unlike earlier embedded Flash content, the greater use of responsive design templates to make Web properties more accessible from mobile devices can make the task of managing translated content across multiple touchpoints significantly easier. JJApps: organizations face the choice of either building a single global app with separate country and language selection options embedded, or they will need to maintain distinct apps for each market. A single app may require an update for new markets to be pushed out to all users. Organizations also need to consider other important online content criteria. Translated content and localization activities can significantly impact the layout and structure of site. Spanish, for example, tends to take up about 40% more space than English, while Chinese text uses as much as 70% less. Ensuring that sites remain structurally consistent will be difficult unless User Interface teams consider their translation requirements up front. Similarly, localization teams will have to think carefully about the URLs they use, as this will have a direct impact on organic search traffic volumes. It s also important that localization teams pay attention to multilingual SEO activities, particularly given factors such keyword translation and optimization, registering with local search engines as well as issues such as local domain hosting. Another area of complexity that organizations need to factor in is the connection between content localization and multi-site brand management. Some companies might have multiple brands in different regions, and these will also need to be managed using the same infrastructure. So how can organizations successfully manage their multi-site, multi-brand, multi-language content in a way that is fast, efficient, consistent and cost effective? That s where CoreMedia can help. Because its modular architecture successfully separates content from layout and business rules, the company s CoreMedia 8 digital experience (DX) platform empowers digital marketing and editorial teams to collaborate in real-time to create and deliver personalized online customer experiences regardless of the digital channel, device or location. CoreMedia 8 s powerful multi-site publishing capabilities are ideal for meeting the challenge of localization head-on, saving costs and ensuring consistent brand messaging with comprehensive multi-site and multi-language capabilities. 7

8 BUSINESS WHITE PAPER Delivering digital customer experiences regardless of location with CoreMedia 8 CoreMedia has extensive experience helping major companies with global, marquee brands to publish brand and e-commerce experiences to local audiences all over from the world from a single, interconnected, digital experience platform. CoreMedia works with companies whose publishing efforts often encompass over 70 regions in more than 40 local languages. CoreMedia has built a flexible platform that allows organizations to effectively manage multi-language content and localize it for multiple online channels. The company s new CoreMedia 8 digital experience platform enables localization teams to create digital experiences that are truly local by adapting the online experience (including its content, structure, business rules, and navigational logic) to each region s particular cultural and market requirements. This is true localization a term we use to refer to not just to a publishing location, but also to its broader context in terms of language, business and culture. Breaking down localization barriers with CoreMedia 8 CoreMedia 8 empowers digital marketing and editorial teams regardless of where in the world they re located to collaborate in real-time to create and deliver personalized online experiences across any digital channel or device. CoreMedia 8 also ensures control for technical teams with a proven and secure platform that enables them to start quickly and grow without limits. At CoreMedia we know how difficult it can be to manage the quality, consistency, and accuracy of marketing content and product information that is shared across multiple corporate brand sites or global sites. In order to operate more efficiently and cost-effectively, companies will need to centralize content management, aggregation, and publishing operations around a single flexible and highly configurable platform. CoreMedia s flexible, object-oriented digital experience platform is ideally suited for publishing content to multiple consumer touch points (including mobile devices, social networks, and content portals) in multiple languages and across many online properties. The CoreMedia approach to localized delivery not only provides a single hub for managing all global content and processes, it also ensures that editorial and e-commerce teams get to access the most up-to-date information, reuse the underlying business logic and harness the processing power of these external applications. Content and presentation can be shared or reused across sites based on the privileges of the editorial user. 8

