S04E12: Enterprise Localization Audit

Intro

Hello and welcome to the Translation Company Talk, a weekly podcast show focusing on translation services and the language industry. The Translation Company Talk covers topics of interest for professionals engaged in the business of translation, localization, transcription, interpreting, and language technology. The Translation Company Talk is sponsored by Hybrid Lynx. Your host is Sultan Ghaznawi with today’s episode.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Translation Company Talk podcast. Today I am excited to be speaking with a distinguished colleague from our industry to talk about enterprise localization audits. It should give you an idea about where your organization stands when it comes to localization maturity and implementation. My guest today is Teresa Toronto. She is a localization manager at Malt.

 

Teresa is a localization manager with more than 11 years of experience in the field of translation. She has a wide scope of experience in all of her roles, including translator, localization specialist for a specific market, localization project manager, and localization lead for Europe and the Middle East. Over the years, she has worked in setups with in-house linguists, LSPs, and freelancers with flows that went from very mature with more than 35 languages to new flows with only 5 languages. She has touched many types of content, but always with a focus on SaaS, first with Klook and then with Peakon and Workday. She loves languages and cultures and has lived in the United States, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Denmark, and the Netherlands, though she is originally from Seville in Spain.

 

Teresa, I’m pleased to have you on this podcast. Welcome.

 

Teresa Toronjo

Thank you. The pleasure is all mine.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

I’m so happy we finally made it. We’ve been talking about having this conversation for a first time. Why don’t you give them a quick introduction about yourself and what you do?

 

Teresa Toronjo

Yes. So, as I say, the pleasure is all mine, especially, well, the Translation Company Talk. I’ve listened to a lot of your episodes, so I’m so happy to be part of one of them, especially so soon after International Translation Day, which was the 30th of September. So, a bit about myself. I’m originally from Spain. I have lived in many countries, but I’m actually joining this interview from The Hague in the Netherlands. I love languages and cultures, and I started in the field, well, in the language field a long time ago, because I actually studied translation and interpreting when I was young at university, but in the localization industry seven, eight years ago. And the moment I started, I was so fascinated. I was like, this is where I want to stay. So, as of today, I’ve worked in many positions in the field of localization up until now, but now from March, I am like a one-person show at Malt. I’m actually working with the product localization in the company.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Let’s actually talk about that. Let me hear your story about how you found yourself in the world of localization. I know you’re fascinated by it, and you’re constantly talking about it, but what drove you into this field?

 

Teresa Toronjo

So, I think, so like I said, I studied translation and interpreting, and immediately, part of those studies is the cultural part of the language that you study, and I think that’s where I found myself. And then I moved to Italy. I’ve already moved to other countries, and I moved to Italy, and I did legal translation masters. And there, you know, legal translation, how it is, depending on the country, is completely different. So, like, it really hit me how much, how many differences there are. But then I was working for a language school, and I thought, okay, well, I can wait to go back more into the translation and localization. And I was like, okay, well, I’m going to go back to the translation and localization and interpreting. And I was like, okay, well, I can wait to go back more into the translation and industry.

 

Then I moved to the Netherlands, and it sort of happened by chance. I was really applying to a lot of jobs specifically related to translation. And there was a job opening for localization, so for Spanish specialists in the field of localization. And I applied because I thought, wow, this is, there are a lot of things that I don’t know about this, but there are a lot of things that I know, and I would like to learn more. So, this is something that I find really interesting. I was hired, and I was super lucky because my manager, Martina Pankot, who you might have heard of, so quite known in the industry, she really invested in my growth. So, I went from specialist for the Spanish language to team lead for Europe, and then team lead for Southeast Asia. And that was, of course, imagine, right? It was amazing.

 

And then I also work in terms of project management at Klook, but also with Workday and Peakon specifically. And now, really making all those decisions at Malt. And so, like I said, I was very fascinated from the start, but the more I get to know, it’s like this is localization, it’s like this field where every day there are new things, and you learn new things. And it’s just this mix of culture, data, languages, technology. So, yeah, that’s how basically a bit by chance, but also because I was immediately passionate about it. But yeah, that’s my story.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Now, I’m fascinated. I would like you to describe this experience in the industry. You’ve been through several enterprises. I want to know what events or changes really stood out to you. You know, it’s evolving. As you said, this industry is evolving so fast with so many things technology related and even people’s related. Right now, the economy is playing a role. We are seeing layoffs and so forth. What has actually stood out to you?

 

Teresa Toronjo

Well, I think a lot, starting from the fact that when I started in the industry, localization was a new concept for me. But it was a new concept for a lot of people. So it was very fluid. It was like this thing that could mean so many different things. And in the last few years, I’ve seen that this conversation becomes more and more detailed and more and more descriptive. And companies are realizing all of a sudden that they it’s not that they need localization to go global because they can go global, but they need localization if they want to do it the right way.

