ebook FIVE TIPS TO CUT TRANSLATION COSTS BY 25 PERCENT OR MORE PAGE 1 library

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1 ebook library PAGE 1 FIVE TIPS TO CUT TRANSLATION COSTS BY 25 PERCENT OR MORE

2 Create, translate, localize and publish better quality content more productively Given the current economy, companies large and small are looking for all possible means to reduce costs and maximize revenues. One area where costs can always be saved is in the creation, management and delivery of content in the form of user guides, online help, product labeling, training materials and marketing collateral. All too often, the production of these materials is laden with a significant duplication of effort, high administrative costs and a lack of quality control tools that can be applied uniformly across all projects. Companies in the international arena face an even larger challenge. Maintaining efficient control over the writing, editing and publishing activities for a single user manual in the source language may be fairly manageable, but when the process is multiplied across dozens of deliverables and multiple languages, it becomes time-consuming, expensive and risk-exposed. This is especially true if such documents are not created and managed within a centralized content management environment. Technical publications, regulatory, training and marketing professionals have long recognized the benefits that can be gained by deploying a centralized Content Management System (CMS). But many organizations have not been able to justify the high cost and long implementation cycles required to purchase and implement an in-house CMS. NEW TECHNOLOGIES, NEW OPTIONS Over the last few years, a number of new CMS providers have entered the market, offering users a range of off-the-shelf and customized solutions, from full on-site installations to Webbased systems. But do these new systems truly deliver greater efficiencies and reduce costs? Do they incorporate multilingual content management into their overall design? Which solutions have been architected using the latest technologies, with future use in mind? What should buyers look for in terms of must-have functionality? PAGE 2

3 The following tips can help you streamline multilingual content management into a cost-cutting, single-source solution for document creation, translation and localization. REALIGNING TRANSLATION PRACTICES TO ADDRESS TODAY S COMPETITIVE ENVIRONMENT Advances in design-to-manufacture technology have accelerated a product s time to market, leading to a shorter product development cycle. At the same time, companies are also seeking ways to expedite the creation of content needed for the sale, distribution, and safe and successful use of these products. The teams responsible for this content technical publications, regulatory, training and marketing have been faced with the dilemma of how to efficiently manage the ever-increasing volume of work involved without increasing costs, but still maintaining quality. in-house. But the limitations of traditional systems and high implementation costs have prevented it from happening. Another area of opportunity lies in eliminating redundant processes for content development. For example, materials such as product sheets or user manuals are typically developed using an off-the-shelf or proprietary publications tool, while on-line help systems are created using another. Traditionally, companies must dedicate resources to the time-consuming and costly process of duplicating and reformatting of content for each environment. However, with the emergence of new technologies and Webbased content management solutions, challenges such as these can now be easily and cost-effectively solved. Companies are in a much better position to reduce translation costs and gain dramatic efficiencies in document creation, management and delivery. Numerous cost-saving opportunities have been identified, but until recently, have remained just that opportunities. For example, in addition to translation services, many companies have traditionally relied on their language service provider (LSP) to format the translated documents. According to industry experts, outsourcing these processes increases the translations budget by a minimum of 25 percent. Managers have long recognized numerous financial and operational benefits of bringing formatting and composition PAGE 3

4 FIVE KEY CRITERIA FOR TODAY S SOLUTIONS The key to success lies in partnering with a Language Service Provider (LSP) that not only provides quality translations and localization services but offers a hosted CMS solution that has been optimized for multilingual content management. Buyers should give careful consideration to the following five criteria: 1. Does the solution enable you to integrate authoring, content management, translation and rendering? 2. Does it conform to the development, convergence and adoption of open standards for the global information society? 3. Can the CMS solution be up and running in a matter of weeks with a minimum of customizations? 4. What upfront investment is required? What is the return on investment (ROI)? 5. Does the new solution drive down costs and increase employee productivity? Are these benefits quantifiable? 1. Integrate authoring, content management, translation and rendering (output). The term content management is one of the most ambiguous terms in the industry. There are many different types of systems out there that purport to do content management, but are designed for completely different purposes. Before you can select a CMS, you must first ask, What business problem are we trying to solve? Do you want a system to enable the dynamic update of your corporate Web site? Are you looking to manage your corporate digital assets and marketing/brand information? Do you want to streamline your editorial, translation and localization process? Determine your business problem and then look for solutions that are specifically designed to solve that problem. For example, a Web CMS or Digital Asset Management system will not be well-suited to manage an editorial/localization/translation workflow. The gold standard for multilingual publishing is a system that: Includes a strong authoring tool for technical writers. Has a robust and XML-based content management engine to manage multiple and continuous content revision. Integrates with an LSP s production and workflow system. Allows for output in whatever format you desire, such as PDF, HTML and online help. Is offered on a subscription basis (pay-as-you-go), eliminating the need for upfront capital expenditures. A corollary to this rule: if possible, don t just implement a solution because it is the corporate-approved standard for content management. You may end up spending more time and money trying to force-fit a system to go beyond the limits of what it is designed for. PAGE 4

