LISA

The Localization
Industry Primer
2nd edition

http://www.lisa.org
The Localization Industry Primer, second edition is an update by Arle Lommel (SMP & LISA) of the first
edition text written by Deborah Fry, Managing Partner, Fry & Bonthrone Partnerschaft. The authors would
like to thank the following individuals for their help in the production of the Primer: Michael Anobile
(LISA), Alison Rowles and Alex Lam (SMP), and Robin Bonthrone (Fry & Bonthrone), as well as all those
who contributed to the first edition.
The Localization Industry Primer 3

Dear Reader,

In order to succeed in today’s increasingly global business environment, enterprises have to do more than
export their existing products worldwide—companies must become truly globalized. Globalization is not
simply having a world-wide presence, but rather the incorporation of a global perspective into all aspects
of a company. As such globalization is an outlook and philosophy of doing business. Globalized enterprises
are just that—global—in every aspect of their operations. However, being truly global is only possible by
being local in the markets where companies do business. A company’s products, services, documentation,
customer support and maintenance procedures, marketing, etc. must all reflect the needs of the local market
in terms of culture, language and business requirements. Multiple local market versions have to be produced
simultaneously to stay ahead of the competition and ensure a return on investment within today’s shrinking
product lifecycles. This is where the localization industry comes in.

But what is localization? For far too many people localization is still “just another linguistic process”. Far
from it! Localization is the process of adapting and manufacturing a product so that it has the look and feel
of a nationally-manufactured piece of goods. Thus localization is the piece of the global business puzzle that
enables companies to do business in markets outside of their home market.

When correctly implemented, localization pervades every aspect of product design, development, testing,
marketing and support. In other words, it unites and transcends individual services and disciplines such as
engineering, translation and fulfillment. Localization and globalization find a place in almost every vertical
business sector and are at the heart of successful international business strategies. By focusing on these is-
sues, the localization industry has grown into a multi-billion dollar business from its humble beginnings as
a “cottage industry” well over a decade ago.

Localization must be understood as one critical part of the global business equation, which includes global-
ization, internationalization (preparation of products to facilitate localization), localization and translation
(collectively called GILT). This Primer is designed to show you why the localization industry has developed,
how localization relates to the other aspects of GILT, and what localization can do for your business and
how you can get started. It also provides reference information for international business and language re-
sources.

The Localization Primer is based on the collected wisdom of the global leaders in this field, most of whom
are members of LISA—the Localization Industry Standards Association. This non-profit organization pro-
vides a forum in which companies can exchange information and best practices in order to maintain local-
ization business. LISA also is the forum for the development of the open standards that facilitate localization
and help organizations effectively capitalize on their language assets.

We hope that you find the Primer useful and will be pleased to help you further in all issues concerning
GILT.

Sincerely yours,

Michael Anobile
Managing Director
LISA—The Localization Industry Standards Association

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

4 The Localization Industry Primer

Table of Contents
Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Doing Business in a Global World. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Introducing Localization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
The Localization Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Localization Tools and Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Localization Costing and Pricing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Best Practices and Standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Future Trends and Challenges. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Further Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
LISA and its Members . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
LISA Forum and Summit Locations, 1990–2003 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
LISA members, past and present . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Tables and Figures

Table 1. Client Outsourcing Policy for Various Services. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Figure 1. The global product development cycle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Figure 2. Client Localization Services as a Percentage of Budgets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Figure 3. Service Provider Localization Sectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

The Localization Industry Primer 5

Executive Summary

The irreversible process of globalization and the Internet revolution are fundamen- Globalization and
tally changing the way enterprises do business. The global spread of the free market the Internet have
economy, the liberalization of key industries, ongoing work on a global political forever altered “busi-
and economic framework, and the implementation of a uniform technical and ness as usual”
logistics infrastructure have brought all areas of the world closer than ever before,
even as key technologies from various business sectors have converged to provide
an unprecedented level of technical infrastructure around the world. At the same
time, the Web has leveled the playing field for companies and economies through-
out the world, providing a low-cost global platform for advertising, marketing,
sales, distribution, and support. Entry barriers for foreign markets have tumbled,
but competition on domestic ones is increasing dramatically, and the whole world
is watching what you’ll do. Companies must think far ahead when reorienting their
strategies, plan effectively, and implement fast. The idea of “business as usual” no
longer applies.

Globalization and localization

To be successful in this challenging environment, organizations must modify their Whole product
offerings to give them the look and feel of locally-made products. This involves ca- globalization and
tering to a wide range of linguistic, cultural, content, and technical issues. Product localized products
presentation (size and shape, language, colors, graphics, icons, etc.) and functional- are the keys to
ity must be adapted to local conventions. English is simply not enough, especially global success.
for business-to-consumer products, since the vast majority of the world’s popula-
tion cannot read or understand English-language materials, and of those using the
web, about / do not speak English. In addition differences in working practices,
legislation, and in some cases even human anatomy need to be taken into account.

Efficient localization depends on product and service globalization—i.e., making

all the necessary technical, financial, management, personnel, marketing, and other
enterprise decisions facilitating localization. Where globalization concerns are not
considered in advance, any localization later will be much more expensive: a good
rule of thumb is that it will take twice as long and cost twice as much. Globaliza-
tion entails a comprehensive and well-structured product development lifecycle
that starts with a global and local product analysis and moves through product
globalization and localization to end with support for, and feedback on, localized
products. Where this lifecycle is implemented correctly, enterprises are able to
localize and release up to  or more different language versions with little or no
delay behind the release of the source-language version.

Globalization and localization are not just product design processes, however—
companies must develop and implement a global vision, strategy and eBusiness
processes, as well as establishing global branding and release policies. Last but by no
means least, they must ensure that their entire organization, from designers to back

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

6 The Localization Industry Primer

office support, think and act globally too. Globalization thus impacts, and needs the
active support, of every function in the enterprise from top to bottom, as well as
horizontally.

The localization industry

Since the early s, a whole new sector—the localization industry—has grown to
offer services, advice and training in the area of globalization, internationalization,
localization and translation (GILT), the expertise and services that enable compa-
nies to sell and support their products worldwide. Many of the market leaders are
organized in LISA, the worldwide Localization Industry Standards Association,
which provides the nexus for companies, organizations and individuals involved in
all aspects of global business to come together.

Localization is now a Although hard data is difficult to come by given the youth, dynamic growth and
multi-million dollar global reach of the industry, LISA estimates put the minimum size of the GILT
industry poised for industry at USD . to  billion world-wide (with some estimates as high as USD 
further growth. billion). Unfortunately, all too many companies still do not know what they are in-
vesting in or gaining from localized products, largely due to a lack of transparency
of the localization process within organizations. This makes more precise estimates
of industry size difficult.

What is clear, however, is that localization brings a substantial return on invest-

ment, often greater than  to . Reasonable projections show, for example, that the
 largest companies in the IT sector alone leverage a localization investment of
around USD . billion to generate sales of global products apporximating USD 
billion. When other vertical markets are included this number is doubtlessly much
higher. Companies in other areas are seeing similar return on investment as local-
ization has allowed them to tap lucrative new markets.

The players in the localization industry have grown in the past years from humble
beginnings to leading enterprises providing sophisticated services. Substantial
growth has been fueled by a trend towards greater outsourcing, and is accompanied
by ongoing industry consolidation, as well as small vendors working together. In
addition, small specialist shops have emerged that are tightly focused on particular
industries or services. These small and medium enterprises (SMEs) represent a
major production capacity in the localization industry and have led the industry in
many innovations. At the same time, standards and best practices have emerged in
key areas such as quality management, linguistic data interchange, bidding proce-
dures, and education and training.

Language tech- Language technology has shown progress over the past years, and a number of
nology enables productivity-enhancing linguistic tools have now emerged. Chief among these are
localizers. It does terminology management systems, which aid the collection and use of specialist
not replace them. vocabularies; translation memories, which are designed to facilitate the reuse of

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

The Localization Industry Primer 7

previous translations; and machine translation, which provides actual linguistic

analysis and conversion of texts from a source language into the desired target
language. Recently Content Management Systems (CMSs) and their globaliza-
tion-specific offspring, Globalization Management Systems (GMSs) have made
an impact in helping to automate the task of maintaining a complex document
repository or web-site. Because of the complexity of language, these tools cannot be
expected to work fully unaided—they enable localization staff rather than replace
them. In addition, they must be integrated with organizational workflows for best
results. However, linguistic tools have greatly increased the productivity of localiza-
tion companies and personnel, enabling a degree of efficiency, speed, and quality
assurance impossible just a few years ago.

Future trends facing the industry include: the need to drive forward technology The future belongs
and process integration and new tool development; overcoming process fragmen- to integration and
tation to make GILT visible within enterprises; educating senior management and value-added services
development staff about the crucial importance of these processes and of the value
they add; and managing growth. In addition, service providers are likely to increase
the value they add still further in the future and increase their range of offerings. In
this way, they will be able to act as consultants to the many smaller companies that
hope to ride the globalization wave. When evaluating technology and service pro-
viders, companies should adopt a long-term approach based on cost-effectiveness
rather than price alone, and emphasizing time to market and quality.

LISA Members are committed to quality services, open standards, language tech-
nology and automated production support. Further information on globalization
and localization can be obtained from the sources given in the Annexes to this doc-
ument, or from the Localization Industry Standards Association (www.lisa.org).

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

8 The Localization Industry Primer

Doing Business in a Global World

Globalization—the new world order

Globalization is an The last fifteen years have seen profound economic, political, technological and so-
irreversible process. cial transformation, resulting in an unparalleled degree of international integration.
This process of globalization, as it is commonly known, is now one of the defining
aspects of our lives. In the words of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, globaliza-
tion is “an irreversible process, not an option”*.

Key factors driving the development of globalization include the following:

Liberalization and • The liberalization and deregulation of key industries such as telecommuni-
deregulation have cations and power generation, coupled with a redefinition of the role of the
boosted investment state. This process has fuelled private investment and global competition, as well
and competition. as providing a political and economic framework for technological innovation.
• Ongoing work at an international and national level on the political and
economic framework for global commerce. Key initiatives here include
those of the World Trade Organization, which aims to establish ground rules
for free trade in products and services and the protection of intellectual prop-
erty rights, the World Bank, which aids developing countries, and the United
Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), which provides leadership and en-
courages partnerships in caring for the environment.
The political and • The emergence of a single main economic and political model (free market
economic framework democracy) following the end of the Cold War. This process has torn down
for globalization is physical barriers to world communications and trade, as well as developing a
emerging. common framework for political and business leaders. Countries (and compa-
nies) previously unable to compete can now do so with relatively little upfront
investment, while those previously off-limits to their competitors are now hav-
ing to open up. At the same time, regional economic and political communi-
ties have emerged in the Americas, Europe and Asia.
The Internet revolu- • The creation of a seamless worldwide technical and logistics infrastructure
tion is gaining speed. based on ever-cheaper computer hardware and software and telecommuni-
cations technology. Chief among the innovations making up the new global
infrastructure are personal computers (PCs), the Internet/Web, and fiber-optic,
wireless, and satellite networks. The result has been an unprecedented level of
business and personal interconnectivity, as distance and geography become
largely irrelevant. At the same time, there has been a quantum leap in the speed
at which business is conducted, and therefore in required reaction times. In par-
ticular, the Internet revolution offers companies:

- A low-cost worldwide advertising and marketing platform. By setting up

a Web site, even small companies can advertise themselves, their products

* UN Secretary General’s Report to the UN General Assembly on Globalization and

Interdependence, Oct. 