 

So if they really want to do it the right way, then they need localization and they want to resonate with their audience and if they really want to be able to scale that effort um do it in a smart way basically, so because of that I think there are uh and i think it’s funny because I think your last episode of the Localization Company Talk was actually about the careers in the localization industry and that’s one of the things that I’ve seen that has become more defined over the past years that there are much more clearer paths in which you can go so you can specialize yourself in quality or you can specialize yourself in engineering you can specialize yourself in team language management or even in internationalization right so that’s something that had really stood out to me because from this very like i say fluid concept it seems that it’s becoming stronger or more defined and of course ai right that’s like everyone’s talking about it now absolutely um so let’s see in uh in a year or two what we say about that

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Teresa I know you’re an expert in this area and that’s why I invited you to come here today to speak about localization audit and an enterprise basically to do a full pulse check if you call it or um you know an end-to-end review of how you’re conducting localization but let me hear from you at a high level what is a localization audit and how do you define it.

 

Teresa Toronjo

Yeah, so I think that’s a good question because very often we start solving a problem without really understanding what we want to solve right I think it’s good that we start by framing what this is about um you are going to hear the word audit a lot in connection to money um but a localization audit is that and then and then some more um it’s getting the lay of the land really understanding uh it can be when you join a company but it can also be um when you’ve been in a company for some time you do an audit um and you try to understand at what level at what stage is the localization effort in my company and it helps you understand what has already been done what is being done today and what is working and what it’s not and it helps you see what is not being done and could be done in the future.

 

But I think ultimately it’s really also a tool to aligning the effort and the direction in which you want your localization strategy to go because um I think very often localization is very reactive, so we don’t think that conducting an audit actually conducting that audit can give you all the different tools that you have at your disposal to say okay how can I make a real impact in my company based on the direction in which they want to go.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Teresa, enterprises as you know are continuing to reap the benefits of localization and this business function has gone mainstream in the past decade or so I would say 10 years maybe 12 years tell me where in the localization phase that this audit fits in?

 

Teresa Toronjo

So, I think um let’s start from the localization phase because um let’s say that you have a lot of business functions and the fact that there is always localization going on almost every company in one way or another. And in many cases, it was not planned. They just started the company and all of a sudden they were like, wait a minute, English is just not enough or British English is not okay. We need American English or any other localization strategy. If a company is asking for or is accepting to have an audit being conducted, then it normally means that either they know or they’ve been convinced that they need an expert to look into it. And I guess that translates into, they know localization is important and otherwise they would not be spending their resources on this.

 

So when you’re conducting an audit for a company, it means that at least they are at a stage in which they know of the existence of localization and they know that it’s important for their business. So it’s not at a very early stage of maturity model, but it’s more, I guess, I would say midway. On the other hand, it can be that this is a company that has been doing localization for a long, long, long time. They’re still asking for an audit because they think, okay, well now we really want to see, of course, our efforts will not align in every single aspect of localization. Maybe we are doing very well in terms of quality and we are doing very badly in terms of automation. So I would say that when the audit takes place, that means there is at least some maturity in the company, but there is no right or wrong moment to do it. I would say that. I would say the sooner the better, but it’s never too late to do it.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

When we’re talking about the audit, Teresa, what are the key components of a localization audit? What do we have to start with?

 

Teresa Toronjo

So, of course, there is no one size fits all. But if I had to say, look, like there is a list of what you should look into, I would say budget and expenses and any data available connected to the return on investment that you can get your hands on. The number of languages that you work with, number of markets in which you operate, the volume of the content that you work with and how that has changed over time, the type of content that you work with officially and unofficially. And I’m saying this because officially I’m product, but I also do a bit of marketing, a bit of legal at Malt. So you need to take into account really the reality of the content that you’re getting in. Localization processes and workflows with a specific focus also on automation. So how much you are doing. Internationalization. So how well those efforts are coming along and how localization ready your content is in terms of internationalization, quality assurance, tooling, stakeholders, communication and visibility of localization and expenses and data and the current localization roadmap and how it is connected to the company objectives as of today when you start your audit.

 

This is a very big list. I guess we could say anything, everything. And most of all, I think it’s important to say that, you know, that you’re not going to be able to do anything, you know, most importantly to me, nothing. What do I mean by that? When you start the audit and you draw a blank, so there’s nothing in your company that’s being done in that specific area, that is super important as a localization specialist that is telling you what’s not being done and where you can bring more value or maybe more quick wins. And as a company, it could mean that you need a localization specialist or an audit, another audit to be conducted in the future again, to keep track of that. Or if you have a team, and you have localization experts, it might be telling you your efforts are being placed in the wrong area of localization or not evenly spread.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Teresa, explain to me who is responsible for conducting this audit and who they should be reporting to in terms of a structure.

