Technical Proposition
ADAM Software NV The global provider of media workflow and marketing technology software ADAM Software NV adamsoftware.net info@adamsoftware.net
Why Read this Technical Proposition? Willy Brandt, the former chancellor of West Germany, once said, If I am selling to you, I will speak English, but if you are selling to me, dann müssen sie Deutsch sprechen. With this simple statement, Herr Brandt explains why providing localized marketing content in multiple languages is critical for global enterprises. Marketers are often advised to speak the language of your customer. While this admonition has several meanings, it is also true in the literal sense. If you want to create meaningful engagement with potential customers, it s always better to tell your story in their primary language. To deliver localized, multilingual marketing content, many global enterprises rely on a complex network of internal marketers and external partners that often includes regional, national, and local marketing offices, line-of-business marketers, marketing agencies of various kinds, language service providers, and production vendors. Because of the proliferation of products and marketing channels and today s faster pace of marketing, global companies are finding it more difficult to deliver localized content in a timely fashion at an acceptable cost. The challenge is also increased because of the involvement of global marketing teams that speak different languages and work in different cultures. ADAM Software NV adamsoftware.net info@adamsoftware.net iii
Read this Technical Proposition to learn: º º Why localized content is critical for marketing success º º Why content localization has become more challenging for global enterprises º º How the software solution provided by ADAM Software leverages a multilingual and multi cultural user interface to maximize the productivity of global marketers º º How the software solution provided by ADAM Software supports effective and efficient content localization ADAM Software NV adamsoftware.net info@adamsoftware.net iv
Contents The Localization Imperative?............................... 1 The Localization Challenge................................ 3 How the ADAM Platform Supports Efficient Glocalization............. 6 User Interface........................................ 8 Global + Local Digital Asset Management....................... 9 Localization Workflow Automation.......................... 11 Global Product Management.............................. 12 Localized Catalog Publishing.............................. 14 Localized Marketing Collateral............................. 16 Integration with Other Localization Technologies................. 18 ADAM Software NV adamsoftware.net info@adamsoftware.net
The Localization Imperative? Eighty-six percent of marketers intend to look for ways to better localize their marketing content, according to a recent study by the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council. (Localize to Optimize Sales Channel Effectiveness, CMO Council, 2011) The driving force behind this commitment to improved local marketing is the need to make marketing messages and materials more relevant and deliver an outstanding customer experience. As the CMO Council noted, Despite the homogenization of markets, media channels, and brand experiences globally, localization of messages, images, creative executions, offers, deals, and interactions is still critical to marketing effectiveness and customer relationship building across many business categories. For enterprises that compete internationally, one critical component of localization is delivering marketing content in the primary language of multiple target audiences. Several research studies have confirmed the importance of providing marketing content in the native language of prospects and customers. For example, in a study conducted for the European Commission by The Gallup Organization, nine out of ten European Internet users said that, when given a choice of languages, they always visited a website in their own language. In the same study, 42% of Internet users said they never purchase products or services in any language but their own. (Flash Eurobarometer No. 313 User language preferences online, The Gallup Organization, 2011) While this study addressed the consumption of online information, there is no reason to believe that language preferences would differ for offline marketing content. ADAM Software NV adamsoftware.net info@adamsoftware.net 1
The Localization Imperative? Continued The growing importance of localized marketing content has not diminished the need for consistent brand messaging. If anything, global brand integrity has become even more important. Today, many potential customers are both local and global. They consume marketing content that is designed for their local market, but because of the pervasiveness of the Internet, they also have easy access to all of the public online content an enterprise produces. As a result, inconsistent or contradictory brand messaging is more visible today than in the past. Effective content localization often requires marketers to emphasize different elements of brand value in various local markets, but this differing emphasis must always exist in the context of a consistent global brand promise. For enterprises that compete internationally, one critical component of localization is delivering marketing content in the primary language of multiple target audiences. ADAM Software NV adamsoftware.net info@adamsoftware.net 2