5 2. Always look for a solution that conforms to international standards. The biggest danger with many traditional software applications is that they are based on a closed, proprietary architecture. If this is the case with the software you are depending on and it becomes obsolete, you face a potential nightmare as you attempt to migrate your proprietary content format to a new system. Whenever possible, a CMS solution should conform to international standards approved by well-regarded industry groups such as the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). This will reduce your reliance on specific tools, making your content the most important thing. As a side benefit, this will also prevent supplier lock-in. If you decide to switch tools at a later date, the migration of your content will be much easier (as long as the new system also conforms to international standards). In the world of publishing and technical documentations/ training/help, Extensible Markup Language (XML) and the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) have become the gold standard for creating and managing content. The benefits of having your content in XML are numerous and include: Separation of content structure from the content format. Ability to add metadata to increase content intelligence (e.g., better search results). Support for all target languages including bi-directional. Reuse and repurpose content at the component level. Facilitation of true single-source publishing to multiple output formats. 3. Keep software customizations to a minimum. A typical CMS implementation involves the integration of several types of tools, including authoring, database, workflow, translation, localization and publishing applications. It is rare to find all of these features in one product, therefore some level of custom integration and development is often required to fully meet a client s requirements. To make matters even more complicated, many companies believe that their process is highly unique and that a complete CMS implementation must support every aspect of their environment. This is a misguided outlook that can lead to problems and unnecessary costly mistakes: Integration and customization can be extremely expensive and take many months (or even years) to fully implement. Heavily customized environments are difficult to support. An upgrade to one product may impact other products in the mix. Similarly, a change to one product s application programming interface (API) could affect some of the custom integration code that is necessary to make your environment work seamlessly. PAGE 5

6 An upgrade to the standard you are using, such as DITA, may require you to upgrade all of your tools. If your system has been heavily customized, the upgrade process can be highly complicated and not altogether successful. You are usually responsible for managing this upgrade effort. Due to the expense and complexity of the modifications made in a customized environment, it s possible that you will be required to maintain the integrated system well beyond its useful (and even usable) life expectancy. Consider a hosted, full-featured pay-as-you-go subscription model as an alternative to software procurement. In the hosted CMS solution the software application sits in a centralized, secure data center and is served up to end users completely via a Web browser. All you need is access to a Web browser and Internet connection. 5. Drive down costs and increase employee productivity with hosted XML content management. Technical publications, regulatory, training and marketing professionals have recognized real cost reduction and elimination of duplicate efforts from hosted XML content management environments. Examples include: Storing chunks of reusable content (e.g., a topic, a task, a concept or a warning ) that can be shared by multiple documents eliminates the inefficiency of copying and pasting content. 4. Look for the quickest ROI. Suggestions for achieving the most rapid return on a CMS investment: Start with a production-quality pilot project. This approach allows you to quickly demonstrate the benefits of the new system, work out any kinks and begin realizing the cost and time savings. Choose a solution that can be quickly deployed, so that a CMS is in place within weeks instead of months. Consistency of information across multiple deliverables is realized. You can change a component of shared content in one place and everything that points to it will be automatically updated and accurate. Reuse of components and entire sections of documents, as well as any corresponding translations. Metrics indicate that many customers reuse percent of content. Automatic link validation reduces time and effort in the quality assurance (QA) process no more manual checking! PAGE 6

7 Version control reduces time spent moving files between locations, and helps eliminate the possibility of multiple people making updates to the same content at the same time and no more searching for files! Single-source publishing allows you to update content once and automatically publish to all required output formats such as PDF, HTML and online help. Formatting is eliminated no more time troubleshooting files, authors can instead spend time increasing the richness and usability of content. Dramatic reduction of translation and localization costs due to content reuse and elimination of desktop publishing costs savings for clients ranges from percent! SUMMARY If you are considering an investment in a CMS and you also have translation and localization needs, look to an LSP who can provide you with one comprehensive, hosted solution. Most importantly, make sure that solution will drive down your costs by at least 25 percent, increase employee productivity and provide you with a quick ROI. In addition, make sure that solution does not rely on closed-proprietary architecture that could lock you in with a supplier. In the end, the best CMS solution is the one that is right for a particular organization s needs, both today and tomorrow. Shortened time to market. PAGE 7