 

Teresa Toronjo

So I guess ideally, or ideally that’s what they say, an audit should be outsourced. The reason is that someone looking from the outside might, you know, have a more unbiased opinion on how you’re doing. And that’s why they might be more likely to do things and also might have specific expertise on how to best conduct the audit and the tools to do it. However, I think that of course there is value on knowing the people that you work with, the pinpoints of your company, the communication style of your company and the culture. So I would say, of course it can be outsourced. Of course it can be in-house. If it’s in-house in that sense, if I have to recommend something, I would say give the task to the newest hire on your localization team. If you have someone that’s just joining, maybe that’s the perfect onboarding exercise. Why? Because they come with, I guess, fresh eyes, but also it’s a bit like outsourcing it because they have not yet been biased. So that would be like the perfect, I guess, the perfect mix.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Before an audit is conducted, how do you define the objectives of this analysis in the context of the enterprise or the corporate objectives as a whole?

 

Teresa Toronjo

So I think first off, it’s important to understand that the efforts today before you start the audit are connected to the objectives of the company, if they are or if they’re not. The results of your audit are going to vary depending on a lot of things. And of course, like I said before, there is no one size fits all. It’s gonna depend on the number of languages, number of markets, et cetera. But if I had to give a tip, I would say don’t decide on the outcome of your audit before you start. It will be the audit that is going to tell you what actions from localization will contribute, what you will contribute to steer the company in the direction in which it wants to go. So don’t think too much. Of course, you have to analyze it to do your audit, but don’t let that condition, the direction in which you’re going to take your audit. Just really open the gates and let everything flow in. It’s gonna be a bit overwhelming, but it doesn’t matter. Just if you really need, I gave a list a few minutes ago, take that list of all the aspects that you should take into account and make sure that you go one by one and that you’re looking at them, like I said before, the number of markets, the volume of the content, the tooling, et cetera, and that you check all those boxes, but without pre-deciding before you start, oh, this is what my results should look like.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

So we talked about the objectives and end results and what should they look like, but is it a report? What does it tell you? What does it actually describe?

 

Teresa Toronjo

So in my case, it ended with this very long, very long report with all the conclusions to which I’d come. And that was the easy part. The easy part in the sense that it is very easy to open the doors and just let everything come in. The difficult part is sorting through everything that you’ve collected and actually identifying what is relevant and what is not. It was like the tough part, basically. And I would say that report, don’t share it with anyone. Why? Because it’s gonna be very specific. And you are the expert and you’re going to understand it, but your stakeholders will not because they are not localization experts in many cases.

 

So in my case, once I had that audit, it basically ended up being two different decks. So one presentation was for higher management and it had the high level and it was aligned to the objectives of the company. And then I had another presentation and that was gonna be for the teams that I was gonna be working with. And it explained how the changes that were about to happen, and it explained how the changes that were about to happen, and it explained how the changes that were about to happen, and it explained how the changes that were about to happen, would address their issues and concerns. And the difference here is the first presentation says, I know where the company is headed and I know how to leverage localization to contribute and achieve the objectives of the company.

 

And the second presentation is saying, I hear you stakeholders and teammates, I know your pain points. And this is why these are the actions that we’re gonna take over the next month or over the next year. So basically I would say your audit is gonna be very long. It’s gonna be very detailed. Very localization centered. Use it as a tool to create smaller presentations or smaller bits of information and tailor it depending on who you’re gonna be talking with.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Is there a standard or a framework that you’re aware of for conducting a localization audit at an enterprise level?

 

Teresa Toronjo

My first answer would be, I wish. Because I had to do a lot of research. So I don’t think there is in that, of course I could be wrong. I can tell you that when I started my career, when I started my audit, I couldn’t find any. And I did a lot of research, of course, to try to find as much help as possible before starting. So what I can tell you is there are a lot of pieces of different directions which an audit can go. So some about quality, some about engineering and different websites and different pages in LinkedIn, of course, as well. So I would say no, but I did use AI to help me with the convergence part of my audit. So once I had diverged and let everything in, I then took all that information and I use AI to help me identify, things that were legs or repetitions in my audit, simplify the content to find action points, et cetera.

 

So that was very useful. And another thing that was very useful for me to conduct this audit, is for those who know me, they know I have a notebook and I write everything localization related in that notebook. And that includes everything I learned from in my different roles, but it also includes everything I researched when I did my interviews for companies. So of course, I’ve done more interviews for more companies, even for example, video gaming companies, right? And everything I researched, I put in the same place and it’s in that notebook. So I use that notebook with all that information that I’ve collected over the years to help me conduct this audit as well.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

As a follow-up, Teresa, when you’re doing an audit like this, I’m sure you’re looking at the content, you’re looking at the different sources of content, where they’re coming from. You mentioned engineering, marketing, and so forth. But do you also look at the content shelf life, for example, or the size of the content? Because as you probably heard from my colleague Adelina Cristovao, she is an expert in agility and localization. And she has talked in great detail about that. How do you account for those type of things in your audit?