The Localization Challenge Creating, translating, and adapting content for local markets while maintaining the integrity of brand messaging is not a new requirement for business organizations. Global enterprises have been localizing at least some marketing content for decades. Now, however, several forces have combined to make marketing content localization a more complex and formidable challenge. º º A faster pace of globalization Lower trade barriers and the constant need for growth have accelerated the pace of globalization. For many enterprises based in mature economies, the most attractive growth opportunities are often found in new and emerging markets. As companies enter new international markets more frequently, content localization becomes a more complex undertaking. º º Proliferation of marketing channels Digital communication technologies have created marketing channels and enabled marketing techniques that didn t exist only a few years ago. Research shows that potential customers regularly use multiple communications channels and devices to consume information during their purchase journey. Therefore, companies must be prepared to deliver marketing content via numerous communications channels. This dramatically increases the amount of marketing content that must be translated and otherwise localized. ADAM Software NV adamsoftware.net info@adamsoftware.net 3
The Localization Challenge Continued º º Heightened buyer expectations A growing number of both consumers and business buyers expect to find marketing content in their primary language. They also expect marketing content to be available in the formats they prefer. Just as important, today s buyers expect marketing content to be fresh and current. The need to keep marketing content current requires shorter localization cycle times and places additional demands on the people and processes responsible for localization. º º Demands for improved efficiency Marketers are facing growing pressures to improve the efficiency of all aspects of the marketing function, including the activities involved in localizing marketing content. Content localization has also become more challenging because the organizational structures and operating processes that many companies use to manage and execute localization have not evolved as rapidly as localization needs and complexities. Even today, marketing operations in many global enterprises are highly decentralized. Most companies that operate internationally have regional or national marketing organizations in addition to a centralized corporate marketing department. In larger markets, companies may have multiple branch offices that perform marketing activities. These regional and/or local marketers often play a significant role in the creation of marketing content, and they may have outright control of content localization. Regional and local marketers usually hire their own language service providers (LSPs) to provide translation services, and they may also contract with marketing agencies to create original content or adapt corporate content for the local market. In addition to geographically-based marketing operations, line-of-business managers may also have marketing staff who develop marketing content. The result in many global enterprises is a marketing localization supply chain that is highly complex, as the diagram on the next page illustrates. For multinational enterprises, the current approach to managing global content localization contains several pain points, all of which can result in lengthy content development cycle times and excessive localization costs. ADAM Software NV adamsoftware.net info@adamsoftware.net 4
The Localization Challenge Continued º º Local marketers and their external partners (agencies, LSPs, etc.) may not have access to marketing assets developed by the corporate marketing department. As a result, they often recreate marketing materials in their entirety when many design elements could be reused. º º When local marketers and their external partners do have access to corporate marketing assets (usually via a digital asset management system), the access may not be provided in their primary language, which makes content localization more difficult and time consuming. º º Content localization workflows are often manual and cumbersome. Corporate Marketing Americas EMEA APAC LOB 1 LOB 2 LOB 3 Websites / ecommerce Broadcast Media Print Advertising Direct Marketing Social Media Collateral Materials ADAM Software NV adamsoftware.net info@adamsoftware.net 5
How the ADAM Platform Supports Efficient Glocalization The software solution offered by ADAM Software (the ADAM Platform) provides a powerful set of functions and tools that facilitate and enhance the efficient creation, management, and localization of marketing content on a global basis. The ADAM Platform is a fully multilingual and multicultural technology solution. Because it incorporates the Unicode Standard for encoding text-based data, all user-facing components of the ADAM Platform will support hundreds of written languages. Out-of-the-box, the ADAM Platform supports all left-to-right reading languages, and the API for the ADAM Platform supports the development of custom user interfaces for any other type of written language (right-to-left, bottom-to-top, etc.) In addition to language, the ADAM Platform also supports the use of the official weights, measures, and currencies of all the world s nations. Lastly, during the configuration of the ADAM Platform, system administrators associate a specific Culture with each language that will be used in the Platform. These Cultures determine how dates, times, and numerical values are displayed when the associated language is used. Out-of-the-box, the ADAM Platform supports over 200 Cultures. The multilingual and multicultural capabilities of the ADAM Platform enable enterprises to boost the productivity of global marketing teams by providing a familiar working environment for all users. In addition to language- and culturally-appropriate user interfaces, the ADAM Platform provides specific capabilities that enhance content localization on a global scale, including: º º A digital asset management (DAM) system that streamlines the creation, management, and use of localized marketing assets ADAM Software NV adamsoftware.net info@adamsoftware.net 6
