Why GMS, Why Now?

posted 2007-04-20 15:00:37
by Eric Hodge

As is commonly the case, I often get asked what I do for living. Proudly enough, I say I work for a software company, and when the conversation predictably turns to what kind of software, I say Globalization Management System, or GMS. Before the asker gets the opportunity to ask, and the puzzled looks are no surprise, I launch into what that means.

"Our software helps companies get their information, be it printed materials such as manuals or packaging, software strings, websites, etc, translated into different languages"

"So you do translation..."

"Ahhh, no. Our software helps manage the translation process; helps improve quality while reducing cost and time to market."

Well, that all makes sense, doesn't it? Cutting costs, improving quality, reducing time to market. So, without really understanding what our software does, the person leaves satisfied that they got their answer.

The problem is, in our market, even the people involved in the translation process don't seem to have a full grasp what goes into the translation process.

In fact, we often hear from our customers and potential customers, "We don't even HAVE a translation process."

Ahhh, but yes you do.

And chances are, understanding that translation process is the first step to getting a handle on the quality, efficiency and cost of your translation efforts.

Some things to consider, with respect to translation process. The most common form of communication between resources assigned to the translation process is email. We all know how email has become a standard form of business communication. However, with respect to a process that has a beginning, an end, and a standard set of steps that occur in between, email can often fall short of what we need in order to ensure this process is flowing as smoothly and efficiently as possible.

For example, a common case in the world of translation without GMS is for a translation manager to assemble a bunch of files that require translation, bundle them up, attach them to an email and send them off to a translator. A lot of time can be wasted tracking down and bundling files, some files may be missed, the bundle may be too large to email, and, it’s possible the project manager may not even be available to take care of this in a timely manner. A GMS ensures all of these problems go away, that project creation is automated, that projects contain all the appropriate files and that all the appropriate people are notified automatically.

A GMS will also eliminate errors introduced by the manual processing of files. in the case where a company has content that cannot be handled directly by their translators, often times they perform some manual "string extraction" to pull the translatable content out from the original format and paste it into a format that is more easily handled by translators. This is often done with CMS content, or binary content where the actual text is copied into a Word document or an Excel spreadsheet before it is sent off for translation. Once the content comes back from the translator, it then has to be copied and pasted back into its original format. Clearly, this procedure is not only inefficient, but also very error prone. Given a large volume of content, a user who doesn't necessarily speak the language he/she is copying and pasting may run into errors and not even realize it. The process of replicating strings and using copy and paste itself is quite error prone as well. Additionally, the translator is lacking the original context during translation. A properly implemented GMS solution completely eliminates all of the need for this manual processing.

Another common pain is when development or other internal resources that are not associated with the translation process have to take time away from their daily activities in order to facilitate the translation process. This happens most often in organizations who are translating software, but it certainly has come up in nearly all companies, regardless of the type of translation they are doing. In the software example, a developer often times has to perform a large amount of processing in order to get strings to the project manager to be sent for translation. Then, during the translation process, the developer usually has to take time to answer a plethora of questions presented by translators and reviewers, as the translation context of software strings is often difficult to determine. Once the translation is complete, the developer will generally have to initiate a language specific build of the software so that language experts can review the content for accuracy. If there are any errors in the translation, the content will then have to be extracted again, the translations fixed and the review builds created again. Once this is complete, the developer can then initiate a build for QA. A properly implemented GMS system should automate most of these tasks to ensure the developer does not have to spend a large amount of time worrying about translation. Additionally, during the implementation, best practices should be shared for the proper globalization of applications. Additionally, given the use of TM, issue tracking and other features of a GMS, the amount of time developers spend answering questions should be significantly reduced.

These are just a few of the areas of process improvement that a GMS will introduce. There are many others as well. The key is to understand that, while you think you may not have a translation process, or you think your translation process may be working, you do have one and it can be quite significantly improved by implementing a GMS. This includes reducing time to market, improving the quality of the translated product and cutting costs, which, in the end, will allow you to translate more content, thereby getting your message across to increasingly larger audiences.

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