Taking your Business Global… Online

Many of today’s entrepreneurs and businesses are finding that reaching beyond their home markets can yield ample rewards. If your home market is local or domestic and you are considering expanding your product or service cialis c10 offerings internationally, there is no cheaper way to do it than using the Web to reach customers around the globe. We have seen online globalization localization efforts come and go and we here are some of the issues that make or break such efforts.

Leadership – Globalization efforts need to be spearheaded by one champion that will oversee the effort. By centralizing authority these efforts can optimize resources (such as website localization), establish a coherent and comprehensive globalization vision, and coordinate the execution. This is true for small as well as larger businesses. Make sure that this position is filled by a person who understands internet marketing strategies, has the authority to harness company resources, the ability to set goals and expectations and who is a good team leader that makes things happen.

In a larger organization this position should be filled by a senior executive who is open minded and is sensitive to cultural differences.

Organization – Success in a global marketplace is not as simple as following a single formula. It is particularly important to consider that global businesses need to be flexible if they want to be successful. What works in one country might not work in another. One of the first questions to arise is if your global online effort will be centralized or decentralized. Both have advantages and disadvantages.

Centralizing teams and resources saves time and effort and it is easier to coordinate, but there is the risk of not being responsive to local markets. By decentralizing your globalization teams you Levitra Professional will get closer to your customers and suppliers but might end up with a less efficient operation. By pursuing a hybrid strategy organizations can take advantage of both approaches.

Speak the language – It is hard enough to control your message in your local language let alone doing so in multiple languages at the same time. In website localization, content management becomes a challenge since your message necessarily needs to be localized to local preferences. English speakers sometimes believe that almost everyone understands English. This can be an expensive belief if your lose business opportunities because Brand Viagra you don’t speak the language of your target market. Consider, today China has the largest number of internet users in the world. If you are trying to reach them, wouldn’t it make sense to do it in Chinese?

Cultural differences – Interpreting messages from other cultures is another important consideration. It is not uncommon for business people to be oblivious to these differences but they do so at their own peril. A systematic approach to control your message and manage multilingual information becomes a strategic part of any global online presence.

Some entrepreneurs and executives either don’t take into account cultural and linguistic differences or relay on the wrong resources for input. But this can backfire. In one case we saw an executive accept a local staff recommendation that a particular software interface did not need to be translated. As it turns out end-users never used this interface because most did not speak English.

Proper considerations to these points support your business goals. It always pays when you listen to your clients, even when they are speaking to you in other languages. These challenges represent an opportunity for the seasoned executive and will be the basis for achieving business goals and beating the competition.

Author Bio: Richard Allenby is the partner in Languagetran, a company that offers website localization services for corporations and institutions. For Houston translation services, please visit LanguageTran’s site.

Category: Internet/Web Development
Keywords: website localization, houston translation services

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