by Bruno Herrmann, Vice-chairman, LT-Innovate
One year ago I wrote and published an article entitled “Integrate, Elevate, Celebrate” about how to lift up great teams and capitalize on human talent in the age of technology enablement. I could use the same verbs to recommend actions to make language intelligence value-creating and inclusive by leveraging language technology and services as part of global content operations.
When I presented on how language management could/should be positioned and led during industry events some people from providers of language services and technology saw my points as provocative and paving the way to a “dilution” of their translation, localization, etc efforts into other teams. I was misunderstood. I was only sharing some recommendations based on my experience working in several companies in various industries. Most importantly, I told them that my perspective was the opposite of diluted language management. It was all about taking it to the next level and moving away from the lack of visibility and recognition the people questioning my view were suffering from, especially in large public or private enterprises. Now I would like to explain why this way forward can be applied to language technology and services powering and boosting language intelligence.
Let’s start the journey onwards and upwards with the integration of language technology and services in content operations. It is usually the most challenging change to implement. If they are available in a more or less connected fashion with the rest of the organization, they are often used whenever content needs to be created and localized. In such a framework, language technology and services are considered as a cost center at the very least, and sometimes, even worse, as a cost driver as they do not appear - clearly and logically enough - to other teams and stakeholders as contributing to the value for the business and customer experiences. Integrating them in the relevant supply chains for both content and products brings operational and financial benefits including
- Closer collaboration with other teams and individuals having roles and responsibilities in supply chains such as designers, developers, UX people, testers or product leaders
- Timely inclusion in content and product roadmaps for a more accurate planning and a more realistic funding of language management
- Better collaboration with IT and Operations teams to ensure language management is enabled with the right language technologies within the corporate ecosystem(s)
- Tangible and measurable contribution from language management to revenues and profits with vanity, commercial and experiential KPIs.
When language technology and services are effectively integrated in content operations they are elevated as part of content and product leadership. The language management team is positioned as a key member of supply chains which cannot be overlooked without risking poor content and product experiences. All phases and milestones in supply chains are useless if language technology and service do not deliver according to linguistic, cultural and functional requirements.
After being integrated and elevated in content operations language technology and services should be celebrated in their role of business and profit drivers. It fosters collaboration within the language management team and value creation in the rest of the organization. It justifies with facts and figures that language technology and services make the business world intelligent, multilingual and interactive. It demonstrates that language intelligence creates value for everyone.