 

Teresa Toronjo

So, I think you’ve touched a nerve there. I think it’s the case for many companies. And I think specifically when you work with product, which is also what Adelina was mentioning, that product is really, or needs to be very agile, because a lot of very small pieces of content are released continuously. So that is a big challenge, right? It’s a big challenge, because that means that you have to write collaboration, but also it means that you have to have the right content, the right context, the right workflows. So when I was doing the audit, that came up as one of the big pain points in that we are not slow, because we work with freelancers that are continuously looking at our content and doing continuous translation. But we work with very little content in the sense that it’s only product, which means that we can do that, right?

 

We are not going to come up tomorrow to these translators and say, oh, we have a thousand words to translate by. So we have to do it in like three hours. So because that’s never the case, it’s always tiny bits of content and they work with other clients. So one of the things that came up that was a big pain point related to that was freelancers, they go on holidays, right? Of course. So sometimes it can be a few weeks, three, four weeks even. And that means that when you need your content to be translated very, let’s say… Quickly. Yeah, very quickly. It becomes difficult. So that was one of the things that came up during the audit. Definitely was one of the pain points that the product managers brought up. And unfortunately, the tool that we have at the moment, it’s not a TMS. It’s a sort of installation management tool, but it’s more for engineers and developers. So it doesn’t give me a really good estimate of the volume that we have. So that was another pain point. So you can see like, yeah, that brought up a lot of issues.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Let me actually get back to the audit. Yeah. So you talked about the audit as well. How do you plan for such an audit? Which groups and stakeholders should be involved in the planning, execution, results analysis and sponsorship of such an audit? I mean, you briefly talked about each one of them, but I would like you to put it together and tell me what is involved.

 

Teresa Toronjo

So I would say the most important thing is you have to make sure that you have time. Of course. And why I’m saying this, it’s because when you’re hired or when you’re already working in a company, you focus on bringing value and patching small things. So you have to make sure that in order to conduct a good audit, that you have the time and that management knows what you’re going to be doing and why you’re going to be doing that. And that they understand that it is possible that there will be other things that will be postponed until after you’re done with your audit. If you don’t do that, that might lead to the mistake when you’re joining a new company that you’re going to implement changes before you’re ready and maybe on doing that, you’re going to damage the progress that the company was making in terms of localization, but also the worst thing you’re going to damage your reputation because you come in, you change things, you make mistakes.

 

And then when the real battles come, then you’ve already lost them because people don’t trust that you can make the right decisions. So I would say that’s the first thing. The second thing is communication. So making sure that everyone knows that you’re going to be conducting an audit. And by everyone, I mean, really everyone posting it in every channel. Why? Because you’re going to be poking around a lot. You’re going to be asking a lot of questions. You’re going to be asking people to be very candid about how things work today. And you want to make sure that everything comes up. Right. So I would say the second thing is to prepare. So first, making sure that you have enough time, but also making sure that people are ready mentally open up and dump everything on you basically and be honest about it.

 

And also that they understand why they have to dedicate time to you and why they have to put on that effort of maybe you’re going to send a questionnaire that they have to fill it in and that they have to be honest. about it. Then in this case, for me, was part of the onboarding process. So my manager had already sort of communicated it to people like, hey, this person is going to arrive. She’s the first expert that we have in the field of localization. So be prepared for her question. And I myself then introduce it and I say, hey, be prepared. I’m going to ask you, you, you, you, you. And like, basically I told everyone that I was going to involve what was going to be their involvement and why I was doing it. Right. And to give you a little bit of background. So I’m going to ask you a question. And then, you know, you’re going to be the next person to come in.

 

So if you’re starting a team, you’re going to be the next person to come in. And then you’re going to be the next person to come in. And then you’re going to be the next person to come in. And then we’re going to do a little bit of a process. And I’ll give you a more concrete example of what actually looked like this audit or the effort that it took to, to conduct it. We’re talking about 40, so more than 40 individual meetings with seven different stakeholders. All the meetings had the same set of questions. Why? Because then I had to compare from a qualitative point of view and being able to compare the answers of the different people taking part. I conducted two surveys. One about the knowledge of localization and another one about the satisfaction of the localization processes. I did more than 24 hours of product onboarding where I really like use the product to the extreme in every possible edge case. I tested more than 29 flows. And at the end of the day, my very, very long audit had like more than 300 entries. So that’s what it looks like, basically.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

It sounds daunting, but I’m sure it also presents you some analytics and data about your organization that you could actually put to good use in real life situations, right?

