In a globalized and competitive world, companies are increasingly trying to expand their markets beyond their borders. Globalization has allowed companies to explore opportunities in international markets. This is partly due to the impact of digital transformation, the democratization of new technologies, and business innovation.
Operating in or for other countries with different languages and cultures requires a multilingual and multicultural strategy. Products or services do not necessarily work or reach a target through a single formula suitable for all countries. Many entrepreneurs tend to translate their contents into other languages without adapting it to the different target languages and cultures and, although they can be well translated, they will not achieve the expected results. In order to avoid these drawbacks, you need to have a suitable strategy for each market. At LLS, we recommend 5 rules to internationalize your company:
- Localize your language contents: It is useful when your product or service contents need to be adapted to a specific geographical target. If you are interested in a specific market, we recommend you not only to translate your digital content, but also localize and adapt it to your target markets.
- Internationalize your contents: It is advisable when your product or service contents must be readily consumed in multiple countries or become world-ready. If you are interested in reaching a wider target audience, we recommend you not only to translate your contents, but also internationalize them, adapting the translations to a more generic linguistic and cultural reality (Asian, European, Anglo-Saxon, French-speaking markets).
- Dub or subtitle your audio-visual contents:An image or a video is worth a thousand words. We encourage you to produce visual content in Spanish and dub or subtitle it into your target market’s languages.
- Perform language audits in your company:Before selecting new staff or if you need to map your employees’ language skills to ensure that they are not only well versed in the language of your international clients, but also assess their language abilities and potential, we recommend a language audit.
- Ask for a language and culture consulting: Before investing money and resources in services that you don’t know how effective they can be to internationalize your company, we advise you to seek a language and cultural consultancy in order to define your needs and optimize your alternatives.
Mary Ann Monteagudo is the executive director and founder of Learning & Language Services SRL, a translation and interpreting agency with more than 25 years of experience. LLS has a team of highly specialized and skilled translators, interpreters and language professionals in different fields and languages to ensure the success of your projects.
