Web Globalization Best Practices

White PaperBest Practices in Web Globalization

An Effective Approach for Building your Online Brand

September 2005 | White Paper | Copyright Lionbridge 2005

White Paper

At a Glance

Projecting a globally viable, coherent brand on the Web is nota trivial proposition and requires much coordination, planning,structure, and resources.

Executive Summary

Website globalization eliminates misunderstandings by adapting information to meet a targetlocale's cultural, linguistic, and business requirements. By translating your website, you enableusers to access information about your company quickly and easily. By allowing your customers,partners, and employees to communicate effectively with you in international markets, the cost of doing business decreases while business results increase. But, creating a global presence for your website often requires extraordinary efforts to keep your brand strong.Four components work together to form the foundation of the worldwide web —

Strategy

,

UserExperience

,

Content

, and

Technology

. While this framework is well established within theUnited States, globally it is still in its adolescence. Most companies with global markets havedeveloped solutions that serve those markets, but the level of support varies greatly. After a Website launch from headquarters, for example, there are often significant reverberations within thelocal country offices as users struggle with things like inconsistent branding, fragmentedlocalization, and inappropriate content.This white paper presents the Lionbridge view on Web globalization and describes what we believe to be an effective approach to mastering it. We believe that to create and sustain a strongglobal Web solution, an organization must address each of the four “Web pillars.”

Web Globalization — Typical Issues and Challenges

The following represents key issues that clients who take their online solutions global typically experience.

Strategy

Fragmentation — Same Company, Many Faces

Seen and unseen “demarcation lines” between the spheres of influence within a company impactthe globalization effort. Geography plays a key role in these spheres of influence, and thedistribution of responsibility and resources across global markets can be extremely uneven. Thecorporate office typically drives the Web initiative, but may lack the budget and the reach toeffectively position the company on the Web across all markets. Consequently the in-country offices that are close to the customer and own the revenue in the markets often need to create alocal online presence — typically by adapting the corporate content, look-and-feel, andfunctionality. It also sends the overall message to the prospect and customer base that they aredealing with multiple companies online as opposed to one global company.

September 2005 | White Paper | Copyright Lionbridge 2005 | Page

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International Market Has the Greatest Growth Potential

The international markets are growing at the fastest rates. For most companies, a big opportunity lies in growing revenues internationally.

Source: Global Reach

Brands are Not Protected Globally

It is typical for most companies to suffer from one of two “globalization brand syndromes.”

•

Corporate site, translated — just a pure translation done with little input from the localoffices. The message is unfocused, and not specific to the country, with no means for thelocal office to address the site unless they build something of their own.

•

Runaway brand — which results when local offices solve the need of supporting theirprospect and customer base by creating their own versions of the site. In extreme cases,the local site shares only a logo with the corporate site and presents the company completely differently than the main Web site.Projecting a globally viable, coherent brand on the Web is not a trivial proposition and requiresmuch coordination, planning, structure, and resources.

Localization Efforts are Fragmented

Companies that lack a planned approach to localization often get the content ready for globalusers in a stove-pipe fashion, with multiple entities (departments, countries, individuals) involved.This complexity belies the real cost of localization, since it is buried in so many budgets and doesnot allow for a high-quality approach with economies of scale, reuse, and standardization.

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