 

Teresa Toronjo

Yeah, absolutely. I think, well, in my case, I have to say that the first thing that came up that was very, very obvious was the lack of data. And I think that’s the case in a lot of localization teams or in the localization industry in general. In many companies, there is little, maybe not data, but data transparency within other teams. Localization is like this black box where you put in requests for translations or for localization, and eventually they are ready. But nobody really knows what happens in between or what’s the effort that it really takes in order to do that properly, right?

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Putting aside the fact that every enterprise or large organization is so different from the other, Teresa, what does an audit of this nature tell you about your localization readiness, maturity, or effectiveness?

 

Teresa Toronjo

Well, in all honesty, when you… So, either whether you’re working at a company or you’re working at a company, you’re working at a company, you’re working at a company, already or whether you start, there is already some sort of some form of localization going on and it is working. So maybe it’s not the best or more efficient way to do localization, but there is something there, right? Because if they’re hiring you or if you’re conducting this audit, it means that the localization effort is there. So it tells you that, like I said, I think a bit earlier in our conversation that the company is ready to invest in localization. It tells you what you are doing and it tells you what you’re not doing and it tells you what you could be doing. It should also tell you how much it would cost you to do certain things. And then based on that, you can say, okay, well, there are these 100 things that we’re not doing, but where does the company want to go?

 

And from these 100 things, what are top priorities based on the main objectives of my company? Which means I can really invest in localization. On those 10, 5, 6, because I know they are very well aligned with the company objectives. And the other ones, it doesn’t mean you’re not going to do anything about it, but of course, the investment will be lower or non-existent for now until it doesn’t become a priority. And I think the most important thing that an audit tells you is how localization plays into the company strategy. And I think this is very important because like I mentioned before, sometimes it’s difficult to explain why localization is so important. So when you conduct an audit, it sort of becomes very clear how you bring value to the company and how those initiatives align with the main objectives of your company. And it makes it very easy for you to say, this is how we help the company and how we contribute to achieve those objectives.

 

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Sultan Ghaznawi

Shifting gears, Teresa, let’s talk about how often such an audit should be performed. Can you tell me what triggers the need for it?

 

Teresa Toronjo

So I guess in my case at Malt, I was taking over the localization role from someone that was doing a very good job, but that had no previous experience in the field. So it was really necessary just to be able to understand what was happening, get a picture and before defining a roadmap, right? And you’ve said it, it sounds daunting before, right? When I explained everything that, so when done right, an audit takes a lot of time and a lot of effort. So I’m not going to say that a company should do it every year. I think that’s too much. But I would say my advice, do a big audit to date, you have never done it. Be intentional about it. And once you have those results, you can always iterate in smaller parts. So you can say, okay, well, this year we focus on quality. So let’s do a small audit. And then at the end of the year to see how that went. Or I know I have to change my translation management tool. So let’s do a more detailed audit about that before we make the choice. And you’re going to see that this big audit is going to save you so much time because you’ve already have the basics to do any other smaller audits moving forward. So it’s really an investment.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

As a follow up to that, Teresa, I would like to ask you, how do you tie that audit or the results of such an audit to the KPIs of the people working within your localization?

 

Teresa Toronjo

So I think that’s a complex question, because KPI should change. So okay, so I think in the localization industry, they’re only or not only, but we often talk about a very specific set of OKRs and KPIs. So we normally talk about turnaround time, we talk about quality checks and pass, pass, fail, or like the score. On the quality scale, or we talk about, I don’t know, maybe the volume, like number of words per month, and things like that. And I think that when you conduct an audit like that, like this, you are going to see, okay, for example, in my case, I’m going to give you a concrete example. One of the things that came up was efficiency. So we had imagined that we had 50 translation requests per month. And out of those 50, 45% had issues. We’re talking about a lot of people who are not able to translate. We had issues like there was no context, the job was not started in our tool, a translation was missing and nobody realized, the English was changed halfway through, the English quality was bad. So we had to do forth and back before the translators could actually work on them.

 

So my, one of the KPIs that I set was to reduce the number of projects with issues from 45% to 30% by the end of the year. Why, because one of the objectives of the company was efficiency and I knew this was hindering efficiency. But another thing that came up during the auding was that we are not doing enough quality checks and we actually don’t have any quality… we are not taking any quality measures at the moment. And to me personally, that is very important, because I really care about quality. However, quality is not in our roadmap for this year for the company, which means that I have not put into place any KPIs related to quality as of today. However, that has changed for next year and that means that using my audit that I already did, the work is done. So I only have to leverage that for next year to start putting KPIs on quality and what that’s going to look like.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Teresa, let me ask you about something related to who implements this type of an audit. Do enterprises outsource such audits to an objective, non-biased and impartial analysis?

