S04E01: German Enterprise Localization Sector

Adelina Cristovao

Thank you. I am happy to be here.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Please introduce yourself to this podcast, to our listeners. This is the first time I am talking to you. I am excited to learn more about you.

 

Adelina Cristovao

Thank you. Yes. So, my name is Adelina, as you just mentioned. I have been working in the localization industry my entire career. I have been… I basically feel that I have occupied all the seats or most of the seats that you can find in terms of the localization industry, which gives me this very nice 360-degree perspective or anything that is close to it. And I really enjoy that.

 

So, I started as a translator and a localization expert, but then I kept going in terms of project management. I was a project manager on the seller side, which was quite the experience. I managed customers, real customers, customers outside of your company, which is something that I am not doing now. And from there, I learned a lot, not only in terms of what clients need but also on how a service provider of the language industry works, what kind of pain points they have, what challenges they face. And this was a very nice thing to know and to have on board when I moved over to the buyer side.

 

I understood from that that it would make my relationship with the vendor that we had, my former company, it would make it much easier to get the best possible out of that relationship. And that was really good knowledge to have to get the best service for the company but in the best possible way. So that was very nice.

 

And since then, I have been working on buyer side. So now I am at Wolt, working as product localization lead. And before this, I was at Trivago for several years, almost six, five and a half, I would say, where I had a localization topic globally. So, for all content types that we had, and that was also quite the learning experience, I have to say.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

I normally ask people about how they joined the localization industry. In your case, I already know how you joined the industry. But what motivated you to go into the translation field to learn about languages?

 

Adelina Cristovao

Well, what motivated me was my own personal story, but because I was raised as a bilingual. So, in this setup, I just translated all my life. So, I always had to somehow interpret in this sense, what people were saying in that we either had people to visit or friends that were coming over. And there were always people in a group where I was in that could not understand the language of the other person. So I was in the middle, always supporting this communication. And I just slid into translation and then localization. It was like a natural continuation of what I was doing at home anyway. So, I felt that this would make sense when it was time for me many years ago to choose a career path or better to choose a field of study. So, I just went in and studied languages. And here I am, basically.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

As they say, you were born to do this.

 

Adelina Cristovao

Yes, maybe. Maybe, let us see. There are still a couple of years to go. But yes, maybe this was at least a big part of the things I was born to do.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Adelina, you have been involved in the industry for such a long time. And during this tenure of yours, during this experience of yours, what has stood out to you significant in this industry that you think about? And do you think that was an evolution of some sort, whether it was technology or process, or the way people perceive localization? What is your experience?

 

Adelina Cristovao

Sure, that is a great question because this is definitely something that I really think about. So, when I started 20 plus years ago, I was a language person, which meant that I was not involved in any other part of the business or of work. So, I knew languages. It was like telling people, well, either you know math, or you know languages, but you cannot know both. So, it was like I was in this little bubble. And I was not expected to know anything about anything else, because I was just about the languages.

 

So, as I moved forward, I understood that this was not correct, obviously, at this point. From this perspective, we know. But I also learned that languages or communication, and when we move towards localization, it has so much to do with communication. This is just the base for all companies because companies need to reach their consumers, their customers, their clients. And if they cannot do it in a specific language, they need to use other languages to do it. So, the language factor is not just language or just text. This is the enabler that allows businesses to work and to function and to serve this thing that we call globalization. So, there are other factors that play into this. But without localization, just not possible to be global, to do globalization. And this was, for me, the biggest learning.

 

And in terms of my personal development, my biggest win, I would say, in the sense that I figured out that it is not just about languages. And there is more for me to learn and to understand and to apply this knowledge into to serve something that is a little bit greater than just translating A to B. And I would say that this was what I understood and what I reflect about when I am working. How can localization serve not only the company that I am working for or in or with, but also this global economy and creating accessibility for people?

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

You were right. There are so many pieces to this economy or language economy if you call it. That is why today I invited you to speak about localization and the enterprise sector in Germany. That segment is very unique. Please give us an overview from your perspective, Adelina, how things are done in this area today. Please give us a high-level view of localization in this market.

