The basic idea is   put in a phrase and see how Google’s translation tool butchers it… or will it

I borrowed TechChrunch’s example below!

Have fun and let me know your scores!

If you are one of these organizations, please know that you are not alone. However, finding out how much your company spends can be extremely difficult, depending largely on how localization is currently managed. Most organizations who struggle with this question run localization in a highly de-centralized manner. Each region or business unit is responsible for managing the cost of their translation needs, and there is little documented process or symmetry in how each performs the task. This blog will focus on these types of organizations, since a majority of them are the ones struggling to find out their annual spend. For example, one region may send work out to a localization vendor that is contracted, while another may request translation ad-hoc when the need arises. Still further, some regions may have in-house staff perform translation as part of their normal duties, so not to incur any cost for their translation needs. If this sounds like your company, then here are three things you can do to go about collecting an idea of the “spend” your organization does as a whole.

First, ask the regions/divisions/business units how they are currently handling translation. Find the main translation stakeholder in each and ask them for their process. Specifically, ask them:

• How do they bill for localization?
• Do they have written processes?
• Do they maintain existing contracts with translation vendors?
• Do they use a specific code on POs for translation?
• Do they use existing staff for translation, or are their specific FTEs designated?
• Do they maintain any assets?

What these questions will help you discover is how each group operates, and where to start looking for the money they spend on translation. In some cases, you might find a relatively well-managed process and determining the specific spend will be much easier. In others, especially where there are no processes, or dedicated FTE count the “spend” will be much more difficult to determine.

Second, look at the products that are from each group, and in what markets they are currently engaged with. Ask these questions:
• Do you translate written material for each market your products are in?
• What written material do you put in to each market? Do you have a document/page count of what each group in your division creates and sends to the markets you currently engage?
• If you are not translating content currently, do you have plans to start in the next FY, and if so, for what markets and which content.

What these questions will help you determine is where the translation is coming from for each group. This is helpful when a group has no documented process and/or uses existing FTEs for their translation services. Additionally, it gives you an idea of what content is going out the door to end-users in a localized format.

Finally, you can just do the math. While each company’s localization “spend” will vary significantly there are constants in localization that can be used to determine a rough idea of localization “spend,” such as:
• Typical translators can translate 1500-2000 words per day, not including leverage
• Quality Review is normal accomplished at a rate of 10,000 words per day
• Desktop Publishing is normal performed at 5-6 pages per hour
• Web content normally has 200-250 words per page
• User documents average 250 words per page

If you have done your due diligence in the first two steps, you have an idea of what documents were translated in which groups. Knowing this will let you find the amount of pages and the number of languages for each. For groups that use existing FTE count to translate content on the side, the first two metrics will give you and idea of how much time is truly spent translating content. Now you have a better idea of what your company translates, ask the localization vendors for the average cost to localize each language on a per word basis. Put the numbers together and you have a rough estimate to deliver to the executives. While this process is not the most efficient, it is effective in providing numbers and equally effective in showing the executive team members exactly how inefficient the localization process really is at your company.

Companies in advanced economies were shocked to see suppliers in Asia and elsewhere simply disappear as orders from abroad contracted. In China some 67,000 factories went bankrupt, according to that country’s authorities, in the first half of 2008—even before the U.S. financial crisis sent the global economy into a tailspin.

Outsourcing and subcontracting are rife in localization at a number of levels.

Typical practice for global scale MLV’s is to subcontract to SLV’s on a language-by-language or region-by-region basis. The problem for the company procuring the localization services is that they are disconnected from those SLVs and have no way to predict the stability of the companies that are actually going to be performing the work. Procurement departments and selection committees will often spend a great deal of time  reviewing financial stability of a potential localization partner – work which is rendered useless if the actual production is performed by a completely different organization.

I would recommend anyone tackling a vendor consolidation to start begin asking questions that will identify stability issues not just at the MLV / master contractor level but at each point in the production supply chain. Here are some key questions:

• request third-party validation of each sub-contractors financial health and its sales or operational history,
• ask to see references from other or past partners,
• ask to see ongoing processes for tracking sub-contractor risks (a buyer, for example, should want to see a map of the partner’s supply chain including contingency), and
• develop backup options for each important sub-contractor.

Having confidence in a trading partner means having confidence that the partner knows what to do in the event of a breakdown in their subcontractor supply chain. Where subcontractors are part of the equation, as Josh says,

These practices will give both sides greater confidence that a crisis won’t wipe out their trading partners and leave them scrambling to find new ones.

The expert panelists brought years of expertise in localization to the discussion.  Francoise is the VP of Global Programs at Valente Consulting.  She worked for Microsoft for 11 years as a globalization project manager in charge of evangelizing globalization best practices to the Windows User Assistance team and has authored multiple articles on localization and globalization.  She led the discussion on gauging the return on investment for localization spending, when to localize and effectively educating stakeholders on localization.  It was an honor to hear her speak on these topics and people in the audience were able to discuss their own solutions and ideas as well.

Steve  has spent more than a decade building global brands and helping clients succeed online in the U.S. and abroad. A seasoned online business strategist and marketer, Steve has significant experience in the technology, entertainment, health care, publishing and travel & tourism industries, among others.

In addition to writing magazine articles and white papers about international online marketing and multilingual website development, Steve addresses audiences around the country, from the Japan Society of New York to the Software Association of Oregon.  His expertise crested an interesting discussion on measuring user acceptance in target locales, collecting information from customer support teams to provide data about localization and managing global websites.

Yvan has over 14 years of experience in the localization industry in a wide range of roles including, project management, program management, account and business development, and operations management.  Beginning his career as a translator and project manager gives him deep understanding of client needs, solutions, and budgetary requirements.  His skill as divisional director at SDL comes from his expertise in managing all aspects of translation and localization projects, directing project teams, and monitoring customer success. Yvan provided insight into best practices for in-country review, terminology management and localization in a recession.

The discussion was very interactive and provided best practices, strategies and solutions for common, and not so common, localization challenges.  For a listing of similar events near you, please visit www.sdl.com/events. SDL is also beginning a webinar series in a few weeks on a number of topics – links below. The entire list of webinars is

Week 1 – July 07, 2009 (9:00 PDT) Increasing Translation ROI
Week 2 – July 14, 2009 (9:00 PDT) Localization Testing
Week 3 – July 21, 2009 (9:00 PDT) Best Practices for Machine Translation
Week 4 – July 28, 2009 (9:00 PDT) Localizing Audio and Visual Content
Week 5 - August 04, 2009 (9:00 PDT) Best Practices for in-country validation and review
Week 6 - August 11, 2009 (9:00 PDT) Localization in an Agile environment
Week 7 - August 18, 2009 (9:00 PDT) Business Process Outsourcing