 

Teresa Toronjo

So I guess I think give me a second to think about that question, because, of course, like I said before, it should be outsourced. So ideally, it should be conducted by an external party. However, another thing that I mentioned before is that there are many companies that will perform an audit from a perspective based on their industry expertise, which means that, for example, you’re going to see a lot of companies offering audits for quality or for quality. So it’s either for efficiency of the tooling that you’re using or for the internationalization part. And it’s more about engineering. The problem that I see with that, so with outsourcing to a company that is only going to take into account a part of your localization effort, is that you really need the full picture in order to make the right choices.

 

So if there are companies out there that offer that service and that will actually look at the 100 percent 360 view of your localization, then I would say do it. It’s a really good investment. However, and you also mentioned this before, there is a bit of a bit of uncertainty. There are layoffs. People are trying, you know, companies are trying to save money. So you can also do it in-house. And there are benefits to that, too. People that know your culture, people that know that. And maybe also if it’s someone internal, people will feel more comfortable talking about the things that don’t work. And pointing out the things that are really, really painful in an honest way. Well, maybe if it’s external, people think it may be a bit more like, oh, who’s this person coming into my company to ask me questions? So like I said, ideally, yes, outsourced. Why? Because they are experts. They know what they’re doing as long as it’s 360 or you have a very specific need. Maybe you only need the one about quality. Then, of course, by all means, just go with that one. If you don’t have the money, then do it internally. There are also benefits to that. And you can always invest in that later on.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

There are organizations that don’t have localization teams or the resources to build such teams. And often such functions are outsourced within that organization to marketing, engineering, product development and so on. But they would also want to know how their efforts to perform globally stack up against their peers. Teresa, how can they use such a study to effectively channel their efforts towards their global growth?

 

Teresa Toronjo

So I think. That’s the key. That’s the question to know to unlock scalability. So every company wants to know what they could be doing to bring in more users. I would say invest in an audit if you don’t have the people internally do it. If you don’t have money to do the audit about everything, then at least check the readiness of your content in terms of localization and internationalization, because there you have one language and tomorrow you have eight. You never know, especially with small companies. You can grow so much from one year to the next. And if your content is not localization ready, then you hit a wall and you lose the train basically. So at least invest in that part. But in all honesty, I mean, I think some companies don’t realize that without localization, they don’t have access to other markets. So if you are serious about going into other markets, into providing the experience in other languages and opening, like I say, new markets, then you’re going to be able to do a lot of things. And that’s why I think it’s important to invest in that part.

 

And I think that’s the key. And I think that’s the key. And I think that’s the key. And I think that’s the key. And I think that’s the key. Because if you’re serious about going global, if you’re serious about going global, then you should have an expert in-house. And that can at least help you identify what collaborators you can work with. So for example, what language service provider is best for you? What tool is best for you? How your localization efforts and term of internationalization are doing? Who’s the best person to partner with in terms of quality assurance? If you don’t want to do it internally, that’s fine. But at least you should have one person internally that can tell you all that if you are serious about going global. Because yeah. Localization. And I think everyone I know that works in the industry would agree with this. Once, like the moment it goes wild, it’s a very difficult beast to tame. So the moment localization happens and you’re not ready for it and you patch it up, it becomes an unwieldy monster that you don’t know where to start solving the issues. Because there are so many. So you don’t want to get there. It’s not a place where you want to be.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

So from what I’m hearing, Teresa, you’re saying that you need to get the foundation right in order for it to perform better year after year and so on. But let me quickly ask you about what is the role of the end user or the beneficiaries of localization in such an audit? I should actually reframe the question and say, what is the role of the end user or the beneficiaries of the output of localization in such an audit? How are they polled and how do their thoughts factor into this analysis?

 

Teresa Toronjo

So your customers reading something that’s localized for their market, but also your staff, for example, who are selling that product and the content is localized for them. What is their role when you’re performing such an audit? So I think we need to be open and we need to understand that we have many stakeholders. And I think when we are very focused on the field of localization, especially if we have a very big localization team or fairly big localization team, we tend to ask, or localization project managers or LSP, we tend to ask or translators or in-house translators. But we really need to take a step back and say, no, we need to ask the product managers. We need to ask the marketing people in each country actually selling our product. We need to ask the engineers. We need to ask the developers and we need to ask the management. Because if we ask the people in the field of localization, we’re going to get the same answers. And that might not be the root of the problem. We need to ask the issues that are going to come up.

