How to evaluate your buying decisions? - Brute-Force Stage

Brute Force Stage
Organizations have a regular schedule and larger scope, requiring more resources, technology and processes. Risks are tangible.

This stage is
characterized
by the need for
process management.

The Brute-Force stage is a important moment as there is a threat of overspending if the organization does not support global communication improvements.  In fact, we feel it is the most important stage in growth as organizations have to invest time and resources to overcome barriers of growth that may happen in the future. This stage requires disproportional process attention over financial means and financial outcomes, which is what makes this stage a challenge.

Looking at the Global Communication Maturity Model, the Brute-Force stage is characterized by repetitive projects requiring more resources, technology and processes. Those resources are often still found at the vendor side, but organizations need to help enable those resources. What's important at this stage is that an organization is open to involve that LSP in managing projects with the organization.

Content strategies, writing and design strategies and organizational strategies can help to mitigate risks. Process management in all of those areas protects budgets and prepares the organization for growth.


Process Focus
Managing processes at this stage can be challenging. Most projects are still ad-hoc and customized, but are becoming more repetitive. Here is one case study that we would put in brute force to manage the sales process:

Case Study: Multilingual Online Portal
Our client was selling an incentive reward program to Fortune 500 companies. We had been involved in several sales cycles to get their online portal translated for their client's specific need. The portals were all customized for each customer, sales cycle was long and the sales process was not very repetitive.

Through collaboration with our client, we translated the basics of the portal in several languages as a way to demonstrate their portal to different markets. Further customization could be ordered as needed. It helped our client to sell a multilingual solution to their client without having to reinvent the wheel. It also greatly reduced the upfront investment needed to attract a new client as their solution already provided 80% of what their clients needed from their client in several different languages.

Have a Task Force
In order to build a systematic process you need to involve a team of people with various disciplines. In the previous case study, the success of this program was that we worked together with both the Account Managers who were involved in the sales and scoping process, the Programming Team and Department Leads who can enable these resources to work together.

It was clear that this team was passionate about getting it right. Several attempts had been made in the past to get a global solution to their clients, but this was the first time the department was in line with all their account managers on how to handle a global rollout in the future.

Management buy-in is very important at this stage. We've seen these types of case studies either succeed or fail based on whether there was a passionate management team involved that could free up resources and manage the process. The management team needs to be able to look down the road and see opportunities for global expansion through systematic processes.

Define SMART Goals
The term SMART Goals may be overused, but this stage can't be managed without a goal oriented approach. We have done something similar to the client in this case study with our Localization Maturity program. We have defined a standard set of objectives based on years of research and best practices that we can apply to any stage of growth.

With this client, we've identified a couple of meaningful goals that we worked on through the process:

• Build a business case for translating for a particular market

This was the most involved objective that we worked on. For the portal, we had to decide what languages would be chosen and what content needed translation. Based on our client's cultural research on participation rates and incentive reward preferences and our research on Hofstede's dimensions, we defined the main markets that the basic portal would be translated into.

Based on that and other figures, we determined what countries would have similar preferences to the English model that already existed. We've also defined those modules that may need to be customized for other countries so that customization can be accelerated.

• Increase the number of times your content can be reused

This objective was met with other objectives that involved collaboration on standardization for coding, standardization of terminology and standardization of release of files for translation.

We introduced Terminology Management and Translation Memory Management early on and created a standard database for the portal to be used consistently for every client who wishes to use the portal in the markets we have translated it. This ensured that customized content was consistent with the basis portal that has already been created.

The Programming Team and Project Team standardized their approach with us to deliver content in a predictable manner, shortening the time to get customized content through. More Account Managers started to use the basic portal in their sales cycle without needing our immediate involvement. We've also looked at content management technology solutions down the road to prepare the team for further automation.

In conclusion
The Brute-Force stage is all about enabling people to work together on meaningful process improvements. This stage is a true test of management to capitalize global opportunities into a competitive advantage. We also find that this stage can be very polarizing. Some clients are just not ready to take on the opportunity and we've seen dramatic decline in global efforts from that. Those that have taken the challenges faced in this stage have since taken on more global oriented projects and are using it in their own careers and work as a competitive advantage.

A Closer look at Objectives

We have created objectives for buyers of translation services in our Global Communication Maturity Model, our adaptation of the Localization Maturity Model. Here is one of the twenty objectives:

Objective:

Eliminate redundant steps in the process of developing source copy.

Sounds pretty simple, eh? Whenever we review this objective to make it more relevant, we find that this objective still resonates with us the way we wrote it 5 years ago. It is about drilling down to those 20 most important and key processes.

This objective was formulated to help buyers of translation services understand the impact of their source copy development on the translation process and costs. If they can more effectively develop their source copy, leverage from previously written content and in a way where content can be developed for different types of media, the translation process will also go a lot smoother.

