What are the real costs to support multilingual products?

Adapting products to the local market seems easy. When not done right, it may result in significant costs, lower quality than expected and delay time-to-market.

The translation costs that companies pay their translation partners are usually the tip of the iceberg. Internal costs are likely to be factors higher than your yearly budget for translation. The far majority of the cost is, like an iceberg, invisible. Examples are the efforts of developers to support localization, handling feedback from reviewers, QA, etc.

An extreme example is a case where we helped our client to increase the release cycle from 3 times a year to weekly. Unexpectedly, the translation costs significantly increased. We found that the translation company always has verified the so-called 100% matches. That inefficiency revealed with 52 instead of 3 releases per year. After we identified the problem, it was straightforward to eliminate the (costly) inefficiency.

One effort that our clients struggling with is how to keep multilingual documentation consistent with the software application. Examples are terminology and images in the local language in user manuals. How to create images for 40 target languages, handle updates, etc.? Common root causes for high costs are:

1. Lack of information. A team member needs all information to execute his task as independent as possible. For example, a translator would like to see in which context a certain text is used.
2. Sub-par logistics. Organizations may not take advantage of unique text identifiers of texts in a software applications. Identifiers persist for the life time of a product. Instead of communicating via screenshots created with a screenshot tool like Snagit and marking the text, it is much more efficient to provide the string-identifier with a comment.
3. Silos. The exchange of information is not standardized/centralized. This causes overhead. For example, a reviewer may collect his comments in an Excel file and emails it to the appropriate person. Receivers must open that document, assign tasks to others, etc.

Cost reduction with Rigi

Rigi helps organizations to significantly reduce costs by eliminating the root causes of inefficiencies. We developed the Rigi Software Localization Management Platform to make the localization process really simple and cost-efficient. Our platform is based on actual large-scale projects at our clients. We analyzed the way people work and which information they need to do their job. The conclusion is that we need the following requirements to reduce costs:

1. Provide all required information to do the job. Lack of information is the main reason for costs running out of hand. Our platform provides the information that people need. Users can do their job in an efficient way, as independent as possible.
2. ID-based. To solve logistic issues, all logistics are based on the unique string identifiers within a software product. You can see it as a bar code on a product that you buy in the supermarket. Using that “bar code”, it is possible to clearly identify texts. All involved stakeholders are talking about the same.
3. Centralize data. All information between involved project members is exchanged via the Rigi server. This reduces the overhead of emails and unnecessary meetings. It also helps to organize your projects where project members are in different time zones.

Rigi adapts. Users can keep using their productivity tools. The “only” thing that Rigi does is to provide additional information. Connectivity is key.  We provide connectors to the preferred environments of our users. For example, translators keep using their favorite translation editors and developers integrate Rigi components in their development environments.

Features to reduce costs

The platform comes with many features. Features that have demonstrated their value in our case studies are the following:

• Translators get an interactive preview with translations. The visual context helps to provide the right translation at once.
• Language Acceptance Testing (aka in-country review) environment for QA purposes. Domain experts for the local markets review the application in a browser, select a text and provide feedback. Translators can access the feedback in their translation tool and apply correction having the right visual context.
• Internationalization (i18n) testing. Rigi helps to easily detect and report typical issues like hardcoded or concatenated strings.
• Automated creation of interactive previews for translators.

Keywords are: visual context, automation, centralize information and connectivity.