LocServe’s consultancy services are available to all clients and localization professionals looking for innovative and tailored solutions. We constantly monitor the market place for new technologies which will improve on current processes in real world situations.
By continually evaluating software and looking at advancements in the industry, LocServe are best placed to advise on the advantages and disadvantages of various approaches.
We assess and review both commercial and open source products to help provide solutions regardless of your budget.
Where to Begin
Bringing your product into an international marketplace can seem like a daunting prospect. You will want to consider the decision carefully before the making the investment. Find out free of charge the cost of localizing your product.
If you are convinced of the benefits and would like to begin the localization process, there are a number of decisions to make early.
- Will you outsource the entire localization process from the outset?
This may involve sending source materials to a Language Service Provider (LSP) such as LocServe, providing a link to your website or an export of content. The LSP should provide all translation, engineering and QA resources. This should also include Project Management, Translation Memory Management and facilitating of any future updates. The final delivery to you should be a fully localized and tested product.
- Will you take responsibility for some tasks but outsource others?
Some companies prefer to train their developers to learn the basics of localization engineering. This gives some control to the developers and allows for bug fixing after the LSP has delivered final files.
- Bypass the LSP, go direct to the translator
Historically, the experience and skills a localization agency can offer has been a necessity. It can take years to learn the intricacies and complexities of localizing, particularly if the target languages use unfamiliar character sets and encoding. LSPs will have language and technical experts on call to deal with a wide range of issues. However, with the increase in use of machine translation and more varied and tailored translation management systems, clients are increasingly cutting out the middle man and going direct to the translator.
With each approach there are trade offs between the cost of outsourcing, the inhouse effort and the potential risks with bypassing some or all of the services offered by an LSP. Consulting with LocServe can help you save time and money. Ask for our independent advice now.