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

The Localization Industry Primer 9

and their services to a potentially worldwide audience. In addition, they can

use their Web sites to gather information on customer needs direct and in
real time.
- A low-cost worldwide sales platform. The rise of e-commerce solutions en-
ables companies to sell goods direct from their Web sites; payment is typically
made by credit card or by debiting an existing offline account. In the future
micropayment functionality (“electronic purses” or similar systems that allow
users to pay cents or fractions of cents for goods and services) and other types
of e-payment solutions will become more common.
- A low-cost worldwide distribution platform. Any product that can be
made available as electronic data (e.g., software, books and other text-based
information, music, films) can also be directly distributed via the Web. This
development is already well advanced in many sectors and will gather fur-
ther momentum in coming years. In the case of non-digitizable products
such as hardware, cars, and the like—sometimes referred to as “atoms”—
worldwide logistics providers now offer efficient international distribution.
However, it is important to note that these suppliers have invested heavily
in web-based services and are themselves acutely dependent on the Internet
for their new tracking and tracing services for clients, and for other forms of
customer care such as manuals and service information.
- A low-cost worldwide support platform. Companies serving a newly ac-
quired international customer base can minimize support issues by providing
registered customers with information and contacts via their Web sites. LISA
offers a Global Business Directory called “The MAP” (www.lisa.org/map)
where companies can register their products, operating countries, languages,
standards and other business parameters for public access and support.

The challenges of globalization

The rise of the Internet and the Web has vastly increased potential market sizes and The pond has grown
the speed of business, as well as slashing customer acquisition, sales and support in size, but so have
costs. This radical change in economics has leveled the playing field, allowing even the number, type
small companies to compete outside their traditional markets. At the same time, and size of the fish.
however, competitors at home and abroad—including new entrants attracted by
technological convergence, new business opportunities, or the need to reposition
their existing activities—can also take advantage of this technology. In other words:
while the pond has grown in size, so have the number, type and size of the fish
swimming in it. Companies therefore cannot assume that years of investment in a On the Internet you
market or previous customer loyalty will protect them unless they are meeting their snooze, you lose.
clients’ needs and making it easy for them to buy (e.g., via the Internet). What is Companies must
more, in the Internet economy, as the saying goes, “you snooze, you lose.” Enterpris- think far, plan well,
es that are slow to market with new products, or that fail to reinvent existing ones, and implement
may well find their place already taken. Global exposure means global competition, rapidly.
while speed of innovation leads to speed of imitation. As a result, competitors can
research and often copy new features or products within days.

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

10 The Localization Industry Primer

Localization allows At the same time, the liabilities of economic globalization are becoming increasingly
the benefits of glo- apparent as individuals and organizations have pointed out the environmental, cul-
balization to flow tural, and personal impacts of globalization. Localization is what allows the benefits
both ways. of globalization to accrue not only to large companies and powerful nations—lo-
calization lets speakers of less common languages enjoy access to the same prod-
ucts and resources that those in major markets use. In addition localization allows
the flow of products and information to be two-way, as dominant countries receive
goods and services from smaller countries that have traditionally had no access to
their markets. When companies localize their products and services they help to
“level the playing field” and redress economic inequalities, helping to create a better
world in which no one is left out.

Guidelines for going global

The Internet gives In other words, while the Internet and the Web provide global reach, this is not
global exposure, but enough on its own to ensure success. Going global in today’s economy thus means
doesn’t make you rethinking—and re-engineering—almost every aspect of your business. Only care-
global ful preparation for and implementation of the globalization process will create,
rather than destroy, value. To this extent, speed must be balanced against planning,
and blind activity avoided. Companies must think as far as they can into the future,
plan well, and then implement rapidly.

Among the key issues that companies need to address when starting out are:

Forget “business • The need to develop and implement a global vision, strategy and (e-) busi-
as usual”. ness processes. Selling to the world—especially via the Internet—means
selling to a new, complex market. Relying on past business plans and assump-
tions simply will not work. Enterprises must therefore develop new goals and
strategies, and ensure that these are implemented. For example, they need to
establish an appropriate local presence (e.g., subsidiaries, affiliates, partners,
distributors or shipping agents). As the list suggests, this will vary not only
with the maturity and potential size of the target market, but also with the
product or service and the degree to which effective support can be provided
online.
• The need to establish and maintain global branding and release policies.
Companies must strike a careful balance (which may well differ between indi-
vidual markets and over time) between global consistency and local respon-
siveness. For example, local and global pricing models must be harmonized,
since today’s global customers are adept at exploiting international price dif-
ferences. At the same time the Euro as a single currency for many countries in
Europe has made price comparisons even easier.
The whole world is In addition, customers generally stop buying local versions of an existing
watching. product when a new release of the original is announced. With today’s rapidly
shrinking product lifecycles, sales in the weeks following a new release may
well account for up to  of total revenues, making such behavior painful.

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

The Localization Industry Primer 11

Rapid or even simultaneous shipment (“simship”) of new releases to key local

markets is therefore critical.
• The need to design products and services for global distribution. Rapid roll- Design globally right
outs require upstream planning. Although the Web may be flattening geographi- from the start.
cal barriers, other market requirements have not been homogenized. Differences
in working practices, legislation, culture and languages—in some cases even in
human anatomy—need to be taken into account. This is best achieved by de-
signing products to enable subsequent modification, since failure to do so results
in downstream re-engineering, and therefore spiraling costs. Indeed, such ret-
rofitting may well make international product rollouts economically unfeasible.
In contrast, products that have been “globalized” in this way can be adapted to
different markets with a minimum of effort.
• The need to provide localized products and services. Where products and Provide a “local look
services are to be sold in other markets, they must be “localized”, i.e., adapted and feel.”
to meet specific local needs. First and foremost, this means making them avail-
able in the local language(s), since English on its own is simply insufficient.
Even though it is now the international language of business, science and tech-
nology, currently only one in four of the world’s population speaks English to
some level of competence. In addition, customer orientation and user friendli-
ness, national or regional legislation, and tender specifications may well dic-
tate local language provision. However, this is generally not enough by itself:
instead, localization needs to go beyond language questions to address issues
of content and “look and feel”, with the ultimate aim of releasing a product that
looks like it has been developed in country.
• The need to globalize back-office functions. Globalization does not stop at the The back office must
company’s front door or Web site. Rather, back office workflows must be reorga- go global, too.
nized to cope with global sourcing, distribution and support. For example, report-
ing and accounting structures, legal and payroll functions and employee relations
must all be looked at in a global context. Support for foreign language e-mails and
telephone inquiries, foreign address formats and multi-currency payment facilities
should not be forgotten, either. Last but not least, e-commerce/e-business and Web
solutions must be integrated with existing (“legacy”) applications and databases
and tailored for international audiences.

The Role of the localization industry

It is impossible for companies to design and implement such complex and funda- Services, advice and
mental changes without calling on expert advice. In practice, enterprises going global training.
will need to seek the help of a number of specialist professional services providers
such as lawyers, accountants and e-commerce specialists. Above all, however, they
will need the services of the localization industry—the dynamic young sector de-
voted to product globalization and localization. Localization service providers offer
not only operational support for globalizing and localizing products and services, but
also consulting, strategic advice and training. Many of the best-of-breed companies
are organized in LISA, the global Localization Industry Standards Association. And

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

12 The Localization Industry Primer

LISA: the global while almost everyone today is trying to jump on the globalization and localization
association for the bandwagons, LISA’s service providers have a proven track record of success in their
localization industry. field. Equally, client enterprises going global can benefit from the experience of the
major enterprises within LISA who have implemented before them. LISA acts as a
forum for exchanging ideas and establishing and disseminating standards and best
practices throughout the world, as well as promoting the industry to potential clients
and other stakeholders. The remaining chapters of this Primer draw on the collected
wisdom of these global experts to present a more detailed overview of localization
and the localization industry, its development, activities and future challenges.

Service Total In-house In-country Outsourced

Authoring % % % %
DTP % % % %
Product internationalization % % % %
Product localization % % % %
Translation % % % %
Proprietary tools development % % % %
QA % % % %
Technical support % % % %
Terminology % % % %
Training % % % %
Technical consulting % % % %

Table 1. Client Outsourcing Policy for Various Services (source, LISA 2001)

Going Global—Some Basic Facts

Basic facts • Global trade accounts for  of global output and is set to expand by –
per annum. Global trade figures in  were up -fold on  levels.
• Since , IBM’s international market revenue generated sales of over
USD  billion—more than half of its total revenues during this period.
• Microsoft’s international market revenue has generated sales of over USD 
billion since .
• Recent research has shown that globalization tends to increase the prosperity
of all nations that engage in it, while leaving behind nations that erect barriers
against globalization.
• A sizeable majority of all Web documents are in English (–, depend-
ing on the survey). However, only one in four of the world’s population speaks
English to some level of competence and over  of the world’s population
needs or prefers a language other than English for business purposes.
• The top ten languages of the world account for approximately  of the
world’s population, and over , languages account for the remaining .
• There are  million Internet users today. This number is forecast to rise to
approximately  billion by . Of these,  million are likely to be in China
alone. In addition, the number of online users in Europe now exceeds those in
the United States (as of ).

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

The Localization Industry Primer 13

Introducing Localization

What is localization?
To many people, localization sounds like “just a linguistic process” identical or Localization is not
similar to translation. However, while translation plays an important role in the just a linguistic pro-
localization of all text-based products, the process of localization is actually much cess. Cultural, content
broader than this. The Localization Industry Standards Association (LISA) defines and technical issues
localization as “the process of modifying products or services to account for differ- must also be taken
ences in distinct markets”. In practice, this means that localization needs to address into account.
three main categories of issues:

Linguistic issues
These relate to the translation of a product’s user interface and documentation and may
also extend to the translation and re-engineering of any underlying linguistic function-
ality such as applications programming interfaces (APIs), search engines or wizards.

Content and cultural issues

In many cases, the information and functionality contained in products need to
be adapted for local audiences. Cars sold in Britain cannot have the steering wheel
on the left, while accounting software will have to comply with local generally ac-
cepted accounting principles, to give just two examples. Cultural issues concerning
the presentation of information (icons, graphics, colors, forms of address, etc.) may
also need to be taken into account.

Technical issues
Supporting local languages and content may require redesign and re-engineering.
For example, Arabic scripts are bi-directional (i.e., they generally run from right
to left, except for numbers and foreign-language words, which run from left to
right). Equally, Far Eastern languages require twice the disk space of English for
each character (which is why their alphabets are known as “double byte character
sets”, or DBCSs). Adapting products to these scripts therefore requires changes to
the code (in the case of software) and/or product design, packaging, etc. Ideally, the
localization process follows on from product globalization (see below) and should
not be confused with it.

Localizing a product is not a trivial task, and in practice not all products are local- The degree of local-
ized to the same extent. On average, technical products and proprietary business- ization required may
to-business applications will be less likely to be (fully) localized. However, it would vary, but this does
be a mistake to conclude automatically from this that English is good enough. In not automatically
the real world of business today, factors influencing the extent of localization in- mean that English is
clude the nature and scope of the product concerned, the size of the target market good enough.
and audience, the length of the product lifecycle and anticipated update frequen-
cies, competitor behavior, market acceptance, and national or international legisla-
tion. Only after a thorough analysis of these issues and of potential consequences
should a decision not to localize, or to localize only in part, be made.

