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.

Metrics for Linguistic Screening of Product Names

There is a whole array of considerations that marketers and product developers go through before they even decide on a product name in their domestic market. However, these considerations are often overlooked during product name testing for their foreign markets.

When our clients come to us for linguistic screening of their English product names, our start is to take inventory of the main considerations that went into development of the brand for the domestic market. Here are a few examples of the most prevalent metrics for linguistic screening:

The Brand Concept

We consider the elements such as brand positioning, brand messaging, and product segmentation to be the foundation for analysis in the target market. We leverage the knowledge that was created during the name development to test and analyze in the target market.

The Language

Linguistic screening should not only take into account appropriate meaning in other languages but also the ease by which a product name can be pronounced by a person from another country. Pronunciation could be an important success factor in product name adoption. Product names are often ambiguous and created without direct meaning. Therefore, a valuable attribute could be a powerful sounding name. Names could be unintentionally softened through differences in pronunciation in the target market. Understanding how a product sounds in the target market can be valuable information in choosing a product name.

The Culture

Cultural analysis can include a wide variety of aspects. One example is the use of colors and images that are appropriate and engaging. Another aspect is name associations. In product name development, associations with competitors or other organizations is usually taken into account for different reasons (legal reasons, unique factor, etc.). Powerful associations can be made with similar words used in related or unrelated industries, or for instance in popular culture. Especially with highly ambiguous names, powerful associations that support the brand positioning can be a key success factor and should be tested in the target markets. Cultural views may vary by generation and therefore an important attribute is to understand the target segmentation of the product. Gender roles in purchasing are also important to consider as these differ by country. You may not be marketing to the decision maker!

Product Analysis

While actual product testing is not part of the scope for linguistic screening, we also should not discount the value of product analysis for the target market. Product aspects such as packaging and design can be taken into consideration and analyzed for further testing in the target market. Having product aspects analyzed before you test in your target market can help narrow down the goals for expensive tests using local focus groups.

The Linguistic Screening process should benefit from open communication and flow of information between product developers and linguistic and cultural analysts. Too many times, the brand development process is overlooked in product name development for a foreign market. When considering the investment that has gone into the product and the potential it could have, the investment in a carefully executed linguistic screening process should be a drop in the bucket.

The next time your client or your company wants to screen their English product name in other languages, give us a call for a proprietary process that we use.

Do you risk losing control of your brand?

We have mentioned in earlier posts that the decision to centralize control over your messaging will impact your brand identity. Centralization of brand messaging is the first step in creating a consistent brand identity. When it comes to multilingual communications however, some organizations rely on local experts to market and sell their products. These type of organizations must find a balance between ownership of their messaging at the corporate level to protect their brand identity and allowing for customization of their communications by local experts such as their in-country distributors.

Our spotlight is on the profile of a company that is emerging in several foreign markets at the same time. This company is using local distributors to market and sell their products in-country. Until this year, they have relied almost entirely on the local distributors to translate their packaging and marketing materials. When this organization approached us to help them develop a strategy for their global expansion, one of the key objectives that we determined in our SWOT analysis to be a top priority was to establish “control and ownership of messaging to protect brand reputation and identity”. This is one of the 6 metrics we have identified in the area of Strategic Readiness for companies managing their multilingual communications. In the Balanced Scorecard framework, this metric falls under Quality.

Click on image to enlarge

Mitigation of risks with this objective include:

• Brand management


• Competitiveness


• Legal requirements

If the distributors had full control of creating the messaging used to market this company's products, the company had no way of knowing whether the distributors always adhered to the guidelines and messaging on their U.S. packaging. This is a classic case of an organization risking brand dilution with no way to evaluate which claims were being made or how their brand appeared to buyers. Furthermore, the company's competitive advantage is driven by the claims that are made to entice buyers to purchase their products. A marketing strategy centered around a specific claim may work in one market while it would not be effective – or even legally acceptable – to make such a claim in another country. The U.S. based headquarters of this company had no control over these individual strategies and no way to ensure that each country's legal requirements were being met.

The first step for this company was to centralize and take ownership of the messaging. The second step is to take ownership of the distributor relationship in regards to their control over the messaging. These distributor experts can provide insight into the target market and how best to approach buyers. The distributors sell the product and should be involved in choosing terminology used in the translations. Terminology management became the central focus of this strategy to strengthen the brand, engage the distributors and "hear" their voice and provide linguistic evaluation for the organization to "own their messaging."

This metric in the LSI Client Mentor Program™ provides an action plan of 6 steps that an organization must evaluate and act upon for this objective. The organization is then measured not only on a number of quantitative issues but also on their change of perception in their committment to the objective. A score of "ingrained" with this metric is one more measurable way to move this company efficiently along the path of the Global Communication Maturity Model™.

The benefits of having a centralized approach with well-defined roles and responsibilities are clearly evident to this company We have an efficient and repeatable process (think Baldrige criteria) that can be applied to each new market as our client expands. In addition, we are able to scale efforts within existing markets in a cost-effective way due to the Translation Memory assets we’ve built.

Too much focus on lagging measures

A number of factors affect an organization’s position on the Global Communication Maturity Model™ (GCMM). In organizations that are just beginning to respond to international marketing demands, process management efficiencies are usually driven at the operational level. Upper management in organizations at the Reactive and Conscious levels rarely drive process management initiatives. As companies mature, the strategic top is increasingly involved in and focused on process management because their global communication endeavors have a bigger impact on the overall success of the company.

Innovation usually finds its roots at the operational level. How can lower and middle management help to innovate in process efficiency for global communications? How is their contribution to the overall success of the company validated?

The position that an organization is in on the GCMM is indeed a lagging indicator. Too many organizations focus on the lagging measures such as profit, ROI, etc. Those are the existing metrics currently in our industry. Metrics are critical to global thinking, but failing to measure the right things can lead one off the path. Language Service providers in our industry have plenty of metrics, especially TM (Translation Memory) leverage percentages. However, global organizations need to look at the leading indicators that influence and forecast the amount of leverage an organization can get from their TM. Those leading indicators need to be aligned with the people in the organization that impact those measures. At Language Solutions, we help organizations to tie key objectives to people and processes within their organization, providing insight on accountability and decision support.