Global Business Perspectives

Everyone is talking about how companies can cope better when national recessions hit because of situations like the recent credit crunch and the subsequent drop in house prices. What are some ways you can recession proof your business by taking your business global?

• By trading internationally and introducing an effective globalization strategy, companies large and small can stave off the effects of local economic slow-down.  This has helped  companies like IBM, Ford, GM, HP and other global players since the beginning of the credit crunch.  An effective method of avoiding the worst effects of national economic slowdown or recession is obviously to trade globally.
• Trading globally means more than selling products to other markets and shipping them there. From localization of the products, manuals and marketing collateral, to communication with the new customers in their language, there are many things to be considered at a linguistic and cultural level. There are many small and medium sized businesses in certain sectors who – using the Internet and support from some partners – can act globally at relatively little expense, and so soften the blow.
• The web seems the perfect and easiest place for any organization to sell its products and services to a global audience. This was certainly true while ‘global’ coverage and the reach of the Internet concerned a largely English speaking user base. Research does show that this is changing and that the English users are shrinking due to access to multilingual sites. 
• Build a sturdy multilingual foundation. Consider who in your organization needs translation and localization and how they get it now. There are obvious departments such as technical authoring, or software or product development and production,etc. that buy translation on a large scale. The chances are, however, that if you trade internationally every department will encounter some need for language services at some point. The second question then is how you manage these translation and localization needs effectively.  You can check out one of our sponsors at www.iterotext.com.  They specialize in technical documentation translation.
• Creating a website in as many languages as you can afford and hoping for the best is not enough. It is like starting on the housing ladder. Think first of all which are your most desirable target markets and in which countries —and thus which languages you must cover. It might make sense, for example, to begin with countries that are culturally similar to yours so product localization is easier to get right. Depending on what you are selling you might also have to localize your marketing collateral and legal documents. Start with one or two new languages and spend the extra money on marketing campaigns. It makes a lot more sense to enter markets properly one at a time than to ‘theoretically’ address many and hope your new target market will find you.
• Depending on the size of your organization you may have some sort of terminology management and translation memory (TM) tool(s) in place already. However, these are probably only accessible to certain people in certain departments, right? Have you ever considered creating and maintaining a centralized, multilingual terminology database, which you make available to your entire staff?  This will ensure consistency in your international communication.

Tapping into international markets means that you are spreading your risk and creating potential. It does not have to be as difficult and as expensive as it may seem at first. On the other hand it is not as simple as putting your products and services on the web.  Global business and multilingual communication may have nothing to do with house prices, but it can certainly help you create a customer base which is not wholly affected by the next credit crunch, bursting bubble or wave of foreclosures. Even though a lot of people are struggling right now, there are those who are doing well thanks to smart planning. With the right global strategy you and your business can do well to.