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

14 The Localization Industry Primer

What is internationalization?
Internationalization However, even such a careful analysis will not succeed if localization is taken in
comes before and isolation. Instead, it needs to be an integral part of the entire product design, devel-
facilitates localiza- opment and distribution chain (see Figure  on the next page). In particular, prod-
tion. ucts have to be internationalized before they are localized. While globalization can
be defined as “making all the necessary technical, financial, managerial, personnel,
marketing, and other enterprise decisions necessary to facilitate localization”, inter-
nationalization is specifically enabling a product at a technical level for localization.
In other words, an internationalized product does not require remedial engineering
or redesign, as opposed to adaptation to a specific local language or platform.

It takes twice as long Internationalization primarily consists of abstracting the functionality of a product
and costs twice as away from any particular language so that language support can be added back in
much to localize a simply, without worry that language-specific features will pose a problem when the
product after its first product is localized. Where a product has not been internationalized in advance,
release if it isn’t first additional expenditure will be incurred during localization; in some cases, this
internationalized may be substantial enough to make the entire project uneconomic. A good rule of
thumb to follow is that it takes twice as long and costs twice as much to localize a
product if it was not properly internationalized to start with.

Successful interna- Internationalization at this level is thus a fundamental product development pro-
tionalization requires cess requiring the active support and participation of design and development staff,
the active support and of corporate management. Procedures for ensuring internationalized product
and participation of design must be written, approved, and implemented consistently. Getting to this
design and develop- point often requires education and negotiation, since traditionally other priorities
ment staff, and of may have applied. For example, developers have a tendency to focus on adding
management. maximum functionality to the original product version at the last possible minute
(often known as the “development freeze”). After this date they concentrate on en-
suring that the results get out the door as quickly as possible so that the product
can ship. At the end of this process they are frequently exhausted and disappear for
a well-earned break. In contrast, localization staff are generally still working during
these later phases and need ongoing access to key developers. Changing such work-
ing habits (and in some cases the accompanying remuneration and bonus systems)
requires tact and time. In addition, it requires an awareness of the importance of
the globalization process in its wider economic sense—and of foreign language ver-
sions. At a more technical level, designers and developers may not have the knowl-
edge or skills to globalize products and design out localization pitfalls if they have
never been exposed to international issues.

The global product development cycle

Successful product globalization is thus a combination of internationalization and
localization. In practice, these two processes can be broken down into a number of
steps (see Figure ):

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

The Localization Industry Primer 15

Localization Product
Internationalization
requirements
analysis
(global/local) Internationalized
Local product product
marketing support design

THE GLOBAL PRODUCT

Internationalized
Local product DEVELOPMENT CYCLE product
testing + QA development

Internationalized
Product
product
localization
testing + QA

Figure 1. The global product development cycle.

Product requirements analysis (global/local)

Any product design process starts with a basic requirements analysis. What is the Begin at the
core functionality and content that users—wherever they are—need? What are they beginning: with fact-
prepared to pay money for? What feedback has been received on previous versions, finding exercises for
and how do competitors’ products compare? What return on investment must be the global and local
generated within what time frame? In a global environment, the important point markets.
is to make sure that this analysis is conducted not just for the domestic market, but
for all potential markets. The fact-finding process should therefore draw on the
expertise of in-country staff, distributors and users as well as addressing ROI and
strategic considerations.

The result of this process is a set of global product specifications that also incorpo-
rates input from all local markets identified as desirable, rather than specifications
that are tailored to a lead national market and that subsequently need modification.
In other words, the process requires companies to start “thinking global” from the
outset, since only this will ensure efficient product internationalization and local-
ization and minimize update and maintenance costs. In particular, the specifica-
tions will contain information on the following issues:

Content and functionality

What content and functionality will the global product supply, and what local
content requirements (an increasingly important issue) exist? To what extent must
functionality be adapted to conform to local legislation or practices? What techni-
cal support and features must be provided?

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

16 The Localization Industry Primer

Linguistic and cultural issues

What parts of the product (interface(s), documentation, help, navigation, packag-
ing, etc.) need to be translated? What, if any, changes are required to adhere to local
cultural conventions? Does the product presentation have to be adapted? Graphics,
colors, icons, abbreviations, product markings, shortcut keys and other elements
are candidates for modification. At best these may be meaningless—and hence user
unfriendly—in their target markets, while at worst (as in the case of icons repre-
senting hands and eyes in certain cultures), they may be positively offensive.

Internationalized product design

Designing for glo- Once the product requirements analysis has been completed, the next step is
balization means product design, which creates the technical specifications needed for product de-
designing for flexibil- velopment. Two principles are of key importance in creating an internationalized
ity and translatability. product: designing for flexibility and designing for translatability. Designing for
flexibility ensures that the basic product can be easily adapted to local variations.
For example, software code may need to provide basic support for double-byte
character sets or bi-directional languages, while car designs may need to accom-
modate the resizing of individual components, or right-to-left transposition to
facilitate driving on the other side of the street. Designing for translatability entails
ensuring that any language components of the product are clearly written, clearly
identified, and easily accessible, and that they are kept physically separate from
other aspects of the product. For example, software texts should not be hard-coded
into a program (where they have to be laboriously identified and translated, and
may cause programming errors), nor should labels or markings be etched into
hardware components. What is more, the space left for texts in both software and
physical products should be large enough to accommodate the fact that words are
of different lengths in different languages.

Internationalized product development

The next stage in the process is to develop the basic internationalized product ac-
cording to the global design specifications. Provided that the latter have been care-
fully thought out, the coding or manufacturing process itself should be relatively
simple. In fact, today it may be outsourced or performed by overseas units.

Internationalized product testing and quality assurance

Test localized prod- Following the development of the internationalized product, it needs to be thor-
ucts thoroughly! oughly tested against the specifications, since errors at this stage may reproduce
themselves across localized versions or otherwise impede the localization process.
In some enterprises, products are also localized into an artificial language in order
to identify localization errors early on. The testing and quality assurance (QA)
process requires discipline and adherence to deadlines on the part of developers,
who are sometimes prone to packing more and more functionality into a product

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

The Localization Industry Primer 17

down to the last possible moment. In such cases, QA may suffer, while the lack of a
“frozen” (i.e., stable) version means more work for localizers.

Product localization
Following QA and testing of the internationalized product, the actual product Some enterprises
localization process can then begin. This leverages and implements the criteria are localizing into 60
for particular target markets established during the requirements analysis phase. or more languages
In practice, enterprises may be localizing products regularly into  or more lan- and shipping key
guages (and sometimes in excess of ). In some cases, these are divided into three localized releases
or four different tiers, according to market importance. The aim is to keep the time simultaneously.
gap between the appearance of the product in its lead market and localized versions
as small as possible, especially for the key first tier markets. As a result, many com-
panies aim for “simship”—simultaneous shipment of multiple language versions.
The allocation of localized versions to specific tiers may also influence the depth
to which products are localized (translation of user interface and documentation
alone, content localization, adaptation of underlying functionality, etc.). It is at this
point that efficient internationalization will pay off, since localizers will not only
have a list of required features for their target versions, but also an enabled, stable
product version from which to start.

Local product testing and QA

Following the actual localization process, the localized product version must also Test again and
be subjected to rigorous testing. In addition to technical and linguistic quality share test results.
assurance, which may be performed in-house and/or by the localization service
providers concerned, such tests often involve some sort of in-country validation or
acceptance testing by local subsidiaries, distributors or end users. In many cases, the
results obtained from one language version are made available to localizers of other
versions and developers via a central “bug database” or similar mechanism, in order
to cut overall troubleshooting times.

Local product marketing, support, and feedback

Following the release of the localized product, it enters the in-country market- Gather, evaluate and
ing and support stage. In this context it is important to ensure that enterprises act on local feedback.
are made aware of, and collect, feedback and change and enhancement requests.
These should then be evaluated as part of the next product requirements analysis.
In addition to using in-country organizations, enterprises today can gain valuable
feedback on their products via their Web sites and other electronic media such as
bulletin boards.

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

18 The Localization Industry Primer

The Localization Industry

Origins
The 20 largest IT In its broadest sense, the localization industry has existed ever since products start-
companies now ed to be exported on a major scale. To give just one example, automotive manufac-
leverage around turers have long been confronted with the design, manufacturing and marketing
USD 1.5 billion a year problems raised by cars driving on different sides of the road, national safety and
to generate sales of lighting legislation, and variations in human body size. However, the term “local-
some USD 15 billion. ization” only came into common usage in the early s, when the industry as we
know it today started to grow significantly. This development was closely connected
with the spread of computing, and in particular with the rise of the PC. As com-
puters have become ubiquitous in enterprises worldwide, software and hardware
manufacturers have faced increasing problems of adaptation and translation.

As these reached a certain size, these companies made a strategic decision to out-
source work in order to remain focused on their core business, designing the prod-
ucts themselves. This led to the development of the supply side of the industry, in
the form of localization and internationalization service providers and consultants
of various kinds. In the mean time, the industry has grown to the point where the
 largest IT companies alone are leveraging around USD . billion a year to gen-
erate sales of some USD  billion, an incredible ROI of over 

Market size
In a young and Market data on the localization industry as a whole is notoriously difficult to come
heterogeneous by. Key reasons for this include the relative youth and dynamic growth of the sec-
industry, reliable tor, its global reach and the heterogeneous nature and small size of many players,
market data is scarce. which make surveying a laborious and costly process. In addition, the reliance on
outsourcing and subcontracting within the industry means that care must be taken
not to count revenue streams twice. Another obstacle is that the localization pro-
cess within many organizations is often invisible and costs may well not be wholly
transparent; as a result, data may simply not be available, or may be unreliable (see
the chapter entitled “Localization Costing and Pricing” for more details). Addition-
ally, past market estimates and surveys have generally failed to agree on a standard
definition of the localization industry and process, making correlations difficult.
Last but not least, many surveys by the industry itself are designed to provide snap-
shots and/or basic information rather than full statistical significance. That having
been said, the increasing maturity of the industry and the recent influx of external
investment have fuelled an increase in both the quality and quantity of the infor-
mation available (see the section Further Information for more details).

The localization LISA estimates of the total size of the localization industry worldwide at a mini-
industry generates mum of USD . billion per annum, with a likely figure around USD  billion
sales of around USD (some estimates put it as high as USD  billion). The IT sector of the localization
5 billion per annum. industry alone is somewhere in the region of USD  billion—with the inclusion

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

The Localization Industry Primer 19

of all vertical markets this number is substantially higher. To give a comparison:

recent figures for the size of the translation industry range from “between USD 
billion and USD  billion” (American Translators’ Association) to USD  billion
(European Commission).

Market players
The localization industry today consists of the following main players:

• Clients with or without in-house localization (management) facilities;

• Localization service providers (“vendors”) providing any or all of engineer-
ing, linguistic and auxiliary services;
• Consultants of various expertise providing services to both the above-men-
tioned groups;
• Academics and training organizations responsible for providing tertiary and
vocational education to localization industry staff and for research into local-
ization-related issues;
• Tools providers, who supply both clients and service providers with language
technology and process management and productivity tools (see the section
entitled “Localization Tools and Technologies” for more details).

In practice, individual organizations may fulfill multiple roles within this spec-
trum; thus, clients, service providers and academics all frequently develop their
own tools, while third-party tools providers and service providers also provide
consulting services.

