Translation and localization consulting blog

Before we begin this story, we need to talk about the elephant in the room – the elusive ROI and KPIs of localization and translation services. Unless you have decided to invest in localization with a very specific objective of such a venture – for example, localizing user manuals/help files to decrease the number of calls to the customer services department – the traditional ROI and KPI measurements will simply not work no matter how you try.

In the previous article How to Localize: The 3 Pillars of Localization Process, I shared my views on how the localization process should be set up to deliver the desired results and how the understanding of localization has been somewhat changed by the current pandemic. This time, I am talking about the things that have not been changed and that are not very likely to change – the benefits of localization.

One of the perks of having been in the industry for decades is the ability to calibrate your laser line and get to the core of things easily.

Surely, the language industry is extremely fragmented and each project is a separate universe with specific aspects and requirements, but when you reach that point where you have successfully executed all kinds of projects, more or less complex, with millions of words and in dozens of language combinations, you inevitably begin to see it more clearly what is really important and the undercurrents that lead to success or failure across the different projects begin to show on the surface.