To expand on this objective, we also make it more useful by adding specific action items and metrics that are relevant in specific stages of maturation. Those action items and metrics are not formulated around one specific technology, but rather the processes and the efficiencies that we are trying to reach and that companies can put into action right away.

Technology improvements have made it possible for more small and midsize companies to consider source authoring as a way to improve the process of developing source copy. Our action items were written around the identification of the process workflow and bottlenecks to identify the most important points of improvement. It is the organization's responsibility to find a solution that fits their needs, but we can help organizations assess whether a source authoring tool has the capabilities that also help them get content out that flows more efficiently through our work process as well.

These objectives are great starting points for companies to start thinking about optimizing their processes for translation and localization, without losing focus on the overall objectives of the company. All objectives (20) are defined around the perspectives of the balanced scorecard and can be integrated into an organization's own balanced scorecard.

Moments of Truth

There are several critical times during a customer’s relationship where a decision is made – by the customer – to continue or discontinue interacting with a company. Each industry has its own unique interactions.

We call these "moments of truth" and how a company interacts with the customers can significantly increase (or decrease) the long-term viability of that relationship. Identifying and anticipating those points of clarify is critical to maintain and grow that customer relationship.

Here are our Moments of Truth for our customers.  Do you know yours?

Our 5 Critical Customer Experiences - Moments of Truth

The "Make me look good" Moment - Precision you can count on...
That moment where we are able to help a client out by finding something that should be corrected in their source materials and that they may have missed themselves and it is critical to the project. This may be a typo, phrasing for clarification, formatting issues, etc. The "Make me look good" moment can also save the client on costs by finding issues that may have caused costly rework at the end.

This is often expressed by the client as "great catch!"

The "Make me feel important" Moment - Service you can count on...
Our clients know who their personal account manager is but can talk to anyone in our organization about their account and get answers and resolution. Whether you are a new customer, sporadic customer or frequent customer, our customer service is always the same.  We realize that each company and person has unique requirements and we provide customer service based on those unique needs.  No question is a stupid question.

This is often expressed by the client as "you treat me so good"

The "Show Me" Moment - People you can count on...
That moment where we can demonstrate our accountability for the accuracy of the work provided.

This may be during a client linguistic review process or during a non-conformity in a project. This is where the trust in LSI is challenged and we are able to retain or gain their trust though our processes and/or detailed analysis.

This may be identified by clients in their own acknowledgement of their accountability in the process.

The "Dream Team" Moment - Passion you can count on...
That moment when our client can count on us to step in and become part of their team in a conference call, pre-project analysis, client meetings, etc. LSI recognizes that it is a privilege to be part of that team as well as the responsibility to share in the client's success.  There are key experiences that lead to this moment: Personal friendships may be formed, the individual client may become a champion for our services in their organization, or the client has experienced personal growth/learning because of our support.

This may be identified by clients in their description of us "partners" or as "a part of us"

The "Maturation" Moment - Language you can trust...
That moment when our collaboration with the client has caused a shift in the client's opinion and the client places priority on the processes around translation. The client understands the importance of the process vs. translation itself. In this sense, the client can be integral in moving the company towards the next maturation stage on the Global Communications Maturity Model.

Our experience with the localization maturity model

Our Global Communication Maturity Model - like the Localization Maturity Model (LMM) - shows a natural evolution of maturity of a buyer. We know that this growth will only happen if translation services become of an increasingly important strategic factor for growth.



Global Communications Maturity Model

Our research was predicated on the industry assessment that many organizations tend to overspend on translations as they grow. There is a clear opportunity for LSPs to provide additional customer service by focusing on 80% of translation buyers that are at the beginning 4 stages of maturity in the maturity model.

Why buyers fail to move up the maturity level
In our experience, these are some of the leading factors within the buying organization:

• Lack of organizational support (translation is not deemed important enough)
• Lack of time (inadequate job responsibility; no dedicated localization manager in house; unrealistic deadlines)
• Lack of understanding (no insight into the cause/effect of their own processes on the translation process)
• Lack of information sharing (buyer/vendor relationship structure; lack of proper follow-up

Without any intervention in this growth process, a buyer can lose its control over the costs of translation. (Tweet this!)

How LSPs fail to help buyers move up the maturity level
Barriers for LSPs to help buyers:

• Lack of process (documented process to identify, analyze and implement process improvements on the buyer's side)
• Lack of understanding of client process, goals and objectives (relationship)
• Lack of vision (too much focus on the translation process)

These barriers are not easy to overcome, but they are necessary to maintain a relationship with their client as they grow into the next stage of maturity.