 

So I can give you an example. You ask the person in charge of launching a new feature and they tell you the translation being slow is an issue because they want to launch a new feature and the translations are not ready. So then they’re not ready to launch. And then you ask the localization project manager and they tell you, no, the problem is that there is poor planning. So we’re given very little time to do the translation. But then you ask the translator and the translator says, oh, no, actually, I have plenty of time. The problem is that the English, the quality of the English is very bad. So I have to ask forth and back until I really understand what the person wants to say. And then you ask the engineer and the engineer says, no, actually, the translations are in fairly in time. The problem is that the translator broke the variable when they introduced their translation, because the tool that we use doesn’t lock the variables and it doesn’t lock the code. And then you ask the designer and the designer tells you, no, no, no, no. The problem is, the translation is not accurate. The problem is that once everything is ready and we look at it in the sandbox environment, some translations are not accurate and we have to redo some of them. So this is the moment where you’re like, oh, my God, why did I even start this audit? Please, I don’t want to talk with anyone else.

 

But if you if you stop to think about it, this is good. This is what you want, right? What you want is, because it means two things. It means once people are ready to talk to you and be honest about the things that don’t work. And second, it means that you can bring a lot of value because you are identifying the issue from many different aspects and you can you can have a holistic solution to the problem. So I would say that the role of the end user is to actually be as honest as possible. And it’s your responsibility as a person conducting the audit to make sure that you talk with everyone involved in the process in one way or another, so that you get the real that you can pinpoint the real root of the issue.

 

And in this same example, say, OK, well, I have identified that the problem is that the translators take too long. So I am going to reduce the turnaround time of translations by whatever means. And then you actually reduce the turnaround time, but realize that there are the same number of instances in which the launch doesn’t happen in time. What do you realize? Well, you realize that that was not the issue. Or maybe you somewhere miscalculated it. So I guess what I’m trying to say here is the most important thing is you ask all your users and you are very honest or you ask them to be very honest about everything. And you don’t stop pulling from the thread until you really get everything out.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Many enterprises, Teresa, have to outsource localization work to vendors and each of them have their own culture process and so on. How does such an audit and consultation process work? How does it encompass their effectiveness in the context of such a study?

 

Teresa Toronjo

On a general note, I would say that often I see that where there are freelancers or LSPs involved, it’s like they are treated differently. And I don’t agree with this. So the fact that the collaboration is of a different nature does not mean that the expectation should be any different. And, you know, freelancers and LSPs and any other type of collaboration that you have, like external copywriters or, you know, external designers, they are your allies and they, you know, they are your champions. They they really care about your success and they want to make sure or you want to make sure that they are part of the picture and that you are being that you’re involving them as much as you’re involving internal stakeholders. So basically what I’m trying to say is, is there also stakeholders and you should be treating them the same way and they should be going through the same process together with you in the audit. So they should not be excluded. And they should not be treated any different.

 

Of course, that also means that in my case, I work with freelancers and I try to involve them as much as possible. But I’m not going to make differences one way or another. So if I am going to be, for example, very strict with several aspects with my internal teams, I’m also going to be very strict with the freelancers and the other way around. It’s like the client is not always right. It’s, you know, and it goes both ways. And when they are part of the audit, they should or you should try to get as much of a candid feedback about what things don’t work as you get from anyone else in your team or inside your company. Tiptoeing around. It’s not going to solve any issues.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Is there a specific method, process or framework that you found helpful in your implementation of a localization audit? You mentioned earlier that you don’t know of any standards or frameworks that exist. But was there something that you found helpful? Yeah. Was there something that you borrowed from somewhere else that you applied to your application of such an audit?

 

Teresa Toronjo

So, unfortunately, no, in the sense that, like I said, that I took a lot of pieces from different places. I did a lot of research. There were a lot of useful, small little bits of useful information. The negative part of that was that there was a lot more work for me to do, because on top of having to do an audit, I had to understand how to do it or what was the best way to do it without really having a framework to follow. So it was double the work. But I guess on the plus side, it meant that there was no bias. There was no right, not right way to do it. And I love that. I love the challenge of not having the framework and having to piece things out on my own. But I can understand how that could be a negative thing for other people. Right. And I guess another positive outcome for me is that it triggered the idea of actually doing something myself. So maybe taking that localization note book and my audit and turning into some public resource of some kind for people coming after me to do an audit and they are not in the same position in which I was, they can actually use.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

You just talked about the pros and cons of creating the structure for such an audit. As a follow up, Teresa, can you tell me what is the base structure of an audit like this, that worked for you, that you would like to share if there were a couple bullet points to say that I had to take into consideration X, Y and Z and it worked for me, so an organization that has no localization audit done ever before, someone who has no experience with localization has been assigned to this job, and if we want to help them today what should be the one, two or three things that they should check?

 

Teresa Toronjo

So I would say, like I mentioned before on my list, all the localization structure that they have at the moment. So what does that mean? What does that mean for the organization? What does the team look like? What do the processes look like? What type of effort you’re putting into your localization? What budget do you have? What volume do you have? How is that volume changing in time? Because maybe the process that you have today is working, but if you look at the volume and the growth of that volume over time, you can already predict that that’s not going to work in the future. You want to look at how much you’re spending also, for example, on your freelancers and decide whether you want to go with an LSP or not, or whether you’re working with an LSP and want to change that, maybe have someone internally.