Client organizations
Until a few years ago, the localization industry was dominated by large client orga- Client outsourcing
nizations, most of them from the IT sector. For example, the founder members of drove development
LISA on the client side were all suppliers of hardware and/or software. In the early of the localization
days of the industry, these organizations performed much of their localization work industry.
in-house, either at their headquarters or, more commonly, in regional centers or lo-
cal facilities. However, as globalization took hold, clients were faced with the need
to localize more products into more languages within ever decreasing time frames.
High internal staffing levels mean high overheads, especially given the peaks and
valleys in demand caused by traditional product releases. As a result, clients started
delegating more operations to service providers and concentrating on their core
business. For in-house localization services, this generally means internal consult-
ing, education and liaison (especially with product development staff ), service and
tool provision, vendor selection and support, and testing and QA. Client staffing
levels in this area have dropped accordingly, with many organizations—even ones
generating more than USD  million per year—having localization headcounts
of less than five. While nearly half of localization units report to development, they

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

20 The Localization Industry Primer

may also be assigned to other departments, e.g., documentation and marketing.

Localization heads are commonly managers, directors or vice-presidents.

The trend towards The services that clients outsource most frequently are those that least match in-
further outsourcing house competencies. For example, a large majority of clients use service providers
will continue. for translation, while development issues such as product globalization and techni-
cal support are generally kept in-house (see Table ). In terms of localization expen-
ditures, translation, which is outsourced by almost  of clients, is by far the larg-
est budget item (see Figure ). In addition, corporate organizational policy and the
relative sophistication of clients’ and service providers’ offerings may also influence
outsourcing strategies. Today, many clients with mature vendor relationships have
reached the stage where they wish to maintain their current outsourcing policies,
although a sizeable number are looking to outsource more services, and the volume
of work outsourced within individual services is still increasing.

Technical Authoring
Training & Project 1%
Consulting Management DTP
7% 7%
7% Internationalization
Linguistic
3%
asset
development Software
and support Localization
4% 13%

Tools
development
1% QA - I18n &
Translation L10n Testing
48% 9%

Figure 2. Client Localization Services as a

Percentage of Budgets (source, LISA 2003)

In addition, a wave of new players has recently joined these relatively mature, orga-
nizationally sophisticated IT clients. One such group consists of major companies
outside the traditional IT sector that are nevertheless heavy users of IT (e.g., the
telecommunications, medical devices and media sectors). Another group compris-
es smaller to medium-sized IT and Internet companies that are starting to go global
and hence facing the same problems as their larger competitors.

As the Internet revolution has matured, the number of new and smaller companies
has increased, and with it the need for additional services.

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

The Localization Industry Primer 21

Service providers and consultants

Many of today’s leading service providers originally started life either as in-house Service providers:
localization units or as translation-only companies. Traditionally, many of the lat- from humble begin-
ter were relatively small and offered a restricted number of languages, which is why nings to global
they were often known as “single language vendors” or “SLVs.” While their linguistic leaders.
competence was often high, the engineering and project management services they
offered were traditionally limited, due to a lack of internal skills and/or to the fact
that many customers retained much of this work in-house. However, a number of
small, specialized engineering shops did exist, particularly for—at the time—niche
applications such as multimedia, and for internationalization and remedial engi-
neering services for the Far East markets (so-called “double byte enabling”). Over
time, growing client and general market pressure led to the emergence of a number
of so-called “multi-language vendors” (“MLVs”) offering a wider range of languages
plus more sophisticated project management and engineering services. To do so,
they relied—and indeed still rely—relatively heavily on freelancers and subcontrac-
tors, especially in the area of translation.

Starting in , the move to larger operators took on a new quality with the first
round of global consolidation. A number of MLVs and regional and local players,
many of them LISA members, merged to produce a handful of “global” players.
Today, these companies offer a combination of sophisticated linguistic services,
language and process technology and project management services. The rationale
behind this was to provide major global clients with a global supplier base that
mirrored their development and distribution structures—a trend paralleled in a
number of other industries.

Automotive
Other Aerospace 3%
Websites 2% 2% Banking/
6%
finance Engineering/
Telecommunications 7% technical doc
8% 6%
Government/
administration
3%
IT hardware,
electronics
Software 11%
localization
31% Manufacturing
1%
Marketing
Publishing/ 4%
reference Medical/
materials pharmaceutical
3% 11%

Figure 3. Service Provider Localization Sectors (source, LISA 2003)

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

22 The Localization Industry Primer

LISA members have The establishment of these new companies was accompanied for the first time by
invested USD 1.8 bil- substantial external investment (on the part of venture capital firms, private equity
lion in localization investors and more traditional lenders), and the first initial public offerings (IPOs)
since 1997. in the industry. All in all, LISA estimates that LISA members alone have invested a
total of USD . billion in localization since . A logical side effect of this inflow
of funding has been a focus on more sophisticated management structures and a
move towards recruiting key management players from other industries.

The next wave: small, After a comparatively quiet period in which the new global players focused on
specialist service assimilating their acquisitions, the consolidation process gathering speed again.
shops. Among the factors fuelling this second wave were the need of service providers to
further increase their range and depth of services and geographical coverage, to re-
act to the opportunities and threats inherent in the Internet/Web, and to eliminate
or reduce competition. In addition various technologies have converged. At the
same time, a new wave of small to medium-sized service providers sprang up. Thus,
about half of localization companies generate less than USD  million in revenue,
and develop in less than five languages. However, in contrast to their predecessors,
many of these newer companies are tightly focused on localization (as opposed
to offering it as an extension of translation) and/or offer relatively sophisticated
process and quality management. In addition, service providers are increasingly
focusing on and building up expertise in specific vertical market segments. Thus
the boundary between service providers and globalization and localization consul-
tants, whose number and range and depth of offerings have also increased consid-
erably, is becoming somewhat blurred. The benefit for potential clients is that they
can now tap into a sophisticated knowledge and service pool wherever they are in
the world.

Tools providers
Language technol- The technological basis of much localization work, coupled with its large volumes,
ogy is still largely an tight deadlines and sophisticated process management requirements, means that
emerging market. the industry has always been highly dependent on technology. In practice, the tools
used can be divided into two main categories: language technologies (such as ma-
chine translation, translation memory and terminology management systems) and
non-linguistic, operational tools such as workflow, file and document management
systems and project management tools. Traditionally, both types of tools, which
often require rapid updates and substantial customization to reflect the needs of
individual organizations and their clients, were developed in-house. According to
LISA data, nearly  of clients and approximately  of service providers still
perform at least some systems development work internally, and developers of
internal tools tend to have larger and more complex localization programs than
other companies that do not develop tools. Nevertheless, the increasing maturity,
size and focus of the localization industry have led to the rise of an independent
and growing language engineering sector. At the same time, generic workflow and
file and document management solutions are gaining ground here, as elsewhere. In

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The Localization Industry Primer 23

addition to established tools vendors, increasing numbers of developers have arisen

to offer novel solutions to localization problems that have risen as the result of new
technologies, particularly those relating to the Internet. Industry experts predict
further growth and consolidation in this market, in order to increase critical mass
and facilitate the integration of stand-alone technologies.

Global reach
The localization industry today is globally based: for example, LISA members have Localization is the
come from  countries and LISA holds Forums each year in the United States, glue holding global
Europe and Asia. A majority of LISA’s client members generate a substantial pro- businesses together.
portion of their revenues (more than ) outside of their home country, and
this number is also increasing. In keeping with this, the average number of target
languages required by clients is increasing—over half of LISA client members have
definite near-term plans to increase the number of languages into which they trans-
late. In addition many large international firms and organizations already translate
into  or more languages (with some dealing with over  languages at pres-
ent.) While many classic IT clients still have their headquarters in North America
(which means that English is currently the source language for a large majority of
work), client enterprises already have operations on the ground in many different
countries (with an average in excess of  countries), and the Internet means that
these companies often have a presence in far more countries than those where their
offices are located. Thus localization is clearly the glue that holds these global busi-
nesses together.

Equally, service providers, consultants and tools providers, though generally much Localized products
smaller, are located all around the world and are also going international by creat- gain better local
ing formal and informal service networks, and, in some cases have reversed his- market acceptance.
torical business trends by aggressively localizing their products into English from
another language.

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

24 The Localization Industry Primer

Localization Tools and Technologies

Localization tools There are two main categories of localization tools: linguistic tools (language tech-
improve their users’ nology) and what may be termed administration and management tools—i.e., tools
time to market and designed to facilitate and automate workflows, processes, project management, per-
ROI. sonal productivity, etc. Both categories are in considerable demand in the localiza-
tion industry, since the speed and volume of work involved in localization make the
use of tools imperative. In addition, many users have been able to reap substantial
economic and other benefits from their tools. Since administration and manage-
ment systems are mainstream tools and relatively well understood, this document
focuses on language technology.

Language technology
Language is one of Language engineering—the discipline that produces language technology—is a
the most complex relatively new sector. Dependent for its progress on the rise of computing, and
problems on earth. dealing with one of the most complex inventions on this planet—language—it has
not fulfilled the naïve expectations of some of its founders, who mentally consigned
human translators to the scrap heap many years ago. Nevertheless, a number of
proven language technology systems have now emerged that enable rather than re-
place humans, and constructive human-computer interaction looks set to continue
for a long time.

The following sections give a very brief overview of the main technologies in-
volved:

Terminology management systems

Good terminology is Terminology—i.e., the specialist vocabularies associated with specific sectors and
the foundation for applications—is the foundation on which good translation of all kinds is built. Thus
good translation of the use of correct and appropriate terminology in translation memories and ma-
all kinds. chine translation systems (see below) improves quality and cuts subsequent editing
time. At the same time, human translators also require superior, easily managed
terminology resources. These are generally provided by terminology management
systems—term databases that contain entries in different languages. Good systems
will be concept-based rather than word-based, allow effective synonym manage-
ment, and be integrated with word processors to enhance translator productivity.
The exchange of terminology between terminology management systems and be-
tween these and other tools such as machine translation systems is the subject of
ongoing standardization work.

Translation memory (TM)

Translation memory A database of previous translations in which the source and the target language
is suited to repetitive texts have been broken down into segments that are aligned with each other. When
texts or new versions a subsequent version of the same source text is compared with the original, the
of existing documents. memory identifies the equivalent translated segments and inserts them into the

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

The Localization Industry Primer 25

new target text. In addition, so-called “fuzzy matching” allows segments that are
similar, but not identical, to the original to be inserted and then edited. Efficient use
of translation memory depends, among other things, on the quality of the original
translation (since any errors it contains will also be replicated consistently), the
alignment (since reusability may depend on how big the segments identified are),
and on how updates to the original source text are handled. In addition, even 
matches will require subsequent editing to rule out subtle changes of context, or
to adapt target texts to local markets (e.g., in an automotive text: “look under the
hood” (US) versus “look under the bonnet” (UK)).

Globalization Management Systems (GMSs)

Traditional localization processes typically relied on a workflow in which entire Globalization
projects (often consisting of hundred or thousands of files) were completed and Management
then localized into target languages. This model of localization is not suitable for Systems allow for
web sites that are constantly changing, often with little or no central control over the translation of
the process. Manually tracking site changes is an almost impossibly task, so tools large, constantly-
developers began developing GMSs starting in the late s specifically to facili- changing websites.
tate localization of web site content. GMSs typically consist of an engine that moni-
tors site content for change and a component that, using business rules specific to
each client, passes content to translators or other linguistic tools for further pro-
cessing, and manages the workflow and synchronization of translated content with
the source-language website. Although GMSs are complex tools, they are the only
way at present to successfully localize the large and dynamic websites customers
increasingly rely upon for everything from sales to tech support.