How the ADAM Platform Supports Efficient Glocalization Continued º º A business process management system (BPMS) that can incorporate multiple content localization workflows º º A product information management system (PIMS) that enables multilingual and multicultural product management º º Automated catalog production capabilities that enable the cost-effective creation of localized catalogs º º Template-driven document composition capabilities that simplify and streamline the process of localizing marketing collateral documents such as brochures and direct marketing materials º º An open architecture and a robust API that enable the ADAM Platform to the tightly integrated with other content localization technologies (translation management systems, web content management systems, etc.) The diagram below depicts how the ADAM Platform leverages multilingual and multicultural capabilities to support both a multilingual user environment and a wide range of content localization processes and functions. Core Capabilities User Interface Global + Local DAM Localization Workflow Automation Localized Marketing Collateral Global Product Information Management Localized Catalog Publishing ADAM Software NV adamsoftware.net info@adamsoftware.net 7
User Interface The ADAM Platform can provide a user interface (UI) in the primary language and culture of every individual user. All elements of the UI, including navigation lists, button labels, error messages, field labels, and field values, can be displayed in the user s primary language. Any e-mail notifications or messages that are generated by the ADAM Platform can also be provided in the user s designated language, and all users can enter data in their primary language. The multilingual user interface provided by the ADAM Platform enhances the productivity of individual users by enabling them to work in a familiar environment. There is simply no need for users to interact with the ADAM Platform using a language in which they are not comfortable and fluent. The ADAM interface allows you to customize every element in the language and culture of the user ADAM Software NV adamsoftware.net info@adamsoftware.net 8
Global + Local Digital Asset Management In a multinational enterprise, digital marketing assets are created and used in multiple locations by individuals who speak different languages and work in a variety of cultures. Digital asset management systems improve marketing productivity by making it easier to create, share, reuse or repurpose, and localize marketing assets. However, this improved productivity is difficult to achieve if marketers and other users cannot perform DAM-related activities using their primary language, or if the DAM system is not fully capable of managing localized content. All DAM-related activities and processes in the ADAM Platform can be performed in any supported language. These activities include: º º Metadata management Metadata regarding a marketing asset can be entered in any supported language and viewed in any supported language. So, for example, if a marketer in Berlin uploads a new asset to the ADAM Platform, he or she can use German for all metadata relating to that asset. If an American marketer in Chicago later views that asset, he or she will see the metadata displayed in English. ADAM Software NV adamsoftware.net info@adamsoftware.net 9
Global + Local Digital Asset Management Continued º º Search The ADAM Platform enables all users with appropriate permissions to search the asset database using any supported language. Therefore, a user in Paris whose associated language is French can perform a search using terms in French, English, Spanish, or any other supported language. In addition, the ADAM Platform supports unilingual search. This means that searches can find and display marketing assets in all supported languages, not just the language of the search term actually used. For example, suppose that a user initiates a full text search using the term red ball. In this case, the ADAM Platform can find and display all assets that contain the English words red ball and all assets that contain the equivalent words in all other supported languages (for example, boule rouge and bola roja). The digital asset management component of the ADAM Platform supports efficient content localization by providing a flexible and configurable system for organizing and managing marketing assets. ADAM searches find & display assets in all supported languages, not just the language of the search term. In the ADAM Platform, marketing assets are assigned to one or more asset classes that reflect all or part of the enterprise taxonomy. Therefore, an enterprise can create a distinct asset class for each local or regional market it serves in a nested hierarchical taxonomy. For example, a company could create an asset class called Product X Marketing Materials and also define several sub-classes that relate to specific markets. So, the company could have asset classes for Product X Marketing Materials-Spain and Product X Marketing Materials-Japan. This allows all marketing materials designed for use in Spain and Japan to be grouped together for management and access purposes. ADAM Software NV adamsoftware.net info@adamsoftware.net 10
