Localization - Investment or Expense?
Would you rather expend or invest? Would your company rather expend or invest?
You walk into a pastry shop, buy a slice of cake and eat it. That's an expense because it doesn't last long and you can't use it to make anything else. You walk into a bank, buy a certificate of deposit and reap interest a few months later. That's an investment because it has some durability and you use it to make something else (more money).
A new client is testing the waters in Europe and Japan. To appear serious to prospects there, they asked me for a proposal on some multimedia projects they've hosted from their Web site. It took lots of phone calls and e-mail to ascertain exactly what they expected back, then lots of phone calls and e-mail to ensure that they had sent us everything we needed to estimate costs for a full, end-to-end solution.
They're a small company with solid domestic revenues and negligible overseas sales to date, so they felt sticker shock at the $3-4000 per language that this was going to cost. One of their executives tried to think nimbly: "See whether they can just do the voiceovers and give them to us. We can have our in-house editors replace that layer in the media files."
I don't mind nimble thinking, and I appreciate her attempts to save money, so I won't go into the many technical and quality-related concerns that this approach violates, but when I sent an adjusted quote, I wrote, "I understand that you had $1500/language in mind, but the original English media probably cost a good deal more than that, and you've likely forgotten what you spent on them because of how many prospects have clicked on them. I encourage my first-time clients to regard this is an investment, not an expense. If you choose your overseas markets and partners carefully, and handle translation and localization correctly from the start, your ROI will not be long in coming."
Do you agree? Have you spent time trying to convince your company's executives that good localization practices are an investment, not an expense? What's your favorite argument?
If you enjoyed this article, you may enjoy another one called "Why Localize at All?"
You walk into a pastry shop, buy a slice of cake and eat it. That's an expense because it doesn't last long and you can't use it to make anything else. You walk into a bank, buy a certificate of deposit and reap interest a few months later. That's an investment because it has some durability and you use it to make something else (more money).
A new client is testing the waters in Europe and Japan. To appear serious to prospects there, they asked me for a proposal on some multimedia projects they've hosted from their Web site. It took lots of phone calls and e-mail to ascertain exactly what they expected back, then lots of phone calls and e-mail to ensure that they had sent us everything we needed to estimate costs for a full, end-to-end solution.
They're a small company with solid domestic revenues and negligible overseas sales to date, so they felt sticker shock at the $3-4000 per language that this was going to cost. One of their executives tried to think nimbly: "See whether they can just do the voiceovers and give them to us. We can have our in-house editors replace that layer in the media files."
I don't mind nimble thinking, and I appreciate her attempts to save money, so I won't go into the many technical and quality-related concerns that this approach violates, but when I sent an adjusted quote, I wrote, "I understand that you had $1500/language in mind, but the original English media probably cost a good deal more than that, and you've likely forgotten what you spent on them because of how many prospects have clicked on them. I encourage my first-time clients to regard this is an investment, not an expense. If you choose your overseas markets and partners carefully, and handle translation and localization correctly from the start, your ROI will not be long in coming."
Do you agree? Have you spent time trying to convince your company's executives that good localization practices are an investment, not an expense? What's your favorite argument?
If you enjoyed this article, you may enjoy another one called "Why Localize at All?"
Labels: localization costs, localization upper management, new to localization, why localize
posted by John White, Localization Guy at
20:06
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