Three Approaches to Multilingual Content Management

Using a Content Management System (CMS)

If your organization has recently implemented an enterprise content management system, chances are you now face the challenge of how to best manage your company’s multilingual content. While a number of product and service offerings are available to address multilingual content needs, content publishers should first analyze which of three primary solution categories to adopt.

Solution Category 1: No Integration

The first solution category is simply outsourcing your translation needs to a services vendor, like Lionbridge or Berlitz, without establishing any integration between the translation process and your content management system. Although up-front costs and implementation time are minimal in this scenario, buyers will face high transaction costs. “Transaction” in this case means processing files to and from the translation vendor, including extra costs for contract administration.

This approach provides limited scalability. In addition, content attributes assigned during creation are not preserved. This solution best applies to enterprise environments with minimal, rarely changing multilingual content.

Solution Elements:

• Content management solution, such as Documentum, Vignette, Interwoven, etc., or a proprietary CMS.;

• Translation services vendor.;

Advantages:

• No additional fixed costs for technology.;

• Low additional up-front costs or implementation time for globalization.Issues:;

• High-transaction costs for each translation request.;

• Manual processing of files to/from translation vendors.;

• Content relationships not preserved through translation steps.;

• Limited scalability.;

Solution Category 2: CMS + GMS + Services

A second solution category involves licensing and implementing a Globalization Management System (GMS), such as those offered by Idiom, GlobalSight, and eTranslate. In this scenario, the customer can expect lower transaction costs for content translation, due to the integration between the content management systems and the GMS. Translation vendors may also access content directly within a central repository (eliminating the need to transfer files or objects in and out of the CMS). This solution, involves high fixed costs ($100,000 +/-) and extra time for an incremental implementation cycle.

The buyer should also be aware that the authoring, editing, and workflow tools provided in the GMS may be redundant with those in content management systems, diminishing the ROI of both investments. Finally, in regulated environments such as Life Sciences and Financial Services, allowing vendors direct access to an enterprise content store may also be problematic. Given these limitations, solutions in this category are best suited to global enterprises with a) in-house translation resources or b) a content management solution that lacks adequate workflow to manage globalization-related processes.

Solution Elements:

• Content Management System.;

• Globalization Management System.;

• Translation services vendor with CMS and GMS experience, such as Lionbridge or Bowne Global.;

Advantages:

• Lower transaction costs due to CMS/GMS integration.;

• Allows translation vendors access to content repository.Issues:;

• Fixed cost and implementation cycle for additional platform.;

• May introduce parallel authoring, editing, workflow tools.;

• Direct vendor access in regulated industries.;

• Access method for some translators still requires a separate off-line solution.;

Solution Category 3: Globalized CMS + Technology-Led Services

The third approach is to utilize a content management system with embedded globalization features, and a translation services vendor with a compatible technology infrastructure already in place. Through a partnership, Documentum and Lionbridge provide an example of this type of solution (see www.lionbridge.com/documentum). Lionbridge also integrates with Interwoven, Vignette, Stellant and proprietary content management systems.

Enterprises implementing solutions in this category also enjoy lower transaction costs, due to the integration between the globalized CMS and the globalization vendor. Unlike solutions in the second category however, a consistent environment is established for authoring, editing, translating and publishing global content. This approach also minimizes up-front cost and the deployment cycle.

In fact, this solution enhances ROI of your content management investment by extending its functionality to the management of both translation and the multilingual content it creates. Another benefit of this approach is that content attributes (also called metadata, or properties) stay with the content as it moves from one language to another, and these attributes can be updated automatically by the system as each step in the process is completed. This is an ideal solution for most global enterprises with large amounts of rapidly changing, multilingual content.

Solution Elements:

• CMS with embedded globalization features.;

• Global content management expertise to implement global object model and optimize distributed workflow.;

• Translation services vendor with technology-driven services, such as Lionbridge.Issues:;

• Requires a translation services vendor able to integrate with CMS and maintain content metadata such as attributes and taxonomies.;

Advantages:

• Lower transaction costs for content translation.;

• Single environment for authoring, editing, managing and publishing content for all languages.;

• Lower up-front cost, with minimal or no incremental deployment cycle.;

• Enhances ROI for CMS investment.;

For organizations implementing global content management, Lionbridge delivers solutions across all three categories described above.

Global content management increasingly requires sophisticated implementations of technology and services to optimize quality, speed, and cost. Lionbridge people, processes and technology seamlessly integrate with popular content management and development platforms, allowing corporations to leverage existing systems for globalization functions while externalizing translation process management. No additional platforms, licensing fees or build-outs. Just simple, straightforward, global product and content management. .......................................................................................................................................................................................

Lionbridge is a customer-driven services organization that optimizes people, processes and technology to enable worldwide deployment of products and content. Lionbridge helps clients reduce cost, speed time to market and ensure the integrity of global brands. Our translation, testing, and other technology-led services leverage industry experts in IT, Life Sciences, Financial Services, Telecom, and Manufacturing sectors to assure the highest quality results.

Based in Waltham, Mass., Lionbridge maintains facilities in England, Ireland, The Netherland