Machine translation (MT)

This much-misunderstood technology differs from translation memory in that it Machine translation
actually performs linguistic analysis on the texts submitted to it. Whereas translation is suited to high vol-
memories are in theory language-independent, machine translation systems break umes of well-written
down the source text into its constituent parts before translating them and reassem- texts in restricted
ble them in the relevant target language. The results will not compare to (high-qual- subject areas, or “for
ity) human translation, but may still offer substantial productivity gains even after any your information”
post-editing effort has been factored in. Alternatively, MT can be used without post- translation.
editing to aid basic comprehension, in which case it is known as “for your informa-
tion” translation, or “gisting”. (The term “gisting” is also used in some cases to describe
monolingual text summarization, which is not addressed here.)

One of the reasons why MT cannot offer the same quality as the best human trans- Since machines
lators is that machines cannot deal with ambiguity in the way that humans can, and cannot resolve ambi-
also (like humans) have problems understanding long, convoluted sentences. As a guities, clear source
result, machine translation works best on unambiguous, “technical” texts, or in re- texts are vital.
stricted subject areas (“domains”). It is also particularly well suited to high-volume
texts, and produces optimum results when integrated with other document genera-
tion and translation processes. Among other things, this is because the quality of
the writing and editing applied to the source texts is vital to its success. Last but not

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26 The Localization Industry Primer

least, machine translation is crucially dependent on the quality, size and structure
of the dictionaries (known as lexicons) that the system concerned uses. For exam-
ple, translating an IT text with only a general lexicon will not produce high-quality
results. This means that substantial set-up times for machine translation systems
may be required, but that results can be very good where all relevant terms have
been identified and added.

Guidelines for success

Language technology can produce real benefits, but care should be taken to ensure
a realistic assessment of what it can and cannot offer. In addition to developing an
understanding of the basic technologies involved, potential users should bear the
following basic rules in mind:

Avoid false expectations

Language technol- The extremely complicated nature of language means that no tools can produce
ogy enables people. perfect results all the time, and human intervention (post-editing) will still be re-
It does not replace quired. The goal of replacing humans completely is therefore doomed to failure.
them. More useful benchmarks to apply are time and efficiency gains and cost reductions.
In some cases quality improvements may also be experienced, e.g., due to the use of
a consistent vocabulary or text modules.

Horses for courses

Match your technol- Different types of text are suitable for treatment with different types of technol-
ogy to your readers’ ogy. The use of inappropriate tools will inevitably lead to substandard—or even
needs. unusable—results. For example, machine translation is generally unsuitable for
advertising and marketing work, since these texts (and their readers!) demand a
high degree of originality. Potential users should therefore be aware of the function
of their texts and their readers’ expectations, and should select their technologies
accordingly. Localization professionals and tools manufacturers can advise further
on this.

Garbage in, garbage out

High-quality source The quality of results produced by linguistic tools is crucially dependent on the
texts are vital. quality of the original text (“garbage in, garbage out”). Quality control of the origi-
nal documents (which may go as far as to include the use of plain writing rules by
the authors, or pre-editing of the texts before translation) is therefore vital.

Invest for the long term

Language tools Most localization tools require careful planning and implementation to produce
are repositories of best results. For example, terminology management systems and translation
knowledge. They memories have to be filled with enterprise-specific content, while workflow sys-
need building up tems require the documentation and optimization of the business processes they
over time. are designed to support. As with any knowledge-intensive system, potential users
should accept that they are investing for the long haul.

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

The Localization Industry Primer 27

Develop an integrated process

The full benefit of many tools, and hence an optimum return on investment, can Integrated solutions
only be achieved within an integrated process stretching from document creation bring the best results.
to update management and text recycling. “Island solutions”, while they may bring
returns in their own right, will not unlock the full potential of the technology in-
volved. In practice, creating such integrated solutions may well require overcoming
the fragmented nature of multilingual document production in many enterprises
(see the next chapter, “Localization Costing and Pricing”, for further discussion of
this topic).

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

28 The Localization Industry Primer

Localization Costing and Pricing

Many companies do Clear costing, pricing and cost/benefit figures are often difficult to obtain in the
not know what they localization industry. On the one hand, it is clear that localized products are a ma-
are spending on or jor source of income for international companies. For example, in fiscal  more
making from local- than  of Microsoft’s revenues came from markets outside of the United States,
ization. and its revenues from localized product exceeded  billion. On the other,  of
client respondents in a LISA survey stated that they did not know how much rev-
enue they were generating from localized products. Equally, many companies are
currently not equipped to produce accurate cost calculations for localized products,
and hence cannot effectively manage their localization spend.

In practice, there are a number of common issues that need to be addressed.

Calculating the ROI of localization

Localization can pro- Companies going global for the first time may only have a hazy idea of the size of
vide a “first mover” their target markets and the relative benefits and costs of localization. In practice,
advantage. providing a localized product version may well increase the potential ROI of a proj-
ect substantially, especially if the enterprise concerned can exploit a “first mover”
advantage. Conversely the cost of localization and of product maintenance and
update costs for the localized version have to be factored in (although these can
be minimized through careful global design). Companies should therefore analyze
their target markets in depth and take the advice of their local representatives and
specialist service providers on how localization (and/or the lack of it) will affect
their chances of success in both the short and the long term.

Making the localization process transparent

All too often, Unless localization work has been fully outsourced, the invoices submitted by
localization is an external suppliers will only be a proportion of total costs. However, internal
“invisible,” non-core costs—especially for coordination and project management—may not be recorded
process. at all, or not in sufficient detail. Furthermore, where some or all localization work
is performed in-house, the process generally cuts across different functions and de-
partments (e.g., design, development, product management, documentation, trans-
lation and marketing). Last but not least, some aspects of localization may be done
“on the side” by staff normally performing other tasks. For example, local sales and
marketing employees, technical writers and even secretaries may be responsible for
translation or translation management, while development engineers may handle
globalization and localization work. Only if these departments consistently and ac-
curately document their effort and expenditure by project, and if the resulting data
is subsequently aggregated, will accurate statistics be available.

Establishing actual revenue streams

Precise data is In the software industry in particular, different language versions (including the
required. English source) are often shipped on a single CD-ROM or DVD. This means that
while it may be possible to identify the number of units sold in a particular market,

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

The Localization Industry Primer 29

it is not necessarily clear which language version is being used. This further com-
plicates ROI calculations.

Managing localization for cost-effectiveness

Once the actual costs and potential and actual revenues for localization have Service providers
been established, enterprises are in a position to manage their localization costs should deliver on
effectively. This involves a basic decision as to the amount and types of work to be time-to-market,
performed in-house, as well as how (and how many) interfaces to suppliers are to product quality and
be handled. Generally speaking, companies outsource those types of work which cost.
are least related to their core businesses, and/or in which they have the least skills
in-house. At a more abstract level, time-to-market, product quality (which can help
cut subsequent support costs) and cost are the key client drivers for outsourcing.
Enterprises should therefore look for localization service providers who can deliver
on all three counts.

In addition, given the “bet the farm” nature of product localization, companies are Cost-effectiveness is
well advised to rank cost-effectiveness above the lowest absolute price. For example, the key benchmark.
slogans and advertising claims—the public face of a company or its products—re-
quire recreation in the target language rather than a literal rendition.

Companies that treat localization as a pure commodity, rather than recognizing

that it is a creative process, will get substandard results. Also, service providers of-
fering simultaneous shipment have to invest heavily in project management, tele-
communications and information technology, and this will naturally be reflected
in pricing. That having been said, the localization industry currently combines
sophisticated services with extremely competitive prices, giving clients a strong
vendor base worldwide from which to choose.

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

30 The Localization Industry Primer

Best Practices and Standards

Localization is a young and dynamic industry in which change is the only constant.
Companies that did not exist ten years ago are now providing mission-critical ser-
vices to some of the largest enterprises in the world. In growing, they have integrat-
ed hundreds of people from different cultures and a large variety of technologies,
many of them still under development. As with other young industries such as IT,
this rapid growth has only been possible due to a consistent focus on best practices
and standards. In particular, the areas examined below have played and are playing
a crucial role in the development of the localization industry.

Quality management
Quality standards Given the high volumes, fast turnaround times and vital importance of localized
ensure smooth products, sophisticated and consistent quality management procedures are a must.
operations and satis- Quality standards in use for different aspects of the localization process include the
factory results. LISA QA Model (which covers localization-specific issues), the ISO  series
and Total Quality Management (generic, process-based standards that can be tai-
lored to any industry and any processes within it), DIN  (a German translation
standard), and CMM (for software development). In practice, many LISA clients
and service providers use internal QA systems based on one or more of these stan-
dards. This has the advantage of producing highly customized quality assurance
procedures that can be rapidly revised when procedures change.

Translation data interchange

Translation data inter- As localization tools have developed and been implemented on a broad scale, so the
change standards need to interchange translation data, which often represents a sizeable economic
protect investments investment, has grown. Ideally, such interchange needs to be both between differ-
and facilitate the use ent systems (e.g., from Manufacturer A’s translation memory to Manufacturer B’s
of state-of-the-art translation memory) and between different system types (e.g., to reuse terminology
technology. from a terminology management system in a machine translation lexicon). This
task is not easy given the wide range of highly proprietary formats in use, but the
development of open standards has simplified the exchange of translation data and
information.

One such open standard is TMX (Translation Memory eXchange), produced by

LISA’s OSCAR (Open Standards for Container/Content Allowing Re-use) Special
Interest Group. TMX designates how segments of text are defined and aligned
within translation memories, thus allowing these segments to be ported to any
other system supporting the standard. OSCAR is also working on how terminology
can be exchanged between systems—a major productivity issue—in its Term Base
eXchange (TBX) project.

Open standards play a crucial role in building customer confidence and indus-
try support for organizations investigating cross-lingual applications. Stating his
opinion in a recent interview, Mr. Glenn H. Nordin, Assistant Director (Language),

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

The Localization Industry Primer 31

Department of Defense, said that “language technology tools purchased by the U.S.
government are expected to implement TMX and TBX among other open stan-
dards like Unicode”.

Consistent with the growth and importance of global knowledge management Open standards like
throughout many worldwide organizations, developers are increasingly aware that TMX and TBX provide
it is in their interests to build applications that will avoid the establishment of sys- the backbone for the
tems that stand alone and are kept alone. Mr. Nordin added: “Developers as a group future of localization.
need to help their customers understand and use the standards in writing speci-
fications. Standards from Unicode through to LISA’s TMX and TBX, will provide
the glue to build the virtual translation, translation management, and knowledge
warehouse of the future.”

In addition to TMX and TBX, OSCAR is currently working on standards that ad-
dress standard methods for counting words in files and defining how text is seg-
mented by translation tools. Both of these issues are of vital economic and technical
importance in the localization industry, and development of these standards will
increase the further increase the effectiveness of translation tools and workflows.

Business practices
As an emerging and fast-moving industry, localization needs to develop and dis- Best business
seminate best business practices rapidly. As the premier global industry associa- practices increase
tion, LISA has played a central role here. Its initiatives include a code of practice professionalism
for LISA members and a Common Bidding Platform designed to help standardize and avoid potential
client-partner expectations before implementing a localization project. By defin- conflicts.
ing a project’s deliverables in terms of its languages, engineering, technology and
documentation requirements, customers and their service partners are in a good
position to establish reasonable time, cost and quality parameters for any type of
localization project.

