The New Year is here, and it has everyone thinking about fresh starts and new beginnings. We all want this year to be bigger and better than the last, so many of us make resolutions to do just that.
While we can’t speak to your declaration to exercise more, we can help you set – and achieve – your localization goals. All you need is solid data to point you in the right direction.
Translation program metrics can give you necessary insight for making better-informed business decisions. Without them, planning this year’s global initiatives can be as random and hectic as finding your way through crowded streets on New Year’s Eve.
Let’s go over what kind of information you should gather about your translation program to make this year your most successful yet.
Do you need to translate more content with the same size budget? How about add another language to your localization repertoire? Cost savings reports can clue you in on whether you’ll have the available budget to achieve these – or other translation program requirements – in the coming year.
Gather information on how much you translated, spent and most importantly saved over the past year. This can help you figure out how to allocate funds for next year’s translation initiatives.
This type of information can also show you how well your translation memory technology works to save your organization money. For instance, maybe you spent a little more on translations in 2021 compared to previous years, but translated considerably more content thanks to translation memory. The savings may mean accomplishing your goal to translate that stack of technical manuals you put off last year, because the data says you won’t have to drastically increase your budget to tackle more. That is a reason to celebrate 2022 even more, so pop another bottle of champagne and cheers!
If your translation memory reuse rate isn’t what you believe it could be, you might resolve to improve this for more cost savings. There are actions you can take to maximize the effectiveness of your translation memory technology. If you have done everything you can to optimize translation memory and think it’s your vendor’s technology inhibiting you from reaching your cost savings goals, evaluate your options. These technologies are not all created equal. For example, Acolad’s translation memory software is superior in its ability to find additional accurate content matches. Therefore, able to produce a higher number of those matches because it offers a contextual-level approach that looks at each segment.
So, you want to increase global sales. We all do, right? Great! However, without insight into how much you spend and earn from all your initiatives, your expectations could fall flat if you make the wrong move.
Don’t let this happen to you. Review information on how many languages you translated into in the past year, how much you spent on each language and how many projects your organization translated for each language. You can use this data to plan or revise your global strategy so it leads to success (and more champagne flutes filled with bubbly).
Compare this information to revenue generated in each locale. This can help you plan accordingly for next year. For example, if your spend on Latin American languages produces a high return on investment, you could make a resolution to translate more content for these markets to further amplify your success.
A peek into your translation process can shed light on any inconsistencies or issues affecting your translation quality and turnaround. Review segment change analysis reports to see the amount of changes made to your translated content during the translate-edit-proof process, where they were made in the process and why. This business intelligence can potentially give insight on where you can improve the translation process in the upcoming year.
Are your internal reviewers wasting valuable time making the same changes over and over? This report can help you find the underlying cause of why these changes are being made. If alterations are based purely on preference, your resolution could be training your reviewers on your translation standards.
Maybe you’ll find linguists sometimes miss the mark with your translation preferences. If you want your translations to shine, use this opportunity to create style guides and glossaries. These tools make your style and word choices perfectly clear to both linguists and reviewers, and lead to more consistency in your translations. Less changes on both ends also means getting your translations out the door faster.
Everyone wants to get more content to market faster. Like a race against the clock on New Year’s Eve, it’s crucial for outpacing your competitors. However, can you realistically speed up your translation program this year? A look at a cycle time report can indicate whether this is possible.
Look at how much time spent at every step in the translation process. Is something holding up the process? If so, why? This report can get you talking about any concerns you may have regarding your project turnaround times so you can anticipate any hiccups early on.
For example, if you know you want to launch a major marketing campaign for a new product this year with tight deadlines, you can have a conversation with your project management team. Together, you can come up with solutions for decreasing turnaround times to ensure your plans are not only achievable but also successful.
If you need help getting the business metrics you need for making and keeping localization resolutions, talk to your program management team. Like an accountability partner, our team is here to make sure you’re on the right track to achieving your translation program goals this year, and the years ahead!
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