Localization Workflow Automation The ADAM Platform can be configured to include a powerful business process management application called Workflow Studio. With Workflow Studio, enterprises can manage and execute content localization processes and workflows within the ADAM Platform. Workflow Studio also enables many workflow steps to be streamlined or automated through the use of systemgenerated e-mail notifications, online proofing, and online approvals and status updates. Localization workflows can include external parties such as language service providers and marketing agencies, and these external partners can be provided with controlled access to the ADAM Platform to perform their content localization duties. Like all components of the ADAM Platform, Workflow Studio is fully multilingual. Therefore, localization workflows can easily include individuals whose primary languages differ. These capabilities enable global enterprises to reduce the time required to create localized content assets and materials and lower the costs of content localization. ADAM Software NV adamsoftware.net info@adamsoftware.net 11
Global Product Management Multinational companies with extensive product portfolios face complex product management and marketing execution issues. Some products may be offered in all markets the company serves, while many may only be sold in selected local markets. In addition, the content of marketing messages and materials will often vary across markets even for the same product because of product variations, local regulatory requirements, or buyer preferences. The ADAM platform can include a product information management application (PIM Studio) that enables enterprises to build a central repository of product information. The information in this master catalog can consist of descriptive information (such as product name, dimensions, weight, etc.) stored in specific data fields, links to marketing assets (images, documents, etc.) related to a product, and links to related products (accessories, etc.). PIM Studio provides several capabilities that support and enhance global product information management and localization. º º Like all components of the ADAM Platform, PIM Studio provides a fully multilingual user interface. All interface elements can be displayed in any supported language, and multiple languages can be displayed side-by-side. º º Product information can be entered and stored in any supported language. So, for example, PIM Studio can store and manage product descriptions designed for print or online catalogs in multiple languages. ADAM Software NV adamsoftware.net info@adamsoftware.net 12
Global Product Management Continued º º PIM Studio provides a product inheritance model that simplifies the management of product information on a regional or local basis. With this capability, regional or local branches can inherit relevant products from the enterprise s master catalog. Just as important, PIM Studio enables information regarding product attributes such as size, color, or available accessories to be inherited selectively, which allows product information to be managed at a granular level. For example, suppose that the master product catalog includes a polo shirt that is available in red in most markets, but is not available in Spain in that color. When a product catalog is created for Spain, the product inheritance model can be configured with overrides and exceptions so that the local catalog will not show red as one of the available colors for the polo shirt. PIM Studio provides a fully multilingual user interface. All interface elements can be displayed in any supported language and multiple languages can be displayed side-by-side. ADAM Software NV adamsoftware.net info@adamsoftware.net 13
Localized Catalog Publishing Despite the exponential growth of online shopping and buying, printed catalogs are still an important marketing channel for many companies. The major challenge today is to make printed catalogs attractive, timely, and more relevant to potential buyers, while simultaneously making catalog creation more efficient and cost effective. Shorter product cycles, new product introductions, and changing market dynamics require more frequent catalog revisions to keep information fresh and current. Appealing to potential buyers with diverse interests, needs, and preferences requires catalogs to be more targeted, which increases the number of catalog versions that must be created and published. For global enterprises, the challenge is made more complex by the need to produce catalogs in multiple languages. The ADAM Platform automates the creation and production of multilingual, localized print catalogs via a dynamic publishing engine called PageBuilder Studio. PageBuilder Studio works in concert with PIM Studio and Adobe InDesign Server to streamline catalog pre production processes. A marketing manager begins the catalog creation process within PIM Studio by selecting the specific products that will be included in a particular catalog and placing those products in a named catalog in PIM Studio. Because PIM Studio is fully multilingual, the marketer can easily specify the language that will be used for the printed catalog. The ADAM Platform can include sunrise and sunset dates for marketing assets, so seasonal catalogs can be produced without the risk of including outdated or not-yet-released products. ADAM Software NV adamsoftware.net info@adamsoftware.net 14
