Lessons in Global Content Management

Transcription

1 Lessons in Global Content Management Business Drivers, Case Studies, and Best Practices By Donald A. DePalma and Benjamin Sargent

2 Lessons in Global Content Management By Donald A. DePalma and Benjamin Sargent ISBN: ISBN: Copyright 2006 by Common Sense Advisory, Inc., Lowell, Massachusetts, United States of America. Published by: Common Sense Advisory, Inc. 100 Merrimack Street Suite 301 Lowell, MA USA No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the Publisher. Permission requests should be addressed to the Permissions Department, Common Sense Advisory, Inc., Suite 301, 100 Merrimack Street, Lowell, MA , , info@commonsenseadvisory.com. See for usage guidelines. Trademarks: Common Sense Advisory, Global Watchtower, Global DataSet, DataPoint, Globa Vista, Quick Take, and Technical Take are trademarks of Common Sense Advisory, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Information is based on the best available resources at the time of analysis. Opinions reflect the best judgment of Common Sense Advisory s analysts at the time, and are subject to change.

3 Lessons in Global Content Management i Table of Contents User s Guide to Global Content Management... 1 Methodology and Structure for This Report... 1 Who Should Read This Report?... 2 A Note on This Report... 3 Strategy: Support Corporate Globalization Initiatives... 4 Scale: Extend Capabilities to All Regions... 5 Speed: Accelerate Content Velocity... 5 Brand: Enhance Global Branding and Improve Consistency... 5 Efficiency: Streamline Operations... 6 Money: Generate More Revenue... 6 A Note on the Geographic and Market Distribution of Our Sample... 7 Achieving Brand Consistency and Increasing Brand Velocity... 8 Lowering the Cost of Content Administration Managing Large Volumes of Information on a Global Basis Administering a High-Volume e-commerce Site Manually Understanding that Software Is No Substitute for Process Extending CMS to Other Applications in a Global Business Finding Content Management Skills in All the Right Places Overcoming Objection That Localization Is Too Tedious Increasing Revenue from Global Opportunities Taking a Small Enterprise Global Global Content Management Requires More Discipline Piecing Together the Organizational Puzzle for Global CMS Organization: Establish Authority for Global Content Initiatives Organization: Get Support for Adequate Budgets, Then Add 20 Percent Organization: Pick and Train Internal Staff Organization: Require Outsourcers to Prove Competence Determine Whether Current Content Processes Will Suffice Select Technology that Can Scale to Global Proportions Technology: Shopping List for the Technology Inside Your Global CMS Technology: What Contributors to Content Life Cycle Need Technology: Supporting Administrative and Developer Demands Measurement: Knowing Whether You Succeeded About Common Sense Advisory Future Research Figures Figure 1: Vectors of Change in Support of Global Content Management Figure 2: Competing Tendencies of Efficiency vs. Autonomy Copyright 2006 by Common Sense Advisory, Inc.

4 ii Lessons in Global Content Management Tables Table 1: Organizational Task List for Global Content Management Initiative Table 2: Technology Requirements for Global Content Management Table 3: Measuring the Success of Global Content Management Copyright 2006 by Common Sense Advisory, Inc.

5 Lessons in Global Content Management 1 Topic User s Guide to Global Content Management This report is about improving the way that companies manage content for international and domestic ethnic markets. Targeting international markets is a natural step in the evolution of every medium and large enterprise that we speak with. Many firms start by offshoring part of their supply chain. Others recognize the value of increasing the number of international prospects who can buy their products. As they realize that other countries represent both buyers and suppliers, they find themselves active participants in the virtuous cycle of business globalization. Either way, they discover that international and ethnic markets are their destiny. What we have found in our years of research is that there is no magic bullet for going global. Many firms set up separate marketing or technology units to deal with international sales or development, separate from their mainstream business operations. They soon discover that globalization challenges their way of thinking, internal processes, and technology in a way no other application or business issue does: more languages, more locales, 24x7x365 with no break for bank holidays in England, Thanksgiving in the U.S., or national and religious celebrations anywhere else in the world. Methodology and Structure for This Report When Common Sense Advisory last assessed the state of multilingual content management in early 2003, globalization was at best an emerging requirement for CMS vendors (see Rage Against the Content Management Machine, Apr03). Today, some second-generation multilingual content implementations have shown business returns and their creators are rolling out their next versions. Others have abandoned their efforts entirely. Most companies are somewhere in the middle, still trying to figure out best practices. This research complements our supply-side analysis of global content management solutions (see Global Content Management Technology, Mar06). We interviewed 16 leading ECM platform vendors to learn about their ability to support global content management. Then we interviewed their customers from many regions and many industries to learn about their real-life experience managing content for global audiences. We asked why they developed Copyright 2006by Common Sense Advisory, Inc.

6 2 Lessons in Global Content Management international websites or other content-centric applications; what selection criteria they used to make their technology and process improvement decisions; what organizational roadblocks they encountered; and how they defined success. We selected 10 case studies of GCM implementations that typify critical success factors or behaviors. One common thread came up in all our interviews: If you meticulously manage the assets that appear in your websites, products, and documentation for your home market, you have a pretty good chance of extending your processes, organization, and technology to do the same for international markets. But if you do CMS badly at home, do not expect any miracles when you go abroad or decide to serve multilingual audiences at home. Who Should Read This Report? Companies deploying enterprise content management systems across their global operations will face new challenges as they seek to exploit new international opportunities. In this report, we discuss critical drivers for global content management, review what companies that implemented multilingual CMS applications have learned, and outline the best practices. It should prove useful to anyone responsible for designing or implement a multilingual or global content management application as well as to anyone choosing, buying, or using technology to support such projects. More specifically, it should appeal to: Any group that creates, manages, or translates global content. Planners at multinational companies, government agencies, military and intelligence units, and non-governmental organizations that globalize their websites, translate documents, localize products, and adapt other materials for international markets will learn best practices for managing content. Practitioners. Individuals whether external consultants or internal champions responsible for implementing and implementing content-centric applications will find some lessons in the experiences of other users. Data and content management specialists. Enterprise software, content management, data warehousing, and other business intelligence developers, suppliers, and integrators who develop strategies to integrate multilingual repositories of structured data and free-form content will be interested in the Copyright 2006 by Common Sense Advisory, Inc.

7 Lessons in Global Content Management 3 experiences of companies that have successfully implemented global content management applications. Suppliers of language services and tools. Language service providers (LSP) rely on software tools to increase the productivity, reliability, and quality of their translation and localization efforts. In addition, those who develop, sell, and integrate software products to manage global content will benefit from the discussion of industry, market, and technology dynamics. A Note on This Report We took a different approach to this report than our usual data-driven or casebased model. Rather than dwell on the majority of companies still sitting on the sidelines of global content management and what they should do to get going, we instead focused our analysis on companies that already deployed software for global content management and found success in doing so. Copyright 2006by Common Sense Advisory, Inc.