Work In Progress

Increasingly, customers are expecting your documentation to look professionally-produced. Sending them Word document - or a PDF of a Word document - no longer makes the grade.

Using professional desktop publishing (DTP) software, like Adobe InDesign or QuarkXPress (MS Publisher?  I said “professional”) used to be used just for brochures and catalogs.  Today, DTP files form the basis for reports, HR material, PR (think testimonials, press releases, case studies) reseller and/or customer communications - even for sales proposals.

When you add localization into the mix, things get messy.  Translators generally don’t touch such files as they don’t work with their own translation tools.  So you end-up emailing Word docs (for the content) and low-resolution PDF files (so that translators can see what the final result is supposed to look like).

In other words, you’ve got a broken, manual process that takes ten times longer than it should do, and is just ripe for failing due to human error.

Wouldn’t it be cool if you could just upload your InDesign or QuarkXPress file into a translation portal that also handles artwork localization?

Increasingly, there are systems around that can do just that.  As well as handling your office formats, they’ll handle file formats from the creative side. That means a single localization system to handle all of your company’s work, offering more comprehensive translation memory management, a more granular reporting / auditing structure and a simpler workflow for your staff.

Oh, and since it’s one vendor you can probably get a better deal on pricing since you’re, in effect, giving them more work.

Selling your wares outside of your home territory or country is, I’m guessing, pretty central to your company’s health.  It’s a rare organization indeed that can still plan for strong growth without looking at attracting international customers.

So what do you do about all the stuff that you need to translate? 

• sales and marketing collateral,
• back-office paperwork,
• human resources information,
• legal paperwork,
• service and support material

And where do you keep all of this, so that it’s available to everyone in the company?

Some documentation and artwork localization management portals allow you online cloud storage for the documents that you’ve translated.  You could publish a neutral directory within your VPN - or even publicly - where low or high resolution files could be downloaded 24/7.

Just an idea.  More soon.

So, you’re a brand manager. 

You’re responsible for how the product, service and/or corporate brand is represented within your designated markets. 

You’ve developed brand guidelines, ID documentation and so on.  More than that, you police these rules as though your very existence depends on it. 

Good for you.

Now, what do you do when your company sells to a foreign country or territory whose native language is different from your own? How you do control your brand’s language and vocabulary that has been so central to your efforts on your home turf?

Err…

You need to structure your internal production processes to accommodate a multi-lingual workflow. Combine this with an online portal to manage localization, and you’re half way there.

More soon.