To help our existing and future clients better plan their localization and translation budgets and projects, project experts at our company put together this white paper detailing four simple rules of thumb to follow.

1. Global Vision
The Language of Business is the Language of the Customer
Ho w t o
Plan & Budget for
Localization
Projects
To succeed in today’s busi- involved, graphics to be translated or
Lo’cal-i-za’tion n. the lin- ness environment, companies captured, as well as many other fac-
guistic adaptation of a product tors. By using the equation below, you
in all high-tech industries, as can come up with an approximate
for specific target markets. well as others, have to think cost.
globally. The ones that don’t
will ultimately be taken over 1) Calculate the total number of words
by the ones that do, or per- in your application’s graphical user
interface (GUI), online help, manuals,
ish. and all other files that require transla-
To Subscribe to tion.
To succeed globally companies real-
GlobalVision’s free ized that they have to cater to interna- 2) Divide that number by three, then
InfoMails click on: tional customers languages. After all,
the language of business is not
multiply it by the number of languages
to localize into, and you will have the
www.globalvis.com English; it is the language of the cus- total dollar budget for localization.
tomer. Often the case, speaking your
client s language requires that your Budget for localization = (Total
products also speak their language. number of words * Number of
Product localization and a commitment languages) / 3
Caution: These are 1 st to it from the top are hence required.
order equations that Note: It is often not easy to derive an
So how do you plan and budget for accurate word count. Markup, tags,
can be used to obtain localization? Here is a simple guide and code in files should not be count-
approximate figures that can help you throughout this ed. This is why it is always safer to get
when planning for process. our staff involved in deriving the word
localization. Although count.
they are good approxi - How to come up with a localization
budget? Also note that language costs can
mations, they will only Localization costs vary with language, vary greatly. This is an average that
get the ball on text type, percentage of repeat in text, can be applied when 3 or more lan-
the green file format, engineering efforts guages are required.

2. What will localization updates of Budget for localization update = Note: We do not recommend using
already localized products cost? 0.4 * (Total number of words an infinite number of translators to
Updates costs typically vary with the * Number of languages) / 3 expedite the project. The fewer trans-
percentage of change in the docu- lators you use, the more consistent
ments, help, and GUI. Translation Note: This equation applies only to the style and the quality will be. Use
memory tools ease the update and updating products previously translat- your best judgment, or ask us for
leveraging of old translations, so ed into the target language. If you are advice. Also note that if you require a
significant savings can be expected. updating in some languages while QA or in-country proof of the transla-
However, file preparation, leverag- also adding new languages, the first tion, you will need to account extra
ing of previous translation, desktop equation applies for the new lan- time for that.
publishing or QA will need to be guages. Also, if translation memory is
done on all files, regardless of the not readily available, it will have to be What order to translate the files in?
percentage of change. This is why created from old translations. In this Always plan on the GUI files being
25% of initial project costs are case, all old source and correspond- translated first. This is the best way to
incurred with major updates. On ing target files need to be available ensure consistency between the GUI,
average, a product changes about electronically. An alignment process Help, and the manuals. Also, this will
15% from one release to another. It will occur, which may add to the pro- give your beta testers the time need-
is therefore a good practice to bud- ject costs. Lastly, you may find it diffi- ed to QA the localized application
get approximately 40% of the initial cult to estimate the percentage of before its release.
project cost when updates are change in documents. GlobalVision
involved. International uses special analysis If the manuals are to be printed, work
tools to derive precise numbers that on the manuals next. This will buy
represent the actual effort involved. your printer enough time to print them
before you release your product.
How much time will the localization
effort take? Next, work on the online help. Online
A translator can typically translate help files are electronic, so if you are
GlobalVision International
GlobalVision 10,000 words per week. So to find the falling behind schedule, they can
is a private corporation, founded in number of weeks needed to translate always be added to a service pack
1996. The headquarters are in a product, simply divide the total num- update that your users can download
Westborough Massachusetts, with ber of words to translate by the num- off your ftp server. If you ship soft-
subsidiaries around the world.
ber of translators you can allocate to ware, it often takes weeks for your
GlobalVision specializes in providing
translation and localization solutions the project, times 10,000. This will product to be delivered to internation-
to high-tech industries involved in give you the number of weeks needed al end-users, and even longer for
software, hardware, telecom, to translate a project. Add 2.5 to this them to find the time to open the box
internet, medical technologies, number: half a week for file prepara- and install it. By this time, localized
engineering and manufacturing. We tion, one week to finalize the editing, online help could be ready for down-
partner with our clients to help them and another to finalize the layout and load and install.
reduce costs and time-to-market for QA on the files. You then have the
products by 2-6 months. We are total number of weeks needed to Correct order of files localized =
staffed and equipped with experts
localize a project. GUI > Manuals > Help
who can convert your products from
and into an array of foreign
languages. To contact us visit: Project duration in weeks = [Total Note: If you single-source docs and
number of words / (10,000 * help, always start by translating the
www.globalvis.com Number of translators)] + 2.5 weeks source. Then, automatically generate
all the target formats.
infonow@globalvis.com Keep in mind that editing and layout
can happen at the same time as
USA translation, so one additional week for Disclaimer: These are first-order
276 Turnpike Rd., Suite 234 editing is not the entire editing time, equations that can be used to get
Westborough, MA 01581 but only the time by which editing lags approximate figures when planning
Tel: +1 (508) 616-6660 behind translation. The same applies for localization. Although they are
for layout and QA, since it lags edit- good approximations, they will
JAPAN
JAPAN ing. For every three translators, you only "get the ball on the green," so
SO Bldg., Nakagawa 1-6-1, will need one editor and one layout don t expect a hole-in-one! Always
Tsuduki-ku, Yokohama-shi, engineer. have your localization vendor
Kanagawa 224 confirm the numbers before you
Tel: ++ (81) 45 910-3522 commit to a purchase order.
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