Education and further training

The localization sector is currently facing an acute shortage of qualified staff, with Education and
many companies forced to invest considerable sums in private training. LEIT (the training lay the foun-
LISA Education Initiative Taskforce) has been working since  to address this dations for success.
problem. The initial mandate of this group of leading academics and institutions
from the US, Europe and Asia was to evaluate the state of localization-related edu-
cation (international business, computer science, technical writing, and translator
training) and make recommendations for action. The ultimate aim is to produce a
commonly agreed core curriculum for localization and to facilitate its implemen-
tation at universities and other training institutions. Along the way, LEIT it is also
providing support to academics and publicizing career opportunities in the field in
order to attract additional high-caliber recruits.

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

32 The Localization Industry Primer

Future Trends and Challenges

The localization industry has come a long way in a very few years, and still bears
many of the hallmarks of an emerging industry. As economic globalization gathers
momentum, so will the demands facing clients, service providers, tools manufac-
tures and consultants. In particular the following issues have been and continue to
be critical challenges for companies engaged in globalization.

Technology and organizational processes

Enterprises must While a number of useful language technologies have emerged over the relatively
drive forward tech- recent past, tools in this area are by no means as sophisticated, universally applica-
nology and process ble, or robust as users require. This problem is especially acute given the extremely
integration, and new tight project turnaround times, a factor that is likely to get worse rather than bet-
tool development. ter in the future. At least two main issues need addressing here: integration and
further technological development. In the case of integration, tool manufacturers
need to provide or facilitate end-to-end document creation and localization pro-
cesses spanning individual technologies such as translation memory and machine
translation. At present, these are generally deployed as “island solutions” and are not
obtaining maximum benefit. For example, source texts that have not been written
or optimized for translation will not produce quality results with machine transla-
tion alone.

Process fragmenta- In many cases, however, integration involves surmounting substantial organizational
tion and cultural and cultural boundaries within client companies. For example, in many cases differ-
clashes must be ent links in the localization chain report to different units, and cultural differences
overcome. e.g., between engineers and technical writers are often found. In addition, many tools
providers find it difficult to provide the bandwidth needed to support projects that
can easily run into several person years. Above and beyond this, additional blue-skies
and applied research and development is required to increase the range and reliability
of existing technologies. Here, too, the substantial sums of money involved and the
small size of many tools providers act as a brake to progress. Client enterprises there-
fore must play at least a flanking role in driving progress.

Staffing and training issues

As has already been mentioned, the localization industry—like all IT-related sec-
tors—is currently suffering from a severe shortage of new employees. In addition,
graduates in relevant disciplines are by no means always trained in all the skills they
need. Remedying this by incorporating relevant modules into curricula for related
courses, e.g., for translator and software engineering training, must be a high prior-
ity. This requires ongoing liaison with and support for university staff, who must
develop such changes and have them approved by their relevant faculties. Ongoing
vocational education must also be provided, and clients in particular need to sup-
port training programs (up to now, service providers have been carrying a dispro-
portionately heavy part of the burden). Last but not least, governmental funding

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

The Localization Industry Primer 33

will have to play a role, especially in the area of basic skills provision and support
for blue-skies research.

Above and beyond this, enterprises must recruit and retain high-quality localiza-
tion staff by offering them attractive compensation packages and career develop-
ment paths. Localization must be seen as a profession with a future both by poten-
tial entrants and by the companies employing them. This perception has sometimes
been a problem in the past, with localization engineering being seen as inferior to
mainstream development work, and translation being performed by a wide range
of people, some of whom have been insufficiently skilled. LISA’s work to raise the
standing of the profession, and its LISA Education Initiative Taskforce (LEIT) are
two of the many activities that need to be continued and, subject to appropriate
funding, could result in globally valid certification programs.

Strategic importance and transparency

As has already been seen, one problem facing localization today is that the pro- Senior executives
cess is often invisible to senior executives, who are not aware of the sums they are and development
spending in this area, or of its strategic importance. Alternatively, they may have managers must
recognized the issue but regard localization as “just another linguistic process”, i.e., realize the strategic
a non-core, non-value added activity to be outsourced. This view breaks down in importance of local-
the face of the revenues generated from localization and the overriding importance ization.
of timely product delivery. These can only be achieved where the interface between
development and localization is well designed, and where communications flow
freely. That this is not the case becomes clear from the  of clients who find
that insufficient information is the main cause of delivery problems. Thus, think-
ing globally and acting locally means integrating localization activities fully into
operational processes.

Industry growth
As a young industry, the localization sector has only recently seen the emergence of The localization
large enterprises, and a large proportion of service and tool providers are still rela- industry must con-
tively small. The growing pains that such companies experiences are considerable, tinue to grow and
as they need to cope not just with a highly dynamic sector but also with a massive mature at all levels.
increase in demand on the part of their clients, some of whom are already large,
sophisticated organizations. At the same time, they need to implement professional
structures and workflows and grow (and retain) their management and specialist
staff. Last but not least, they have to ensure profitability, raise the funds required for
expansion, and subsequently keep any investors happy. LISA and other professional
organizations have a key role to play here as a forum for the development and dis-
semination of best practices, industry standards and information, as a facilitator of
contacts, and as a provider and promoter of training courses.

Standardization
An ever-growing number of file formats and technologies, as well as GILT tools,
has pushed standardization to the front as a vital issue in localization. Companies

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

34 The Localization Industry Primer

Standards allow involved in localization are increasingly finding that no single tool can meet all
flexibility and use of their needs, and are turning to open standards as a way to integrate various tools
the best tools and into their workflows. LISA’s open-standards committee, OSCAR, is the Special
products. Interest Group that created one of the first XML-based standards, Translation
Memory eXchange (TMX), to allow users of various Translation Memory systems
to share data, and OSCAR has been working on other areas in need of standardiza-
tion. Other relevant standards, such as Unicode, are not specific to localization, but
provide the backbone for localization tools and standards. Standards allow users
to be flexible and to choose the best tool for each job, rather than being tied to one
tool because information in that tool cannot be shared. Standards also allow tools
developers to focus on their core competencies, rather than trying to replicate ever
feature of every other tool in their own product. Although a lot remains to be ac-
complished in the area of standardization, bringing the benefits of standards to all
areas of localization is an area of considerable effort and importance to companies
involved in localization.

Managing content
Content manage- In the early days, the localization industry focused on localization of products or
ment eliminates services, but increasingly companies want to manage multilingual content, and see
redundancy and content, regardless of language, as a vital corporate asset. Companies also see man-
allows for repurpos- agement of content as a significant source of savings, as previously independent
ing of content (and redundant) authoring functions can be combined and streamlined. Various
tools have arisen to help keep multiple language versions of content in sync and
linked to their sources, as well as allowing for dynamic repurposing of content, and
localization is increasingly being folded into these systems, allowing the benefits of
the content management revolution to be extended to globalization.

Increased focus on value creation

Clients and service Up to now, localization has traditionally been regarded as a pure service. In par-
providers must ticular, service providers have regularly signed away their intellectual rights in their
recognize the value work, and have traditionally performed relatively simple, low value added tasks.
added to products This has led to characteristically low valuations for service provider companies on
by localization. the stock market, for example. At the heart of this practice is a fundamental un-
derestimation of the value added to products by localization. The rise of economic
globalization is changing this, as the proportion of revenues from localized product
increases.

In addition, the range and complexity of service provider offerings is growing,

and with it the relative equality of the two sides of industry. For example, as many
smaller companies go global, the role of service providers will be to provide full
globalization consulting, and not just operational services.

As a result, we are likely to see the development of new business partnerships in

future, in which clients and service providers share risks and rewards more evenly.
For example, vendors could provide localization services in return for a share in lo-

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

The Localization Industry Primer 35

cal market revenues, rather than a fee, or retain intellectual property rights or rights Service providers
of reuse in parts or all of their work. While they may prove initially uncomfortable will increasingly turn
for clients, such arrangements will also increase the incentive for service providers into consultants, and
and offer them and the industry as a whole a growth path. new business models
will emerge.
Living on the Web
As we have already seen, the Internet revolution and the rise of e-commerce will Localized Web sites
drastically change the way in which enterprises do business, and localization pro- need careful man-
fessionals are no exception here. Internet content needs translating at Internet agement.
speed and must often be released simultaneously in all languages, thus slashing
turnaround times. Web pages age quickly, increasing update frequencies and lead-
ing to “micro-releases”. One key benchmark of Web success is stickiness-the ability
to attract new and repeat visitors and keep them on a site. Popular methods of keep-
ing visitors “glued” to Web sites include in-depth company and product informa-
tion, loyalty programs, tips and tricks, help desks and support functionality, as well
as chat rooms and message boards. All of these have to be designed, implemented
and maintained, and the bigger the site, the bigger the potential headaches.

Thousands of small files may well require near-instant delivery, management

and—hopefully—reuse. Tight integration with the authoring process is necessary
here: something that is further reinforced by the need to achieve a balance between
global branding and local market attractiveness.

In addition, the speed and flexibility demanded by clients cannot be purchased Tomorrow’s industry
at the expense of quality. On the contrary, by exposing products, services and in- must deliver quality,
formation to large native-speaker audiences worldwide, the Web is increasing the flexibility and speed.
pressure on enterprises to provide high-quality material. Service providers who
cannot support their clients in this will feel the heat in future, especially since lan-
guage technology is starting to offer an alternative at the low end of the market. In
many cases, this need for quality will reinforce the current trend towards greater
specialization, since it is impossible for a service provider to offer the required level
of product in all subject areas and languages.

This trend towards subject area and functional specialization, coupled with the
need to respond flexibly to changing situations, will lead to an increase in partner
relationships among specialist organizations. Networks of alliances of varying de-
grees of formality will emerge, glued together by technology and advanced project
and workflow management. The cost implications of such a model are, of course,
considerable, and will lead to further changes in industry structures and service
provider profiles.

LISA in the new millennium

LISA serves as the nexus in which all aspects of business globalization can come
together and develop standards, best-practices, and new techniques for dealing
with the challenges faced by all in the GILT (Globalization, Internationalization,

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

36 The Localization Industry Primer

Localization and Translation) field. As the globalization and localization sector

grows, LISA’s role will be to continue voicing key issues and to expand the oppor-
tunities for all concerned to learn more about the requirements for success. To this
end, LISA will continue providing local events and information tailored to specific
geographic regions as well as serving as a virtual and physical global community
in which all sides of the industry to get together and focus on the issues. As in the
past, it aims to break down barriers, facilitate education both within and outside the
localization sector, and expanding and defining the market. In discharging this task,
it welcomes and seeks input from all relevant stakeholders and players.

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

The Localization Industry Primer 37

Further Information

This list provides a number of key resources for those interested in finding out
more about globalization and localization. It makes no claims to completeness, nor
does it assume any responsibility for the sources listed.

LISA information
The Localization Industry Standards Association’s Web site provides information The LISA Web site
on LISA events, members and activities, along with a selection of basic industry
data, partner offerings and member job postings. LISA Members also have access
to LISA’s extensive archives of industry data, Forum summaries, the LISA Newslet-
ter, etc. LISA General Assembly and Sponsorship members can register up to 
employees to access the password-protected areas of the site.

The Web site can be referenced at www.lisa.org

LISA publications
For a current listing of all LISA publications, including free publications, please LISA Publications
visit http://www.lisa.org/products/survey.html.

LISA Newsletter - Globalization Insider

The Globalization Insider is LISA’s twice-monthly publication that includes articles
written by recognized experts in globalization. The Globalization Insider is free, but
premium content is available to LISA members and newsletter subscribers only.