Localized Catalog Publishing Continued Meanwhile, catalog designers use Adobe InDesign to create catalog page layouts that contain placeholders or tags for desired product images and descriptive text. These placeholders contain links to the appropriate product information stored in PIM Studio. When the page layout files are completed, the designer transfers them to PageBuilder Studio, which converts the files into page templates. At this point, the marketing manager can build the catalog with a single click. PageBuilder Studio automatically fills the page layout templates with the appropriate product information and paginates the catalog. ADAM automates the creation & production of multilingual, localized catalogs via a dynamic engine called PageBuilder Studio that works in concert with PIM Studio and Adobe InDesign Server. ADAM Software NV adamsoftware.net info@adamsoftware.net 15
Localized Marketing Collateral Global enterprises utilize a wide variety of marketing collateral materials (brochures, direct marketing materials, newspaper inserts, etc.) to support their marketing efforts. As with other types of marketing messages, collateral materials must be adapted to increase their relevance and appeal to local audiences. The ADAM Platform can include a document composition application (DocMaker Studio) that streamlines the process of creating localized collateral materials. DocMaker Studio enables multinational enterprises to ensure global brand consistency while simultaneously allowing local marketers to customize collateral materials to fit local market conditions. DocMaker Studio ensures global brand consistency while allowing local marketers to customize collaterals. DocMaker Studio utilizes highly flexible document templates to enhance both global control and local creativity. For example, suppose that a global provider of warehouse management software needs to create a new marketing brochure in connection with the upcoming release of a product update. The company sells its software throughout North America and Europe. Therefore, the brochure will need to be available in several languages. Using DocMaker Studio, a marketer at the company headquarters will create a master template for the new brochure. DocMaker Studio enables the marketer to specify what content elements of the brochure can be modified by local marketers. The template can be configured to allow local marketers to translate the text elements of the brochure and/or replace some or all of the images used in the master template. ADAM Software NV adamsoftware.net info@adamsoftware.net 16
Localized Marketing Collateral Continued When the template of the brochure is completed, the marketing manager can launch a workflow within the ADAM Platform notifying appropriate local marketers that the brochure template is available. Local marketers open the brochure template in DocMaker Studio and modify only the appropriate content elements, thus avoiding the need to completely recreate the brochure. When the localized version is completed, the local marketer can launch an approval workflow (if necessary) or generate a production-ready digital version of the localized brochure. ADAM Software NV adamsoftware.net info@adamsoftware.net 17
Integration with Other Localization Technologies The ADAM Platform has been designed and engineered from the ground up to be highly interoperable with other software technologies. The ADAM Platform includes a technically mature and fully documented API that provides access to all of the Platform s functionality and enables easy integration with other enterprise applications. In the content localization space, we often see the ADAM Platform integrated with two complementary technologies translation management systems and web content management systems. Enterprises with extremely heavy or complex translation requirements will use translation management software to complement the content localization capabilities of the ADAM Platform. The use of a web content management system in conjunction with the ADAM Platform enables an enterprise to effectively and efficiently feed multilingual, localized content to multiple regional and/or local websites. ADAM s fully documented API means you can integrate advanced media and marketing technology with almost any enterprise system. ADAM Software NV adamsoftware.net info@adamsoftware.net 18
ADAM Software Technical Proposition Contact ADAM Software Kortrijksesteenweg 1108A 9051 Gent Belgium P: +32 9 381 63 36 F: +32 9 381 63 46 ADAM Software US Inc 1515 Broadway New York, NY 10036 United States P: +1 212 520 1028 Email: info@adamsoftware.net Web: adamsoftware.net About ADAM Software ADAM Software is a global provider of media workflow and marketing technology software. We offer enterprises the ability to manage, structure and deliver media between people, processes and systems. Working with our partners enables us to implement our software globally while providing workflow solutions to all types of enterprises. What drives us is a passion to organize media intelligently, making it easier and more accessible to everyone. ADAM Software NV adamsoftware.net info@adamsoftware.net 19