 

Adelina Cristovao

Sure. Well, Germany is an exporting country, right, as we know. It exports not only to European countries but also to the US, which is one of, I would say, the biggest target. Also, China and Austria. So, some of the European countries and some of the countries that are not European. And to support this export effort, there are several language service providers that provide the services to the companies. Companies always look for cheap, right? So quick and cheap.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Right.

 

Adelina Cristovao

So, this is what everybody seems to be looking for. And I think at this point, we have reached the point where quick and cheap does not cut it anymore and we need to make things efficient and effective. And in that sense, I think generally speaking, and I do not know all the enterprise field in Germany, of course, but from my experience, I see that there is a shift happening where localization is being taken more seriously, not only in terms of how we do it, but also the output that we are creating for our target groups. And this obviously led to a development of the role of localization experts and of the search of localization experts that could support companies to do this. I would say another interesting factor is that enterprises are also looking for translation management systems and software, and this led to the growth or to the sprout of several companies that are raised in Germany, start-ups that are working on some of very interesting tools to support this effort. So, I would say in terms of enterprise at this point, this is what occurs to me.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

A very unique perspective. And I think that given that Germany is a unique market for localization, but I am interested to dive deeper in that, Adelina. What makes the German market so unique compared to other European markets or even North America?

 

Adelina Cristovao

There is a lot of content being localized into these languages, but also, of course, Germany is also an import country. So, the effort goes in both ways in terms of localization. Well, the focus is on translating things into English, which is something that is not the native language. So, to access markets like US, which is the biggest or one of the biggest export countries, we need to do that. So, there is a lot of expertise already in translating German to English. Also German to Chinese, where a lot of the businesses are being done. German being a country where there is so many inhabitants, so with the population being so big, also the products that are being imported into Germany need to be localized. So, I think that without this localization effort, all this import-export would not really be happening in the same way.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

How much of the localization, in your opinion, do enterprises perform inside Germany and how much of that gets done outside of Germany to enable this trade?

 

Adelina Cristovao

Well, the biggest localization companies are not sitting in Germany. To achieve that kind of scale, I would understand that there is a lot of searches for localization services that are outside of Germany. So, the biggest localization companies, they can serve companies easier and then yes, would through scale achieve better price and they have more access to technology. So, from my understanding and from the vendors that I have used so far, there is a lot of, when a company needs a big range of volume and a big range of languages, they would most easily resort to a company outside of Germany.

 

On the other hand, there is also a search for freelancers that translate either from English to Germany or from German to English, meaning that when the company is not looking at translating such a big volume or does not have so many languages, they would also like to resort to internal freelancers or in that sense to smaller language service providers where they feel that they can have a more close relationship with the project managers and with the linguists.

 

So, for smaller companies, smaller agencies, or freelancers, but when the company has more, then I would say they would resort to an external company like searching for the top five on a world scale, for example, to make sure that they have access to everything that there is in terms of getting scale for speed and for output as well.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Let me ask you about the DACH market, the German, Austrian and Swiss market, where there is a common denominator when it comes to the German language. Is there local localization that happens for those markets?

 

Adelina Cristovao

Generally, we just, we reuse German for all the dock markets. This can be questioned and or challenged because there is, I would say when it comes to the difference between German and Austrian German, there would be maybe 1% that cannot be, or that should be adjusted because there is a cultural difference that would be relevant to get a more local tone. So, if this is something that the company is looking for and believes it will support their sales strategy, then definitely it should be considered to not adjust completely whatever is being created for Germany, but to adjust a percentage of it to the local language of Austria and Switzerland.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Let us talk about a typical enterprise. You can talk about your own organization or another one. What is a typical localization teams and structure? How is it set up in Germany and how is that different from other enterprises globally?

 

Adelina Cristovao

Well, it depends, but there is, like I said before, the role of the localization experts has been witnessing development. So, there is more interest at this point and there is more value given to the role of the localization expert. So, I think at this point we are transitioning from doing like very homemade localization, like everybody can do it, or just a group effort to finding professionals that can lead and drive the efforts in terms of localization. So, it has the understanding that this is a complex topic that should be getting the right focus and the right expertise is growing. So, companies are starting to build or resize their localization teams keeping this in mind.