 

So I guess really looking at what the structure of your localization looks today, maybe it’s just you, how you’re connected with the different stakeholders and how the processes that connect you to those stakeholders work, and what are the things that you can count. So what data do you have today that’s available and that can help you decide in which direction you can go, but also measure whether that was the right direction. That would be like the summary, I guess.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

The reason why I asked that question, Therese, is because I think it’s a very important question. I think it’s a very important question. Because there’s not a lot of information or education related to this topic in our industry. And I’m going to ask you, why is this topic not discussed in industry forums? I have heard that only certain consulting firms perform such audits, but there’s no reference to how enterprises should conduct their own audits.

 

Teresa Toronjo

My first answer would be fear of what’s going to come out of that. Well, if I’d known before I started, maybe I would have thought twice about it. No, but jokes aside, I think often localization is perceived as an internal service instead of a player in the strategy of a business. And I think we put the pressure on ourselves to bring value immediately and to be reactive immediately. And sometimes we just don’t have the time to stop and think, okay, I’m doing all this because this is how it’s working and this is what they are expecting of me. But based on my experience, based on my knowledge, and based on what I know, about localization, am I doing the right things? And not having that space to think about it and to actually push back or to actually consider whether what we’re doing makes sense. I think it’s what sometimes stops us from conducting an audit that can take us to a higher level in terms of strategy. There is no base material to do it.

 

So of course, it’s not like you can say, well, you know what, I’ll just grab my guidelines and I will do my audit today. So you also have to put the effort of thinking about that. And like I say, many companies are still in a very reactive, reactive stage. And maybe they think that they need to wait until they are more mature in order to for this audit to be of use to them. But that’s not the case. This audit is going to be useful no matter where you are, because it’s actually going to pinpoint where you are and why you’re there.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

So Teresa, in closing, what is your advice for localization managers and enterprises thinking about conducting a localization audit?

 

Teresa Toronjo

So I would say three things. The first one is imagine you’re standing outside a door and you consciously leave everything you’re carrying with you outside that door before conducting an audit. You will be able to come back out and pick it up later. It’s not going to go anywhere. But just consciously leave all your assumption, your biases and everything outside. What may have worked brilliantly in another company or in the same company the previous year might not work here or might not work today. The second advice would be don’t push your agenda over the company’s objectives. Really take in the objectives of the company and build them. And then you can be honest about what actions would best serve that purpose. If you’re passionate about quality, it’s a pity that that’s not an objective of the company or one of the priorities of the company. Still do something about it, but focus really on where the company wants to go and don’t push your agenda. Work as a team with the company.

 

And I guess the third thing is, and we’ve said this a couple of times during this interview, it can be overwhelming. So just breathe. And really, this is really going to give you a tool to do that. That is going to help you. This is a good investment to make. And when you think a lot is going to come out, a lot, a lot is going to come out. Just breathe in and think not everything is priority. Not everything has to be fixed and not everything is a real problem. Sometimes there are perceived problems that are not real at the end of the day. So don’t be overwhelmed and remind yourself that at the end, you’re going to come out with an audit that is going to help you make the right decisions for your team and for your company.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Absolutely. What a fascinating conversation, Teresa. I’m very pleased to have you on this podcast. There’s so much to process. And quite frankly, I learned a lot about performing localization audits and the opportunities they present. I can’t wait to speak with you again about another interesting topic soon, hopefully. With that, I want to thank you for your time and for sharing your wisdom with us today.

 

Teresa Toronjo

Likewise. It was my pleasure. And I am looking forward to meeting again and talking more localization.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Okay, it’s time for my roundup of the interview and my analysis as to what has been discussed.

 

Enterprises who dive into globalization assume that implementing the localization part of that initiative is just a matter of hiring professionals and executing the plan. As we heard from Teresa, it is important to determine where the organization stands in terms of localization maturity today to gauge the effort required for reaching the globalization objectives. The need for such an audit is extremely high in such a scenario. Teresa’s experience, combined with the knowledge that our colleague Adelina Cristovao from Wolt, shared recently, should serve as the basis for analyzing and evaluating your localization readiness. We will cover enterprise-level localization analysis, planning, implementation, and fine-tuning throughout this year, and there is a lot more wisdom and knowledge that our colleagues have committed to sharing with the community.

 

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening and for taking part in our online conversations about these topics. Your views matter, and I would highly recommend you share them with us. Suggest a topic or a guest that you would like to hear from.

 

Don’t forget to subscribe to the Translation Company Talk Podcast on Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, or your platform of choice, and give this episode a five-star rating.

 

Until next time!

 

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