Sony Professional: Website Localization on a Tight Budget Salomé López-Lavado Berlin, 9 th June 2009
Contents Introduction to Sony Professional Localization Strategy Platforms Latest language additions Lessons learnt Next steps
Introduction to Sony Professional Sony Professional: supplier of AV/IT solutions across sectors in Europe Media and Broadcast, Video Security, Retail, Transport, Large venues… Channel site: sony1.net End user site: sonybiz.net
Localization Strategy: a centralised approach Translation approached changed over last 10 years, from totally decentralised to 99% centralised Initial investment in resources and infrastructure: recruitment, software… From outsourcing to insourcing – the internal team – project managers and translators with an account manager approach
Localization Strategy: a centralised approach Vendor management: selection based on price and quality, and not necessarily on speed. Small number of vendor/partners working in close relationship 32 languages, up to 2 million source words and over 6 million target divided in very small projects (some only 20 words long)
Platforms: invest to save SDL TMS – Managed by 1.5 people – Big investment in infrastructure – Self-sufficiency approach to save on installation – Advantages: professional level knowledge of tool which can be applied to other areas BroadVision – product content. Not integrated. Manual process through team overseas Fatwire – fully integrated – little manual intervention
Latest Language Additions The Russian site: from this…
Latest Language Additions To this…
Latest Language Additions Project started because of market demands. Russian sales up and needed a good marketing site Budgets: under 60K Euro to cover translation, project management and development Template approach Internal project manager and translator, with support of external translator (freelance) Main Challenges: cultural, legal, language barriers Resources Issues faced
Latest Language Additions The Russian site Why project started Approach Main Challenges Tight budgets and how we managed them Resources Issues faced
Platform integration – what did we learn from the Fatwire/SDL integration Sonybiz.ru – cultural / legal issues, market differences, technical issues with character sets.
Lessons Learnt When budgets are tight, a good infrastructure and platforms are essential Don’t re-invent, you’ll only waste resources Phased approach Only translate what’s needed
Next Steps Machine translation for internal documents Controlled English Addition of other languages (PL, CZ, TK?)