This article is part of our Translation Services Guide – check it out to get a comprehensive understanding of these services!
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Businesses gearing up for global operations should think of the multilingual and multicultural consumers they are going to target and should include investing in translation services as a they formulate their global business strategies.
When a business gets bigger its processes become more complex. Company executives have more work to do, as they will be supervising a larger and more diverse workforce whose number depends on how many offshore operations they want to have. Aside from the workforce, they have to manage the enterprise in different departments, languages and time zones.
A multinational company that operates in different locations is interconnected, which means that interdependency exists within their system, wherein proper understanding is vital.
When You Go Global
Going global means that company executives are treading on an uncertain yet exciting environment that demands their focus to navigate it deftly. They should be able to positively react to an ever-changing world and adapt their businesses to meet the market demands with confidence.
To attain success top-down governance is needed especially for the management of global supply chain organizations. This leaves no room for ambiguity, eliminating risks, inability to be effective and loss of control.
Better business strategy – Investing in translation services
In today’s business environment, the huge role that translation services play in boosting the growth of international business cannot be denied. Major corporations are recognizing that they need to invest in translation in order to secure the future of their business as they deal with foreign markets. Many forward thinking company executives build long-term relationships with translation companies as part of their global business strategy.
The first thing to do is to define your business strategy before you integrate translation into the equation. Your company should define your specific functional, operational, sales and marketing goals for the international market. Later, you have to define the specific role translation will take in order to reach those objectives.
The best place to start is with your company’s marketing materials and website content. Meeting your content strategy requires extensive research to determine target demographics and their behaviors and preferences.
Determine which parts of your website would be accessed by consumers often, so you can prioritize the parts that should be translated immediately. Localization takes time, so some of your content could be translated later.
Keep track of the progress of your translation strategy. You should monitor the effectiveness of each part of your website. Track local user behavior to determine the effectiveness of the types of content such as service, product and landing pages, and the languages so you can pinpoint what works and what should be adjusted or tweaked.
Building strategic relationships with suppliers
Many enterprises today form strategic partnerships with their suppliers. After the 2008 financial crash, many business leaders reviewed their business processes and concluded that they have to improve their procurement methods. For many years, procurement was only an additional service of many companies. Somehow the procurement departments have minimal control over sourcing of materials and working with international suppliers.
But today, many business executives realize the value of using procurement to ease the business into vital dialogues about optimizing the supply chain to provide the best results.
Likewise, they are looking into cultivating a long-term and more focused relationship with language service providers (LSPs). They are more confident in dealing with foreign partners and suppliers knowing that they are backed by a reliable document translation services partner to handle the communication barriers.
Expressing your unique voice in the international arena
Every business has its own voice that identifies who and what they are. It’s about making your name known to other markets. Making target countries and consumers understand about you is very difficult and it requires the support of a third party to ensure that you can articulate who you are globally.
Moreover, with the organization getting more complex and the increasing diversity of the workforce, it is no longer wise to be reactive about translation. The need to have consistent translation across different departments is now established. When you collaborate long-term with an LSP, you are assured that the tone, style and meaning of all materials are optimized for the individual target audience.
Choosing an LSP that is experienced in working with multinational businesses benefits the company as well by availing of the guidance the LSP can provide on brand compliance for the international market.
Although companies may be knowledgeable with international regulations and laws, and what the particular target markets specifically need, translating that knowledge is not the realm of the organization. The LSP’s role is to translate them into different languages that fit specific audiences and ensure that your company and brand are globally compliant.
Achieving real internationalization
Taking your business to the global arena means that you also have to think globally. You have to deliver to a more diverse audience and you have to consider all the cultural and legal nuances of the new business environments. This means that you have to run the organization more skillfully and utilize providers with higher skill levels.
You’ll be able to access the expertise of your translation partner which will be mutually beneficial. When you establish a long-term relationship with an LSP, you’ll build genuine rapport, trust and reliance.
In today’s business, translation services is absolutely necessary. It is an investment and an asset. It is likewise an enabler. Translation allows an organization to successfully attract and hold the attention of different target audiences.
Achieving consistency in your brand’s voice
Investing in a translation partner assures you that the tone of voice of your brand remains consistent. It is a major support for e-commerce.
A company website is an important marketing tool for global companies, because you are able to use various opportunities to increase your sales profits and revenues.
The tone of voice of your brand will be consistent in every market you enter. Translation is your key to maintain your brand integrity and identity even if you speak to your consumers in various languages.
Importance of brand tone of voice
Keeping your brand tone of voice helps to highlight your company’s unique character and identity. It makes your consumers easily identify and remember your brand. It helps build a rewarding relationship with your customers.
Investing in translation and engaging the services of an LSP on a permanent basis is vital to a global company or a company that is thinking of going global.
Your tone of voice should be felt in everything that is publicly accessible. It should be included in your product information and your newsletters, blogs and website content. You have to ensure that the consumers can identify that all informative materials all came from you.
The way you use the language is a means to communicate a brand’s unique character. You can either use it informally or formally. You can use language evocatively and creatively or employ colloquialisms, depending on your brand’s character and your target audience. The translator can help determine the needs of the consumers and ensure that your content uses the language accordingly.
Each business has different methods of branding and marketing based on the product’s nature and the characteristics of the target market. What is important is that a company should be consistent and clear in how they communicate with their customers.
Achieving consistency
Ensuring the international growth of your business means that you should find your brand’s tone of voice and maintaining it, and using it to engage your audience. This helps your company to create the right messages for all your target markets.
With the help of your translation services partner, you’ll be able to find solutions to penetrate the international market. One solution is transcreation of your advertising and marketing content. Transcreation sees to it that even if your messages are in different languages, they will still maintain your established tone of voice. The service is more than just translation. Subject matter experts with great writing skills are needed to do transcreation. They should have an inherent understanding of the local culture, language and the target audience.
Another solution is localization, which is a specialized form of translation. It ensures that your campaigns and content retain that impact you want to create in the target markets. Localization turns all your written content to reflect the quirks of the local language and the cultural nuances of the specific target locations.
Get it right the first time
Investing in translation services is not cheap and it takes time to accomplish the desired results. For companies going global, it is vital to think of localization during the planning stage. This means that you should hire translators to help you plan, as it will ensure that you can use their knowledge of the marketplace and their experience with other multinational clients in your preparation to enter foreign markets. Likewise, it prevents you from having costly mistakes.
Be fully committed to the future of your multinational business by partnering with us. Day Translations, Inc. is likewise committed to deliver only the most accurate business translation every time. We have several years of experience collaborating with major multinational companies. All our human translators are native speakers and subject matter experts. For your business and financial translations, give us call at 1-800-969-6853 or send us an email at Contact us. We are open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to serve your translation needs in any time zone and location.