Investing in Localization and Building a Localization Department

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Alessandra Binazzi is a multi-lingual professional with a surprisingly varied experience and one common thread: International markets and customers. Proficient in all major European languages, Alessandra has dedicated her professional life to marketing, selling, supporting and educating customers in all continents. University educated in Boston, MA, she was exposed to global technology companies from the beginning of her career, with particular focus on globalization and multilingual digital content.

Alessandra combines her background in languages, technology and business to develop globalization strategies tailored to the needs of organizations in a growth stage. Alessandra received a BS in International Business from the University of Massachusetts and an MBA from Northeastern University in Boston. She has lived and worked in 10 different countries.

00:51 Alessandra's globalization background

I started my career in speech recognition where I worked with language technology in many functions, from R&D to marketing to technical training. All this trained me to advocate for international users.

05:38 How does localization impact branding and vice versa?

In most cases the perspective is the other way around, organizations consider how a brand affects localization.[..]In theory localization or GX considerations should be included in defining the brand from the start, unfortunately this is often not the case.

13:43 Are companies investing enough in localization?

The most blatant underfunded localization resource is human. On average, localization teams are smaller than other functions although they support more functions across the organization.

28:28 How can a localization team promote and communicate the value it creates for the company?

Localization operational data should be used internally to the localization team as a tool for optimization and quality assessments, it should not be heavily used when presenting to the broader organization. When you want to leverage your internal data outside of localization team, ‘translate’ the data to make it relevant and digestible for your audience, eg. TAT = time to market, volume = reach, cost = investment.

37:13 How can localization processes be scaled? How can the localization footprint within a company be expanded?

In my experience setting up localization functions in several companies, once you implement a structured localization program, the demand for content localization expands exponentially. I’ve seen it over and over. So there is a certain level of ‘organic growth’ purely by having a solid, visible, repeatable process and having gained a certain level of trust from the stakeholders.

43:48 How can language service providers (LSPs)  work with organizations that are building a localization department?

If you have that type of partnership where your client comes to you with their problems or ideas, then you need to listen and to be able to offer suggestions (and ultimately, your services). You might be willing to be flexible and tweak your offer to fit the needs of your client. 

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