How LSPs can help buyers move up the maturity level

A collaborative effort between buyer and LSP, especially at the early stages of maturity, is essential to meaningful improvements (Tweet this!). This is where the balanced scorecard approach is an excellent tool to establish goals and objectives that not only address our responsibilities, but also looks at the buyer's responsibility to protect their goals and objectives in their own processes.

An LSP can help a buyer by reminding them of the impact of changing requirements and at the same time providing them with insight into improvements that are meaningful to the goals and objectives that the client has.

The ideal approach:

1. Assessment of Maturity - We have developed an assessment tool (Global Communication Readiness Assessment) for buyers to get an understanding of their level of maturity. This tool is a great way to introduce buyers into thinking about their own processes and how it affects their outcomes
2. Understanding Need - SWOT analysis - A documented approach to understand the goals and objectives of the buyer and find the gaps through a SWOT analysis.
3. Discovery and Findings - In a collaborative effort, turn findings into priorities that you agree to work on.  
4. Balanced Scorecard approach - An outcomes based agreement between the buyer and us establishes meaningful goals and objectives that are aligned with the findings of the SWOT analysis. Metrics are defined to measure the progress of each of these goals.
5. Reporting on progress and continuous improvement - A quarterly report keeps track of progress and forms the basis of continuous improvement (see the Balanced Scorecard example).

But even when there is no time for this ideal approach, an LSP should be able to adapt and work on process improvements. The GCMM or Localization Maturity Model is an important asset to any LSP to continuously look for opportunities to extend their knowledge to the buyer in order to help them move.

We'll look more into that assessment tool for LSPs in following posts.

How your LSP can move you up the Localization Maturity Model (LMM)

We're very keen to learn that one of the industry's leading research organizations, Common Sense Advisory, has continued to support their Localization Maturity Model that they initiated in 2006, with further publications on this subject. The model is directed towards buyers of translation and localization services and LSPs (Language Service Providers) and provides an indication of the level of maturity an organization has in handling their localization efforts and how they can effectively move up the maturity ladder.

Most organizations will have to rely on a qualified LSP (Language Service Provider) to help in that process as the translation process is usually not handled internally.

Our history with the Maturity Model concept

The LMM was introduced in 2006 as an adaptation of the exiting Capability Maturity Model that was modeled after the software industry. The LSP world took notice of this evolution, but at the time it was more of a concept than a comprehensive approach towards localization maturity.

An example of an objective and metrics

In 2007, we took the challenge to create our own structure around the Maturity Model concept. Our eyes were on creating a Maturity Model for our clients (the buyer) along with objectives, metrics and leading KPI's to help our clients grow and mature as they move up the Maturity Ladder. As our clients' translation needs grew , we witnessed greater risk to overspend due to process inefficiencies on the buyer's side and we wanted to mitigate that risk.

Our organization spent over 400 man-hours since 2007 developing this model. We took into account industry standards, industry research and our own experience in managing translation projects for clients at various stages of the maturity model to come up with a comprehensive process management system for our clients. It has helped us greatly in understanding how we can contribute to our client's processes.

Example of our scorecard

In 2008, we were quite ahead of the curve in having a comprehensive process management system for our clients in identifying gaps in their processes at their stage of maturation (based on the buyer's growth and risk/reward analysis) on the Maturity Model that we coined the Global Communications Maturity Model (GCMM).  The model became a great tool for us to communicate with the client on individual goals.

We developed an assessment tool, the Global Communication Readiness Audit, based on 4 dimensions. Strategic Readiness,  Organizational Readiness, Content Readiness and Design Readiness. This provided buyers with a scorecard of where they could find themselves on the GCMM and clear objectives and metrics to find improvements

A new platform for a strategic Buyer/Vendor relationship

Balanced Scorecard with actual client

In 2009, we took the model a step further by creating an outcomes based Balanced Scorecard approach for our clients. We had a good model to identify gaps in the process, but we needed a platform of collaboration in order to commit to the process improvement process that aligned with the objectives of our client, the buyer. The Balanced Scorecard approach was highlighted in the HBR as a method to move a client/vendor relationship (strategic or non-strategic) to a collaborative strategic partnership with objectives and outcomes and provisions for responsibility and accountability on both sides. Our model already address the objectives, outcomes and responsibilities, but the Balanced Scorecard approach became a framework to the benefit of our clients.

Now, our GCMM in combination with our Balanced Scorecard approach is the unique process that we bring to the table as an LSP. When a buyer is seeking a more comprehensive approach to managing their localization process, our approach provides a committed relationship that looks at their corporate objectives and we tie those in with our objectives and metrics that we have in place to move them up the maturity model.

We'll post more about the Maturity Model in subsequent blog posts that addresses the pitfalls of implementing a Maturity Model and advice on how buyers and LSPs can collaborate to mitigate risk, manage expectations and strive for continuous improvement.