Conversis presents proprietary research results on the web globalisation practices of multinational companies at the Localisation World Conference in Berlin

Research findings show that a lack of website localisation prevents companies
from competing globally

Oxford, 16th June 2008 – On 11th June 2008, Gary Muddyman, CEO and Managing Director of Conversis presented at Localisation World Europe. The topic of the presentation was “Web globalisation practices: An industry analysis”.

The Localisation World Europe conference was held from 9 – 11 June in Berlin. The theme of this years’ conference was on the localisation business model. Participants from a variety of industries were encouraged to enter into discussions focused around innovating business models in the localisation industry. In addition to this, the program also covered a range of translation and localisation issues.

Speakers at this years’ conference included representatives from Sun Microsystems, Cisco, Microsoft and Oracle.

In 2007, Conversis commissioned a research study managed by California State University, Chico. The aim of this study was to explore Multinational Enterprises websites to find out how well the businesses were adapting to countries, cultures and languages. The conference provided the perfect opportunity for Gary to share the results of the study and provide attendees with a useful insight into the needs of major clients. Client side attendees were also able to gather useful information with which they can benchmark their own activities.

A total of 100 multinationals with 300 country sites (U.S. English, German and Spanish) were analysed for this study. The results were interesting and below are some examples:

Localisation efforts

Based on the survey of multinational executives, almost 90% of companies have either localised or customised their websites with some local adaptation.

Local customer support

Only 24% of the multinational sites had local support pages which were the equivalent to their US English site.

Web page structure

Multinational sites seemed to achieve much localisation under this category. Almost 45% of international sites were basically standardised templates of their US English site.

Local-cultural adaptation

Only 20% of multinational sites were localised and highly localised.

“Companies are talking the talk when it comes to recognising the importance of localising their products and websites, unfortunately, they are not walking the walk,” said Gary Muddyman, CEO and Managing Director of Conversis, who co-authored the research findings. “The majority of corporations are ill prepared to expand globally and until they put a premium on localisation, their expansion into global markets will fail”.

In addition to sharing the results of this study, Gary also explored the current opportunities and best practices available to organisations.

According to Internet World Stats, the global online population as of 2006 has reached 1.3 billion. “Localisation is now being seen by multinationals as a necessary process to develop multilingual and multicultural content to effectively tap global markets.” says Muddyman.

“In order to design and innovate further business models, delegates need to understand the perspective of potential clients. This research not only explores their attitudes and plans but examines their current practices. It is also useful in ascertaining potential customers’ views of the localisation industry” adds Muddyman.

“This research is proprietary and has only been released in summary format. This was the first chance for delegates to explore the results in full” says Muddyman.

About Conversis

Founded in 2003 and based in the United Kingdom, Conversis is now one of the world’s fastest growing and most innovative providers of Globalisation, Internationalisation, Localisation and Translation (GILT) services. As a multilingual one-stop-shop localisation company, we understand our client’s industry and business requirements and allocate the best resources to each job. Serving clients in more than 30 markets worldwide, Conversis is dedicated to advancing the understanding and use of GILT as a strategic business tool. More information can be found at http://www.conversisglobal.com.