LISA QA Model Version 2.0

The only non-proprietary global quality standards for the localization profession,
the LISA QA Model has been widely implemented in the localization industry. The
LISA QA Model offers a standardized quality assurance model for product local-
ization that covers everything from documentation, help and software through to
packaging and CBT tutorials). Discussions of and checklists for language, format-
ting and functional criteria are provided, as are procedures and templates for sam-
pling and follow-up activities. Copies of the LISA QA Model, which was extensively
revised and updated, can be ordered from the LISA Web site.

Global Content Creation Survey (2002)

Published in late , the LISA Global Content Creation Survey examines trends
and statistics in authoring of global content based on the detailed survey of 
companies. With  pages and  figures, the Global Content Creation Survey is the
first and only survey to look comprehensively at content creation in a multilingual
environment.

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

38 The Localization Industry Primer

2002–2003 Asian Globalization Resources Survey

The first in a planned series of surveys to focus on the globalization business in
Asia, the – Asian Globalization Resources Survey focuses on the localiza-
tion market in the People’s Republic of China. The survey was conducted by an
experience team of interviewers in China, and was based on in-depth telephone in-
terviews with representatives of over  companies doing business in China, both
foreign and domestic. The primary research objective was to provide a compre-
hensive picture of the current and future globalization and localization initiatives
undertaken by China-based private and public companies (including a number of
the reformed state-owned enterprises). The report was also designed to review their
product and web-based localization efforts and spending patterns.

The US Technology Globalization Survey (2001)

The US Technology Globalization Survey () survey explains trends in the US
market for globalization and localization technology and services. By interviewing
over  key executives at High Technology companies regarding their globaliza-
tion plans, budgets, preferences, and forecasts, the Globalization Technology Sur-
vey USA is a comprehensive, in depth, end-user survey that covers major aspects of
the globalization market in the U.S.

Free publications
LISA also offers the following publications without charge:

• The  LISA Translation Memory Survey examines trends and statistics in
translation memory usage, as well as the impact of standards on TM usage.
• The  LISA • OASIS Global eBusiness Survey, conducted in partnership
with OASIS, explores trends in global eBusiness, and how these relate to the
use and uptake of standards in a multilingual global business context.
• LISA White Papers. LISA White papers address topics of importance to the
GILT community and are written by experts recognized as the top of their
fields.

Other information
Web • The Unicode consortium, which develops, extends and promotes the use of the
Unicode Standard for the representation of text in modern software products
and standards, provides information on its work at www.unicode.org
• The World Wide Web Consortium’s Internationalization page is available at
www.wc.org/International
• A listing of localization industry links is maintained at www.lisa.org/
standards/
• The LISA Educational Initiative Taskforce (LEIT) website provides a listing of
internationalization and localization training programs available world wide
at leit.lisa.org

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

The Localization Industry Primer 39

• OASIS is a not-for-profit global consortium that drives the development, con-

vergence and adoption of e-business standards (www.oasis-open.org)
• IDEAlliance (International Digital Enterprise Alliance) is a not-for-profit
membership organization. Its mission is to advance user-driven, cross-indus-
try solutions for all publishing and content-related processes by developing
standards, fostering business alliances, and identifying best practices. IDEAl-
liance has been a leader in information technology since  (founded as
Graphic Communications Association) having fostered the development and
adoption of standards such as GRACoL, ICE, JIFFI, Mail.dat, papiNet, PRISM,
PROSE XML, SPACE XML, SGML, and XML. (www.idealliance.org)

Globalization
• Bean, James: Engineering Global e-Commerce Sites. Elsevier Science. . Books, documents
• De Palma, Donald A: Business Without Borders. John Wiley & Sons. . and electronic files
• Friedman, Thomas L.: The Lexus and The Olive Tree. Farrar, Strauss & Giroux.
.
• Greider, William: One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capital-
ism. Simon & Schuster. .
• Rosen, Robert: Global Literacies: Lessons on Business Leadership and National
Cultures. Simon & Schuster. . (ISBN: )
• Waters, Malcolm: Globalization (nd edition). Routeledge. .

Localization and Internationalization

• Dyer, Alyssa: Software Product Management Essentials. Anclote Press. .
• Esselink, Bert: A Practical Guide to Localization. John Benjamins Publishing.
.
• Rätzmann, Manfred & Clifton De Young. Galileo Computing Software Test-
ing and Internationalization. (Available as a PDF exclusively through LISA at
www.lisa.org/interact//swtestregister.html)
• Savourel, Yves. XML Internationalization and Localization. Sams. .
• Sprung, Robert (ed.). Translating into Success: Cutting Edge Strategies for Going
Multilingual in a Global Age. John Benjamins Publishing. .
• O’Connell, Fergus: How to Run Successful Projects II. Prentice Hall. .
• Lunde, Ken: CJKV Information Processing, O’Reilly & Associates. .

A large list of links to GILT-related publications and sites is maintained on the

LEIT site at leit.lisa.org/bibliography.html.

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

40 The Localization Industry Primer

LISA and its Members

What is LISA?
Founded in  in Switzerland as a private, non-profit association, LISA is the
premier organization for the GILT (Globalization, Internationalization, Localiza-
tion, and Translation) business communities. Over  members from leading IT
manufacturers and solutions providers, along with industry professionals and an
increasing number of vertical market corporations with an international business
focus, have helped establish LISA best practice guidelines and language-technology
standards for enterprise globalization. The Association is managed by a full-time
Director and support staff and advised by an Executive Committee elected from
amongst its corporate members.

What are its goals?

LISA defines its mission as “promoting the localization and internationalization in-
dustry and providing a mechanism and services to enable companies to exchange
and share information on the development of processes, tools, technologies and busi-
ness models connected with localization, internationalization and related topics”. One
of the main vehicles for this are the LISA Forums, at which members can listen to ac-
knowledged industry experts and exchange news and views, thus ensuring that mul-
tilingual software, documentation and other products are manufactured worldwide
to the highest possible standards. In addition, LISA gathers, processes and distributes
a wide range of information on the industry and relevant issues.

What are LISA’s values and principles?

LISA seeks to promote the following values in the localization industry and among
its members:

• Global Responsibility. Companies doing business around the world have a

responsibility to respect the nations and cultures with which they do business.
Localization provides the means by which companies can enter multiple mar-
kets with sensitivity and respect.
• Global Entrepreneurship. Globalization allows for the spreading of prosper-
ity across national boundaries and the extension of benefits around the world.
By taking a leading role in global entrepreneurship, LISA’s members are in a
position to promote the benefits of globalization
• Global Leadership. LISA’s members represent companies taking a lead in
global business. LISA members understand the value of global business and
localization and are in a position to lead their partners and others into respon-
sible global business practices.
• Global Cooperation. LISA promotes cooperation on a global scale, with com-
panies and individuals coming together to work on areas of common interest.

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

The Localization Industry Primer 41

What services does LISA offer?

Services provided by LISA to its members include the following:

• Regular LISA Forums in different venues throughout the world

• Regular LISA Workshops offering hands-on skills training and in-depth dis-
cussion for translation tools, Machine Translation, multiple language work-
flow, and similar topics
• Strategic seminars geared to education decisions makers in the private and
public sectors, business consultants and the media about the importance of
globalization and localization
• Special Interest Groups (SIGs) for consultation and work on specific topics
like Tools Benchmarking, Web support for multiple languages, and localiza-
tion Quality Assurance
• Industry and member surveys, plus information from standards bodies and
other sources
• A constantly updated Web site of online resources and industry updates with
archive service for previous Forums, Presentations, Surveys, and special re-
ports
• The LISA Directory listing members and industry support groups with www
links

Who can join?

Any legal or natural person working directly or indirectly on the creation of mul-
tilingual software, documentation and/or multimedia products. Above and beyond
this, information services are available to non-members on a fee basis.

How do I get more information?

Further information on LISA services and membership application forms are avail-
able on LISA’s Web site (www.lisa.org), or from the LISA Secretariat:

 Route du Monastère -  Féchy, Switzerland.

Tel.: +   
Fax: +   
Email: lisa@lisa.org

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

42 The Localization Industry Primer

Glossary

bi-di
Abbreviation for “bi-directional”, a term used to describe scripts such as Arabic and Hebrew that gen-
erally run from right to left, except for numbers, which run from left to right.

bricks and mortar

An adjective used to describe a traditional, non-Internet-based company, as opposed to a “dot com”.

clicks and mortar

An adjective used to describe a company with a hybrid business design that incorporates aspects of
both traditional and “dot com” companies.

DBCS
Abbreviation for “double byte character sets”, a term used to describe Far Eastern scripts such as Japa-
nese and Chinese that require twice the space of English for each letter.

delta
() The time gap between the appearance of a product in its lead market and of localized versions.
This should be kept as small as possible to avoid revenue loss. () The portion of a file that changes
between two versions.

dot com
An adjective used to describe a company that has been designed from scratch to take advantage of the
Internet, as opposed to a “bricks and mortar” one.

e-business
The sale and purchase of goods and services via the Internet. In contrast to e-commerce, e-business is
used to describe business-to-business (bb) transactions.

e-commerce
The sale and purchase of goods and services via the Internet. In contrast to e-business, e-commerce is
used to describe business-to-consumer (bc) transactions.

enabling
A synonym for internationalization.

gisting
A term used to denote a) instant “for your information” machine translation and b) monolingual text
summarization.

globalization
() The general process of worldwide economic, political, technological and social integration; () The
process of making all the necessary technical, financial, managerial, personnel, marketing, and other
enterprise decisions necessary to facilitate localization.

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

The Localization Industry Primer 43

globalization management system (GMS)

A translation tool designed to facilitate localization of websites with constantly-changing content.

internationalization
The process of ensuring at a technical/design level that a product can be easily localized.

legacy application
An application that is already in existence and that needs to be incorporated into or ported to a new
environment.

LEIT
The LISA Education Initiative Taskforce, which is working to produce a commonly agreed core cur-
riculum for localization issues and to facilitate its implementation in whole or part at universities and
other training institutions.

localization
The process of modifying products or services to account for differences in distinct markets.

machine translation (MT)

A translation productivity tool that works by breaking down sentences or other text segments, ana-
lyzing them in context and then recreating their meaning in the target language. Machine translation
works best on large volumes of well-written texts from narrow subject areas.

MLV
An abbreviation for “multi-language vendor”, a term used to describe a relatively large localization
service provider offering a wide range of languages and other services.

OSCAR
A LISA Special Interest Group. OSCAR, which stands for “Open Standards for Container/Content
Allowing Re-use”, comprises a group of localization clients, service providers and academics. The
Group was responsible for LISA’s TMX (Translation Memory Exchange) standard released in .
OSCAR is currently working on a second standard, TBX, for term base exchange.

simship
An abbreviation for “simultaneous shipment”. This refers to the common practice in the localization
industry of releasing multiple language versions of a product together, on or around the date on which
the original is released. Simship is necessary because a substantial proportion of product revenue is
generated in the weeks following release, and customers stop buying localized version of previous
releases when the new original appears.

SLV
An abbreviation for “single language vendor”, a term used to describe a relatively small localization
service provider offering only one or a restricted number of languages.

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

44 The Localization Industry Primer

stickiness
A term used to describe the ability of Web sites to attract new and repeat visitors, used as a benchmark
of Internet success.

terminology
A database of specialist words for a subject area or areas used to facilitate management system high
quality human or computer-aided translation.

