Localization & translation in Japan: firms hoping to compete in Japan have come to realize that the path to globalization is not a simple one. Fortunately, there is a growing group of companies that has the road map and know exactly what needs to be done

Japan, Inc., June, 2003 by Stuart Braun

Global Village

The support that companies like Creer offer foreign companies is largely administrative. "We put our communication skills and specialist knowledge that we have built up over time to full use for that company," notes Creer's Luu. "This includes performing local market surveys, offering interpreters and secretaries to accompany on-site inspections, assisting in all kinds of applications and registration procedures as well as contacting, corresponding, negotiating and dealing with local firms." Creer's core competence is "total solutions relating to communication." In order to put this into practice, the content of its work is divided into interpreting and translating, temporary staff placement and business support.

Similarly, Basis Technology offers everything from consulting on how to make a company's product viable in Japan to helping companies re-engineer and localize their technology to operate in the way the demanding Japanese user expects. "We couple that with highly scalable linguistics software that many of the major information retrieval companies incorporate into their products," says Basis vice-president John Machonis.

The promise of the convenience of a complete one-stop shop underlies the strategies of a number of localization firms. Thomas Haeusser of SDL Japan, for instance, says SDL "can deliver simultaneous release of software into any of the world's languages." This can be achieved via a Web-based "simple proposal translation" (www.click2translate.com), a globalization management system (GMS) that integrates closely with clients' content management systems (such as Microsoft or Interwoven) or even a free, automated translation support facility (www.freetranslation.com). To achieve this, SDL has employed its own GMS software--"SDLWorkFlow"--which combines the capabilities of TM (automated reuse of previous human translations) with real-time translation software.

IIS has also entered the Japanese market with a comprehensive service that includes content translation, multilingual design and Web application creation. "With the union of our design and systems teams, we are able to roll out very complex, but very user-friendly, sites that can include future expansion of other languages as needed," notes IIS' Sembokuya. IIS also employs a multilingual mobile communication technology that allows users of any mobile device (cellular or PDA) to view virtually any Web site on the World Wide Web.

Producers of advanced localization/translation technologies such as Trados are a central cog in the globalization wheel, employing advanced technology to create integrated multilingual services, or what Trados's managing director Kawasaki calls "globalization consulting." "We offer large global companies and service providers real scalable language platforms for desktops and servers to protect their linguistic assets and maximize re-use," he says.

Mark Attaway of Lionbridge notes that the ability to swiftly produce localized content brings companies a distinct competitive advantage. "When content is localized as it is generated, corporations can reach their global base of customers with the latest information more quickly and also keep their employees around the world synchronized," he says. During the last few years, however, companies have aggressively trimmed their workforces and are focusing solely on their core competencies. As a result, "they no longer have the internal head-count to manage this growing need for content localization manually," says Attaway. Working with technologies such as LionAccess that automate the localization process for clients, the company can directly detect changes made to content residing within a content management system, and automatically route the new, or changed, content to production teams for localization. "Once the content has been localized," notes Attaway, "LionAccess will automatically insert the localized content back into the content management system."