 

Not only, companies are looking to get a thing that is called a localization manager and after they onboard this kind of professional, they will realize or are realizing that they also need to add a team to this. And that this team, the bigger the team is or the more complete the team is, the easier it will be to master the complexity of localization and the volume that localization sometimes has.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

When we talk about localization in the German enterprise segment, something that you have experience with, Adelina, what languages and markets are paramount? You alluded to Chinese earlier, to English, but what other languages, I mean Africa is right now becoming more of an emerging market. Is that something that Germany is looking at in terms of localization?

 

Adelina Cristovao

I would say no at this point, at least not with local languages. If Germany is targeting Africa, it would be using more of the global languages like French for example, eventually a little bit French, I would say at this point would be, is already a language that Germany is targeting because France is one of the biggest receptors of exportation. Even Dutch, Dutch would also be a language that they could reuse to target African countries because that is also one of the languages that they are already using. So, when it comes to emerging markets, and before this has proven the return that would make sense to invest a lot of more money in localization, I would assume that the companies reuse or extend the usage of content that they already have into those new markets until they understand if it returns in a way that would justify more investment.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Do enterprises produce localization output for any homegrown consumption? For example, there are massive amounts of foreign speakers who are based in Germany, whether in the form of immigrants or people who have roots in other countries that are based in Germany. Do enterprises try to reach out to them in their own languages or German is the dominant language?

 

Adelina Cristovao

Unfortunately, not, so I do not think that there has been an effort in that direction. So internally people are almost 200% served in German, which with the exception of eventually health departments, like when it was time for Corona, for example, I noticed that some of the documentation was also written in several of the languages of people that were not native to Germany to make sure that they would receive this information. Generally speaking, I see most of the communication from the companies to their clients done in German. However, if companies choose to make all languages available in all countries, which is the tendency, then it would be possible without extra effort to make more languages available to people living here. And this is the case with my own organization, Wolt, for example, where everybody in Germany can have access to the apps in their own languages, if the language is a language that we already do for Wolt. But I do not think that this is generalized so far.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

At least that is a step in the right direction because enterprises have noticed that by expanding language reach, they are able to grow, they are able to increase adoption rates.

 

Adelina Cristovao

Definitely. I mean, to increase use base, gain new users, of course, then we would need to expand language. However, it depends on the number of users, right? So, if the number of users is not that big, and then they would make the decision to…  So, it depends on how many users they estimate are using the language. And in that case, they would decide to do the effort of trying to reach them or not. And, if they are part of the target market segment. So yes, it also depends on that.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

If you look at the past 24 months, I mean, you referenced the pandemic and how some of the communication was translated and localized. The past 24 months has been very volatile in terms of economic and market conditions. How did German enterprises react with regards to their budgets for localization in general?

 

Adelina Cristovao

From what I could observe, I think in the beginning, there was a concern and maybe there was also an attempt to reduce languages, for example. But rather sooner than later, it was noticed that there was probably not the right way to go because the opportunity in the online marketplace just became too obvious. And the opportunity to reach new markets without having to increase a physical presence in the countries was also recognized. So, from what I know from data collected in the localization industry, there has been a very massive growth in terms of localization need, which indicates that companies have accelerated their localization during the pandemic and not reduced, which goes against what was initially feared by localization industry people, that now there would be less work, but the opposite happened.

And I think in Germany, the same thing happened as well. There were several companies that decided to suddenly create an online presence because they figured out that this was the only way to increase sales or keep sales or not lose sales completely during the pandemic. And for the localization industry, this was very beneficial and for the users, right, because now they have access, much more access to much more products online.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

And that is quite clear now that with language, more people are getting online, and they have access to more services. When you look at the German enterprises, whether in the automotive sector or in technology sector, I am assuming localization is a very mature process given how long they have been around. What is the playbook or framework that they are using? Adelina, how deep does localization go? Do they, for example, just translate text or in case of some companies, they go much deeper than that. They localize their cars. For example, the driver’s seat has to be on a specific side, depending on the laws of the country. How much thought goes into that?