TMX
The international Translation Memory Exchange standard produced under the auspices of LISA.

translation memory (TM)

A translation productivity tool comprising a database containing segments of source and target lan-
guage texts that have been aligned to match each other. Translation memories are used to retrieve
previously translated material, e.g., when handling new versions of existing documents.

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

The Localization Industry Primer 45

LISA Forum and Summit Locations, 1990–2003

1990 1997
• Amsterdam (The Netherlands) • Geneva (Switzerland)
• Beijing (PR China)
1991 • Washington DC (USA)
• Luxembourg • Mainz (Germany)
• Copenhagen (Denmark)
• Windsor (England) 1998
• Madrid (Spain)
1992 • Tokyo (Japan)
• Amsterdam (The Netherlands) • Salt Lake City, Utah (USA)
• London (England)
• Brussels (Belgium) 1999
• Valbonne (France) • Budapest (Hungary)
• Monterey, California (USA)
1993 • Shanghai (PR China)
• The Hague (The Netherlands) • Boston (USA)
• Dublin (Ireland )
• Estoril (Portugal) 2000
• Amsterdam (The Netherlands)
1994 • San Jose, California (USA)
• Mountain View, California (USA) • Yokohama (Japan)
• Boston (USA) • Arlington, Virginia (USA)
• Heidelberg (Germany) • Washington D.C (USA)
• Runnymede (England)
2001
1995 • Vienna (Austria)
• Boston (USA) • Chicago (USA)
• Singapore • Singapore
• Vienna (Austria)
• Amsterdam (The Netherlands) 2002
• Heidelberg (Germany)
1996 • Washington DC (USA)
• Singapore
• Newport Beach, California (USA) 2003
• Dromoland (Ireland) • London (UK)
• Prague (Czech Republic) • San Francisco (USA)

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

46 The Localization Industry Primer

LISA members, past and present

LISA would like to thank the following companies that have contributed to the development of the localiza-
tion industry as LISA members since :

Australia China
Meta Language Engineering (Aust) ArtM Technology Co. Ltd
Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Beijing Beyondsoft Co., Ltd
Software Engineering Australia (SEA) Beijing InfoTech Media Co.
Boffin China Inc.
Belgium Inforlion Language Services
Dekryptos SA Linguitronics
Eurologos Shanghai Kingstar Media Co., Ltd.
Global Communication NV SJTU Sunway Software Co., Ltd
Hitext S.A. Transco Technology Co. Ltd
Jonckers Translation & Engineering Worksoft Creative Software Technology Inc.
Lernout & Hauspie
Mendez Inc. Czech Republic
Sony Information Technology Europe Hieronymus s.r.o.
Stoquart SA Moravia Translations a.s.
Telelingua International Skrivanek Translation Services
Unisys Corporation Virtus s.r.o.
write! SA
Ycomm Europe NV Denmark
Mapics Inc.
Brazil Navision a/s
Norsul Participacoes e Empreendimentos Ltda. The Danish Association of Business Languages
Graduates (EsF)
Canada
ACD Systems Ltd Egypt
Alis Technologies Inc. Arabize
Cognos Inc. Future Soft
College universitaize de Saint-Boniface
Corel Corporation Finland
Creo Inc. AAC Global Oy
Crystal Decisions Corp. Alpha Communications
DNA Media Services Inc. Nokia Corporation
iN Inc Nokia Networks
Lexi-Tech International Inc. PasaNet Oy
LionBridge Technologies Inc. Sonera Corporation
Nortel Networks Translation Services Noodi Oy
Ordiplan Inc.
Seagate Software Inc. France
Sobrio International ANTHEA Language
Walter Ego, Division of Alis Technologies Bootstrap

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

The Localization Industry Primer 47

GlobalWare International Corel Corporation Ltd.

Hewlett Packard France ETP Ireland Ltd.
LinguaNet PassWord FileNET Ireland
Systran IT Alliance Ltd
Techword ITP - International Translation & Publishing
WH&P LocalEyes Ltd.
Wonderware Solutions Netscape Communications Corporation/AOL
Oracle Corporation
Germany SLIG of Dublin
Capella & McGrath GmbH Sun Microsystems Ireland Ltd.
Compaq Computer EMEA B.V. Symantec Ltd.
Fry & Bonthrone Partnerschaft Transware plc
gwSaar VistaTEC Ltd.
IASPK / FASK Germerscheim
Locatech GmbH Israel
Logos Corporation Eyron Software Localization
Oskar New Media Consulting GmbH EYRON.NET
Philips Medical Systems Quality Translations
Primus SagirOnline
SAP AG
Software AG Italy
Text & Form Software-Lokalisierung GmbH CrossGap S.r.l.
Think’Z - Global Language Solutions Logos Group
Translate.IT SEPCOM
Transline International GmbH Wordwide
Transline Localization GmbH
XTRA Translation Services Japan
Archetypon S.A. Camui Corporation
Intertranslations Ltd. Fujitsu Learning Media Ltd.
ORCO S.A. Human Science Co. Ltd
Language Documentation Services Inc.
Hong Kong NEC Documentex Ltd.
Standard Chartered Bank Oneworld K.K.
SAS Institute Japan Ltd.
Hungary Sirius Inc.
Ablaksoft KFT SunFlare
Gamax TOIN Corporation

India Netherlands
GyanSoft Technologies Alpnet
Amtec Translations
Ireland Concorde Tec. B.V.
Alchemy Software Development Ltd. International Software Products B.V.
Clockworks International L&L Gebruikersinformatie B.V.
Connect Global Solutions Language Networks B.V.

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

48 The Localization Industry Primer

MTM - Multilingual Translations Management Sweden

Scriptware B.V. Interverbum Localization AB
Sykes Enterprises Inc. B.V.
Switzerland
Norway Andiamo - A Crucible Group Company
INK Norge AS Autodesk Development Sarl
CLS Corporate Language Services
Poland Logitech Europe SA
Argos Company Ltd. SMP Marketing Sarl
Lomac Group STAR Group
Magit The Fantastic Corporation R and D SA
Transpose SA
Russian Federation World Online Switzerland SA
Delos o.o.o.
Taiwan
Singapore digiAsia, Inc.
AsiaRain Automated Translations Pte Ltd. International Integrated Systems Inc.
e-Localization Network Mirrors International, Inc
EWGate Pte. Ltd. PTSGI/ATS.com
HS Cross-Lingual TargeTek Co., Ltd.
KRDL - Kent Ridge Digital Labs
Star+Globe Technologies Pte Ltd Thailand
The th Network Corporation QTranslation Limited

South Korea Turkey

YBM/Si-sa ASK Translation & Training A.S.
GlobalWay Co. Ltd. ES Bilgisayar Ltd.
ISIS Korea Inc. Locasis
JTS Korea Inc. Pan Localization Services Ltd. Co.

Spain United Arab Emirates

Bowne Global Solutions Lingua Franca
Celer Pawlowsky
Comunicacion Multilingue, S.L. United Kingdom
EQUUS Traducciones S.L. Aspect Communications UK Limited
Hermes Traducciones y Servicios Linguisticos Babel Media Ltd.
Logoscript - Translations & Software Canon Systems Management Europe Ltd.
Localization Communicare UK Limited
Management System Solutions Hasbro Interactive
Nova Traductors i Interprets, s.l. ITR - International Translation Resources Ltd
RM-Soft Translation&Publishing Language Technology Centre Ltd.
Ros Multimedia SL Lloyd International Translations
Syntax Traducciones Tecnicas Y De Software McQueen Ltd
Viso Translations PC DOCS Inc.
QIN Limited

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

The Localization Industry Primer 49

Santa Cruz Operations Ltd. empolis NA, Inc.

SDL International Ltd. EnCompass Globalization
SEED Foundation FileMaker International Ltd.
Systems Union Group General Electric Information Services Inc.
Tetra Plc. Global Languages and Cultures, Inc.
Wordbank Ltd Globalization Partners International
Xerox Ltd. GlobalSight Corporation
GoTo.com
USA Hewlett Packard
Com Corporation Hewlett Packard Company
AZ Global Language Network Hyperion Solutions
Able International Inc. i Technologies
Acclaro IBM Corporation
Adams Globalization Idiom Technologies
Adobe Systems Inc. iLanguage, Inc.
Allaire Corporation International Communications
Alltel International Language Engineering
Amerolink, Inc. International Technoprint, Inc.
Apropos Technology InterPro Global Partners
ArchiText Inc. ISOGEN International (division of Innodata
Asialize, Inc. Corporation)
ATA (American Translators Assoc.) iSynergi
Attachmate Corporation Iverson Language Associates Inc.
Avaya Inc. J. D. Edwards World Source Company
Avid Technology Inc. James Madison University - Center of
Bentley Systems Inc. Translation and Interpretation
Berlitz GlobalNET JLS Language Corporation
BMC Software Inc. Johnston & Associates Inc.
BrassRing Systems Jubilee Tech International Inc.
BYU - Brigham Young University Kent State University Institute for Applied
California State University, Fresno Linguistics
CIJ America Inc. Kronos Inc.
Cisco Systems Inc. Language Partners International Inc.
Common Sense Advisory Language Technology Research Center
Convey Software Language Works, Inc.
Dell Computer Corporation Lawson Software
Detroit Translation Bureau Lemoine International
DeVries Data Systems Inc. LexFusion
Disney Interactive Lighthouse Solutions Inc.
Documentum Inc. Lingo Systems
eBay Inc. Logisoft
eBusiness Technologies of Inso Logrus International Corporation
Echo International LucasArts Entertainment Co. LLC
EDS PLM Solutions Lucent Technologies - CTIP
EMC Corporation Macromedia, Inc.

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

50 The Localization Industry Primer

MapInfo Corporation Semantix

Maxwell Thomas Siebel Systems, Inc
Medtronic Inc. Silicon Graphics Inc.
Micron Technology Inc. SimulTrans L.L.C.
Microsoft Corporation SinoMetrics International Inc.
Motorola Inc. State Farm Insurance Companies
Multilingual Translations Inc. Sun Microsystems Inc.
Neilsoft Sybase Inc.
Nissho Electronics Corporation Syntes Language Group Inc.
Nitorum Corporation The World Bank
Novell Inc. The Write Stuff
OASIS TheOne.com
OneRealm Inc. Trados Corporation
Openwave Systems Inc. Translations.com
Palm, Inc. Uniscape Inc.
pcOrder.com UniSite Software
PeopleSoft Inc. Vastera
Peregrine Systems, Inc. Venturi Technology Partners
Pervasive Software Inc. Vignette Corporation
Praetorius Language Services Wayne State University
ProZ.com Welocalize
Real Idea Wholetree.com
Rockwell Automation Word Magic
Roxio Inc. WordStream Inc.
Rubric Inc. WordWalla Inc.
RWS Group Worldlingo.com
Sagent Technology Inc. WorldLink Technologies
Sandhills Software WorldPoint Interactive Inc.
Sapient Corporation Xplanation International NV
Satellite Station Inc. YAR Communications Inc.
SDRC Corporation

©2003 LISA. All rights reserved.

 Published by SMP Marketing and the LISA - April 2003 - ISSN: 1420 - 3693
The Localization Industry Primer, second edition was revised by

Arle Lommel
Publications Manager
LISA

The Localization Industry Standards Association

7 Route du Monastère • CH-1173 Féchy • Switzerland
Tel: +41 (21) 832 32 10 • Fax: +41 (21) 821 32 19 • lisa@lisa.org