Globally Speaking

Youre not alone if you take pride in your culture. But do you feel that brands understand your culture, context and deeply personal preferences? A...

Its human nature to want to connect with family, friends and colleagues. This sentiment appears to extend to brands: 64% of consumers want brands to...

Your international explanation plans are ready. You’ve identified your target markets. Your team is ready to start engaging with customers. But how well do you know those markets? Japan, for instance, might seem like a prosperous country with plenty of opportunity. But will your remote-controlled garage doors take off? Most likely not – most of the population live in apartments. This crude example shows that, despite an optimistic outlook, a target market could prove to be a huge risk.

In this episode, Maria Schnell, RWS’s Chief Language Officer, explains why it’s critical for companies to fully understand – on a deep level – the culture and context of their audiences. And why these two pillars need to be part of the foundations of any growth strategy. She will also give examples where clients have seemingly overlooked the basics, and what can be done to ensure that companies always put culture and context at the centre of their customer engagement strategy.

Today’s fast-moving, hyper-connected world means that customers demand relevant content, meaningful communication, accurate information, instant access, and consistent and personalised experiences. And they want of this own language, 24/7, and on any device. In short, they want to understand you – and they want you to understand them. But how can companies unlock this level of understanding? Let’s break it down. Firstly, you need to have a relationship with your customer to unlock understanding. But you can’t build a relationship without trust. And you can’t build trust without communicating. This means that the language used across your communications needs to meet three criteria. This episode will explore the three criteria required to unlock global understanding: 

* Culture: A deep understanding you only get from humans 

* Content: Tech to understand data, channels, formats. Need to adopt a data-led marketing approach 

* Consistency: Provide same experience, language, terms etc across any channel customers choose

In this episode of Globally Speaking, Andrew Thomas connects with Vangelis Lympouridis, a specialist in Innovation by Design, Design Thinking,...

In this episode of Globally Speaking, Monica Merel connects with Erji Wang, a Senior Globalization Program Manager who is an expert in leveraging...

In this episode of Globally Speaking, Robert Jelenic connects with Francesca Di Marco, a veteran in the localization industry who currently leads the internationalization and global development program for product and marketing at Pinterest.

Francesca tells us the story behind how twelve localization industry leaders came together to write the Globalization Strategy Playbook. The playbook attempts to connect the strategic-thinking process to real-life situations. Tune in and brainstorm how to turn your globalization strategy journey to global success for your multilingual customers and your company.

Check out the globalization strategy playbook [here](https://github.com/GILT-Forum/Globalization-Strategy-Playbook/blob/main/english/playbook.md).

In this episode of Globally Speaking, Monica Merel connects with Stefan Huyghe, a localization VP and trailblazer in the industry. In this conversation, we explore the evolution of localization and if Language Operations is the right step forward for the industry. Tune in and let us know if you agree or disagree if Language Operations is the next frontier for localization.

In this episode of Globally Speaking, Esther Ashmore connects with Alfonso González Bartolessis, the founder of TranslaStars. Alfonso created an online school that offers many courses for linguists and translators, including a bootcamp course for SEO localization. Tune in and get a masterclass on what is SEO localization, how to be culturally relevant in your SEO strategy, debunking the myths of common SEO best practices, and much more.

In this episode of Globally Speaking, Andrew Thomas hosts a conversation between two peers from Dell, Scott Cahoon and Fernando Caro. Scott and Fernando take us behind the curtain and share their honest experience upgrading and implementing continuous localization. Tune in and learn all about the benefits and challenges Dell faces moving to a continuous localization model.