 

Adelina Cristovao

Yes, that is a good question. That the example of the car, yes, I think, or I believe that those kinds of industries that have been internationalizing their products, like the car industry in Germany, since for a long time, they have a strong playbook that tells them what to do in which country and how to delight customers with their products based on a cultural awareness. I do not think that we are doing this in other sectors or in many other sectors. So, companies that realize that, of course, because in the car industries, we see this often or we know that there, when we travel abroad, that there are cars from a specific brand that exists in one country, but we do not see it in the others. Or we see a car in one country that we do not know from Germany in this case, which then means that yes, they localize their products and make them very culturally relevant. This is great. And we see that this is what users like or even more what delights them, what makes them buy something because it feels close to home. We do not take things so deeply in other industries. We are still very close to the thought of English serves them all, or at least we are still too close. We are localizing into languages, but still focusing on what we are doing only for one market. And if you are using like the US as a reference market. We make things, we do not go deep enough. This is my experience.

 

There is no playbook as far as I know. That still needs to be written about how to go deeper in localization, understanding the kind of complexity that comes from it and finding a team that can manage this kind of complexity and without losing control over things and without blocking the product development process. So, I think we can go much deeper in this. And this is the challenge that we localization managers also face when we work for a company or with a company to help them take this step from one solution serves all users in all countries to let us find out or let us figure out how we could adjust our solutions to make them more culturally relevant for our users and consumers across the globe if that is the case. And, for me personally, this is a topic that I am really looking into and trying to understand better to support companies in a better way.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

I am sure you have a rough idea, Adelina, but how much localization work gets done in-house in a German enterprise versus how much gets outsourced?

 

Adelina Cristovao

Yes, that is, I have a rough idea. There is no official account on that, of course, but I would say that there are still a lot of localization done in-house. Because like I just said, localization or companies feel that everybody can translate. If you have native speakers from everybody, from everywhere in the world, why not have them translate the content and the marketing, the copy and all of this? Because they are there, and they speak the language and that is enough.

 

So, although on one hand, there has been a raise in valueness of localization experts, there is still this idea that we cannot make it too expensive and people from outside do not understand the product, so let us do it in-house and just outsource where we do not have native speakers to do it. So, this is a tendency as well. So, I would say that there is still much more, or there is still maybe 50% of it is still being done in-house and some of it is being outsourced to companies. Whereas from my experience, there is always native people from the company involved in this process as well.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

What is a typical localization model for a German enterprise, Adelina? Do they centralize all the work in Germany? Or if you look at a multinational automotive or a bank, for example, do they also allow local offices or branches in other countries to make localization decisions and perform that type of work?

 

Adelina Cristovao

From what I know, I would say more the centralized model. So, if you have a team and this team sits in Germany, then this team would take care of most of it. I have also come across with companies that do not do that, but there is always like, even if there are local teams, there is still a centralized team calling the shots. And the range of decision-making that is given from the centralized team to more local teams can vary and can be very tight. So, this also prevents a little bit that we get more local relevant experiences. If the centralization is built up in a way that prevents to harvest the value from having local teams.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

How much value does a German enterprise place on localization compared to North American companies where localization is still an afterthought for some organizations because they assume everyone speaks English?

 

Adelina Cristovao

Yes, well, the same is true for German companies. If they somehow have a very strong connection to the US or US leads, which can also happen, true that also here in Germany, it can be that English is used as a measurement for everything. But I think if we have a typical company that is a German company and that just wants to export to the US and to other countries, then there is more a feel for cultural diversity, and that we need to serve different customers in different countries with different kind of translations or localization solutions.

 

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Sultan Ghaznawi

Would you say that localization efforts are fairly compensated in the German enterprise market with cost of living going up and interest rates, inflation, and everything? Not the same as last year or the year before. Are translators and localization participants happy with your quality of life in Germany?

 

Adelina Cristovao

I think in Germany, yes, because there has been a growth in demand. And with the growth in demand came a shortage of talents also in the localization area. And this made the price or the cost or the value of localization people go up. So, they were able to negotiate better prices a little bit and companies had to do this. So, I think that here in Germany, there was always good conditions for translators and localization experts to live and to exist. But that recently with this growth in the last two years that it has improved.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Do localization managers that lean from enterprises in Germany and obviously the larger dock region, do they collaborate to come up with standards and best practices that serve all the people in that area?