9 With CoreMedia 8 organizations can now take immediate steps to seize the localization initiative by mastering the multi-site challenge with a centralized management and publishing system that supports both regional sites and multiple brands. When it comes supporting regional sites or multiple brands, CoreMedia 8 offers a number of significant multi-site capabilities: JJAbility to view and manage global sites: CoreMedia 8 features a multi-site navigator within its CoreMedia Studio, where business users can view all of their regional or brand sites connection to their repository and quickly select a preferred site for editing or to create new sites. Using CoreMedia 8 simplifies the creation process, reducing time-to-web for multi-site, multi-language product launches and marketing campaigns. It also allows business users to launch new sites quickly, and easily update the status of local sites whenever master site content changes. JJFlexible Localization: with CoreMedia 8 regional sites can be derived from the main brand site while still retaining their own unique local content and character. Local sites can be managed independently or centrally so that they can be as different or as similar as required. Local teams can customize virtually all aspects of their digital properties including content, structure, templates and metadata. JJComparing Site Content: Site editors can display localized content and the content it is derived from side-by-side in a single window. This content always stays in sync when scrolling, and with an indicator telling users which elements in the master content have changed. JJTranslation Workflows: CoreMedia 8 also supports end-to-end translation workflows to manage the translation of content into multiple languages, with support for easy integration with leading translation management systems via standard exchange formats such as XLIFF. Using XLIFF makes it incredibly easy and efficient to work with external translation agencies, with content automatically exchanged as XML files so that the right content can be automatically placed in the right repository locations. By combining CoreMedia 8 s new multi-site tools with flexible collaboration capabilities and pre-built translation workflows, CoreMedia is able to offer organizations a uniquely flexible and extensible approach to managing multi-site deployments and multi-language content. Regional sites can be linked as loosely or tightly as required, while localization teams can also collaborate using content sets (where content is grouped into logical sets that can then be shared with co-workers for improved productivity), publication workflows, and real-time updates where everyone receives immediate notifications of changes to content and workflows. 9

10 BUSINESS WHITE PAPER CoreMedia s close integration with leading e-commerce platforms allows customers apply these multi-site localization features to create unique global sites that seamlessly blend commerce and content. In addition to powerful Multi-Site Publishing and localization support, CoreMedia 8 also supports a broad range of online objectives, including: JJSeamless Omni-Channel Experiences: Allowing organizations to engage customers more deeply with personalized and adaptive experiences that unite siloed business processes and connect all digital touch points in the customer journey JJEfficient and Collaborative Teams: Increase productivity and accelerate time-to-web with an intuitive interface that enables digital professionals to create and collaborate in delivering visually engaging experiences JJFrictionless e-commerce and Integrated Social Media: Seamlessly blend marketing content, e-commerce and social communities, to create unique hybrid experiences JJIncremental Innovation and Flexible Deployment: Companies can start quickly and grow without limits and at their own pace. Deployments are supported by advanced cloud support, automated dev ops, and rapid development tools CoreMedia localization in action Continental Automotive Continental one of the largest automotive suppliers in the world has been using CoreMedia for its global Web and Intranet properties since Continental currently employs around 148,000 employees at more than 200 locations (production plants, research centers and test tracks) in 46 countries and uses CoreMedia to publish content to 233 microsites with geographically distributed editors. In total they manage 60,000 pages worldwide. 10

11 About CoreMedia CoreMedia is a leading digital experience (DX) company that has been powering the online strategy of organizations across varied industries for more than 19 years. We partner with our customers to connect them with their audiences wherever they are by seamlessly integrating digital. e-commerce and social media assets, accelerating time to market, and increasing the productivity of business users. Our solutions also help transform e-commerce stores by infusing visually compelling and immersive content into the online customer experience, resulting in increased engagement, sales, and loyalty. Established in 1996, CoreMedia is headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, with offices in San Francisco, Washington, London and Singapore. CoreMedia s clients include global brands, such as Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), BILD, CLAAS, Continental, Deutsche Telekom, Henkel, Internet Broadcasting, Office Depot and Telefónica Germany. 1 Multi-Channel Merchant November key trends in global Ecommerce growth - channelmerchant.com/must-reads/4-key-trends-in-global-ecommerce-growth /#_ 2 Wall Street Journal blog May CMO Council BBC Languages Guide The Economist February 7th,

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