Discover all-world success through Globalization.
When businesses cross borders, things can get lost in translation and go wrong in a big way. This happens when brands don’t adequately consider customers who speak another language, embrace a unique culture or have distinct regional needs.
In 1994, Heineken celebrated their sponsorship of the World Cup with the flags of the participating nations adorning their distinctive green bottles. One nation was Saudi Arabia, where the Quran forbids the use of alcohol. Thousands of consumers registered complaints with the brewer.
Another oft-told international tale came from a baby food maker whose package featured a smiling infant. As the company expanded into developing nations, some consumers who were illiterate saw the "smiling baby" image and inferred the package contained actual human babies. Talk about “human error.”
Knowing your audience is essential. Did you know Japanese e-commerce websites feature online order forms that include an additional area after “first” and “last” names? Japanese consumers populate this space with the phonetic pronunciation of their surname, known as “Furigana.” Companies want to know this information in case of an issue with an order. That way, when a customer-service representative speaks with the customer, they can honor them with the correct pronunciation of their name.
With these examples in mind, you can understand why your business needs to embrace Globalization with worldwide cultural fluency in mind. Understanding cross-cultural differences can help curtail misunderstandings and communication mistakes that can short-circuit your expansion efforts. Yes, you can expand globally, but remember to think like a local—not a tourist.
Plan to rule the world.
Pitney Bowes experienced its own Globalization growing pains as well. We were working very closely with one of our customers to expand a new e-commerce solution into European markets. Nearing its launch, we realized that their translation program translated “shipping” to “sailing.” Although we caught the problem quickly enough, it could easily have prompted customers to “sail” to new companies after this wayward experience.
Although just a single component of a company’s Globalization efforts, bad translations send one clear message: “This company doesn’t know what it’s doing.” Regional, international and cultural know-how is vital to “world-proof” your business. Begin to integrate Globalization early in your process and within every part of your development, prototyping, testing and launch processes. This will help create seamless experiences for your global customers. Globalization can save your organization time, headaches and money. Those benefits are easily understood in every language.
Develop agile cultural fluency.
Your organization needs to create a standardized process and strategy to globalize your products. The best idea is to start early and embrace a worldwide market perspective rather than merely extending your existing domestic approach. Successful businesses plan and organize their engineering, sales, marketing and support activities with global cultural fluency in mind. As you develop your world-ready products and communications, pay careful attention to three vital issues throughout the application design and development process:
1. Internationalization is the first step in preparing your product for specific regions and countries. The process is focused on isolating the parts of your product that will vary from the U.S. version. At this stage, you need to establish standards for designing, building and testing language, conventions, software, translations and any customer-facing component of your product. When performed properly, this stage ideally prepares your business for the next pair of steps.
2. Regionalization identifies region- or country-specific requirements. During the Regionalization phase, you must source advice and assistance from local subject matter experts, or else you may face a “shipping/sailing” issue of your own. Your expert will help ensure your product meets various regional and country legislative, legal or other requirements, such as privacy laws. They will also check your product or solution to make sure it aligns with cultural norms and expectations. This is also the time to develop empathy for your global clients by understanding their work environments, cultural norms and expectations.
3. Localization is another important step. Without speaking the local language, you’re really only talking to yourself. This step ensures you’re not communicating with language and imagery that “doesn’t translate.” Test your translations and evaluate with local experts and clients to maximize your communication messages. Take what you’ve created in your Regionalization step and test your UI (user interface) elements, help content, installers and other documentation. Take the time to verify account capitalization, symbols, dates, names, currencies and other user preferences to avoid costly mistakes with your ultimate audience.
To make a difference, know the difference.
We’ve come to understand that the best customer experiences require a global understanding. Simply stated, the more global your business, the more local your business needs to think. Embracing the process of Globalization will help you expand faster in both emerging and existing markets.
For instance, our own localization process involves a Translation Management System (TMS) that ensures we deliver global content consistently and correctly. In 2015 alone, Pitney Bowes used the TMS localization process in nearly 3,000 projects in 45 languages, helping to save millions of dollars and accelerating the release of several key endeavors.
Simple steps to worldwide success.
Many companies have a U.S.-centric launch approach. Meaning, they launch in one place and then retool for the others. And, anything from minor enhancements to major deployments can happen simultaneously. Worldwide success can happen faster than you ever imagined.
Begin by assessing your product in your Design System (learn more about Design Systems here). Then, determine strategies for streamlining the process of making it world-friendly. Validate your assessments early using processes, such as pseudo localization that can replicate how your users will interact with your brand. And, throughout design, development and testing, consult regional and local experts who can offer salient feedback and accelerate the entire process through localization and launch.
Help your brand travel the world like a local.
A sound Globalization process can help your business expand beyond the U.S. Implemented correctly, it can help you gain efficiency and speed-to-market with fewer headaches and a smoother, seamless customer experience. With the proper system, you’ll be prized as a local instead of derided as a tourist.