 

Adelina Cristovao

We try, but I think we could collaborate more. There are networks like localization roundtables, for example. Sometimes localization is very close related to business models or to business strategy. Sometimes a little difficult to go deep into sharing of knowledge to create this kind of alignment. But there is a big community of localization managers and localization experts that try to learn from each other.

 

Traditionally localization has been performed, as you said, by a localization team and there was a certain way of doing things. But technology these days presents so many new opportunities. I mean, AI is used for machine translation, also used for transcreation to some degree and soon it will be used for generating content.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

How is that adoption in the German market? Is it still a conservative traditional model where they rely on human powered localization or there are innovation happening that you see which the rest of the world has not seen yet?

 

Adelina Cristovao

I would say no, unfortunately. I think the traditional model is still the typical one, so to speak. Innovation is coming from outside. So, the linguists and the translators are a little bit resistant, less now, but they were resistant to new technologies like MT and AI. Anything that would give them the impression that the quality would be reduced because they did not invest too much in the output. So that is one thing that blocked or created a bit of attrition in the adoption of these new things, but also companies are a bit more on the conservative side and to sell a solution that is like machine translation based or AI based does not get you so much trust in your service as when you say all done by humans, translated by humans, reviewed by humans, proofread by humans, all humans.

 

So as soon as you introduce like a more automated step, mistrust happens and it needs then to be counter argued why this is not causing a worse output and what benefits it can have, especially if the content is of a high scale. So, I would say the German enterprises could take things a little bit further in terms of automation and the use of technology to meet the client’s needs. And this is a challenge that presents to language service providers here in Germany. There is some adjustment needed and it depends if a bigger company with more people and not owner managed. This innovation comes quicker if its owner managed and this owner has the company, let us say for 20, 30 years, it will be a little bit more difficult to open to this challenge.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

As we reach the closing or the end of this conversation, Adelina, I would like to ask you about what kind of message or advice would you offer to localization managers and German enterprises? We have quite a few listeners from there. How can they do their work better?

 

Adelina Cristovao

What I would suggest or what I do in my own work and that I feel has helped me move forward is to stay creative and to stay flexible and to never use same solutions for different issues or even for same issues, especially if they come from a different team or from a different side of the company. It is key to always understand the use case or the business need or the business goal so and just and adjust all solutions to this. So, to completely stay fluid and liquid, like I say in SWOT and always be able to adjust to the needs of clients, either internal or external. And to understand these needs is key to do good work. So, this is what I use and what has been helpful for me to develop in my role and in my work.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

That was a fantastic conversation. I really enjoyed and learned so much, Adelina, about the enterprise localization market and how things are done in that sector in Germany. You have so much experience and knowledge. And I think you have been very gracious in sharing that with the industry today. I want to continue this conversation in the future. And with that, let me thank you for your time that you took out of your busy schedule today.

 

Adelina Cristovao

Thank you very much for having me today. It was my pleasure.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Okay, time for my roundup of the interview and my analysis as to what has been discussed. Germany is always a fascinating market, and it is not new to localization or the translation sector. In fact, over the past century, Germany has driven localization to new levels due to its unique language, culture, and geography. Given that it is such an export giant, it will always need localization for its major markets, and it seems like German enterprises will need to localize continent for new and emerging markets as well. On the import side of the equation, Germany already needs to localize content from a variety of markets and languages and that need will always be there.

 

I understood from Adelina that German enterprises still have ways to go to develop full localization maturity, which is a business requirement today more than any other time in the past. If you are thinking of working with German enterprises on the localization front, you may need to understand their unique needs and adapt your services and offerings accordingly.

 

That brings us to the end of this episode of the Translation Company Talk Podcast. I hope you found this conversation today as interesting and insightful as I did. I think it is important to cover regional markets and opportunities and I would appreciate it if you could share specific markets that we could discuss in our future episodes.

 

Do not forget to subscribe to the Translation Company Talk Podcast on Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or your platform of choice and promote this episode by sharing it on social media, giving us a like or thumbs up or adding comments.

 

Until next time!

 

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