Introduction

The goal of this final chapter is to present emerging trends, opportunities, and challenges that may affect the localization strategies of companies worldwide. Global e-commerce grew immensely in the past decade, and this trend is expected to accelerate. The growth of technologies such as the mobile web, machine translation, and crowdsourcing applications will further enhance global economic activity on the web. In addition, new opportunities in areas of video game localization and global social media localization have yet to be fully leveraged. For example, the social media are spreading rapidly among consumers worldwide, and their commercialization is also on the rise. Marketers now have a better understanding of how to use the social media to both reach global audiences and engage them in a targeted way.

Leveraging social media commercially allows companies to create brand communities and crowdsourcing models, gain consumer insights, enhance product and brand awareness, improve search engine optimization efforts, reduce customer acquisition and service costs, and optimize overall marketing and communication efforts (Scott, 2009; Weinberg, 2009; Stelzner, 2010). Recent social media usage data shows that there are significant differences between countries and regions in the ways that social media are used, content is created, and “crowd wisdom” is shared. Furthermore, 60 percent of the online population is now non-English-speaking; Chinese is the second most popular language used over the internet, with 407 million online users, compared to the 495 million users who speak English (internetworldstats.com).

Global website usability issues

Before addressing specific ways to assess web globalization efforts, it is important to outline some basic measures of web usability. After all, no matter what goals a website’s creators may have set for it, the website must allow consumers to interact with the site before those goals can be achieved. Web usability analysis is important for any website development effort, and should be a part of overall website assessment.

In simple terms, website usability can be defined as the ease with which users can find, understand, and use information that is displayed on the website (Keevil, 1998). A generally accepted usability definition is presented by ISO 9241: “The effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction with which specified users achieve specified goals in particular environments.” In tactical terms, web usability is a rating of how easy it is for the user to manipulate website features to accomplish desired goals, such as shopping, finding information, filling out forms, completing order forms, interacting on discussion board or forums, etc. Thus website usability measures the performance of the website in terms of its ability to engage users and allow them to accomplish specified goals.

Introduction

The optimization of international websites is the direct result of the proper management and implementation of the web globalization value chain. The required people, processes, capabilities, documents, and technologies must be managed in a way to allow the four primary activities of the web globalization value chain (see Chapter 7) to be undertaken in a collaborative and effective manner. A well-optimized international website is one that achieves the following:

1. international sites and pages are easy to find and navigate;

2. the site is easy to understand and loads quickly;

3. the site has a desirable user experience and flow;

4. Unicode is enabled to depict various languages seamlessly;

5. the site is locale-sensitive and culturally customized;

6. the site is well internationalized, allowing for adjustments to the user interface for language and locale requirements;

7. the site is well tested, in order to enhance its navigation, content, and functional quality;

8. the site achieves content synchronization, currency (i.e., it is up to date), and relevancy across multilingual websites for various countries;

9. the turnaround for deploying multilingual content is fast; and

10. multilingual search engine optimization is enabled by proper global content management.

Preface

The acceleration of globalization and the growth of emerging economies present significant opportunities for global business expansion. One of the quickest and most effective ways to tap into global markets is to leverage the web. However, there is a dearth of books, courses, and training programs that can help companies understand the dynamics of conducting global e-business. Well-trained web globalization professionals are difficult to find, reflecting, at least in part, the lack of academic offerings and specialized training in this area.

In the broadest sense, web globalization requires an interdisciplinary potpourri of skills from areas such as international business and marketing, advertising, project management, IT and e-commerce, language technology, linguistics, intercultural communications, technical writing, and even human resource management. Thus it has been difficult for universities, organizations, and professional bodies to provide the kind of comprehensive web globalization training required for tapping global e-commerce markets.

Segmentation approaches

Global e-commerce opens a world of more than 2 billion consumers worldwide, but it is challenging for companies to effectively reach a significant number of these global consumers without an appropriate market segmentation strategy. Market segmentation is the process of dividing the overall market into subsets of buyers who share similar needs and wants under certain segmentation criteria. To be viable to a marketer, these market segments have to be identifiable, reachable, and measurable, and they must be big enough to justify targeting. Market segmentation helps companies effectively target their customer base and then develop product or brand positioning that relates to the needs of that particular market segment. Segmentation also helps companies differentiate their offerings from their competitors’.

In the context of global e-commerce, market segmentation relates not only to the products and services being sold on the website but also to how the website is localized on the basis of international consumer expectations. In the first half of the chapter I explore ways of segmenting traditional markets, and in the latter half I explore strategies related to segmenting international online consumers to better position company offerings, including international websites.

Global e-commerce opportunities

Global e-commerce is about leveraging electronic networks to tap global markets, and it includes the sum of all transactions taking place in the worldwide electronic market space. Transactions between global buyers and sellers can take the form of business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), consumer-to-consumer (C2C), business-to-government (B2G), and other hybrid forms of transactions.

The market opportunity presented by global e-commerce is evident from projections that B2C sales will reach almost $1 trillion by 2012. The global B2B market is expected to be even greater than the B2C market, and B2B revenues are expected to surpass B2C revenues many times over in the coming years. Companies now can reach almost 1.9 billion online consumers worldwide via their global web presence. The online user population is expected to increase by almost 42 percent by 2014 (Wigder et al., 2010). Today, major e-commerce markets include the United States, the European Union, Japan, and China. Furthermore, there are signs that e-commerce activity and online population growth patterns now are shifting in favor of emerging economies such as China, India, Brazil, and others.

Importance of website localization

As outlined in the previous chapter, localization in a broad sense involves adapting products, services, communications, and other assets involved in customer interactions so that they meet local consumer expectations. More specifically, localization is the process of adapting products and services (e.g., websites, manuals, and software applications) in accordance with linguistic, cultural, technical, functional, and other locale-specific requirements of the target market.

Various experts now agree that the web is like an advertising or communication document that mimics society’s culture, values, and aspirations (Cyr and Trevor-Smith, 2004; Singh and Matsuo, 2004; Hermeking, 2005). Thus the web allows people to express themselves in a culturally meaningful manner, but also poses a challenge to companies, as they have to create content that their consumers find interesting and that meets their expectations.

The value chain concept

A critical part of the development, deployment, and maintenance of international websites is ensuring that web globalization is managed effectively. Previous chapters delved into concepts related to both the back-end and the front-end management of international websites. This chapter takes a look at the processes involved in integrating and managing all web globalization activities in a coherent and efficient manner.

The concept of a value chain can help companies evaluate how various web globalization processes complement and integrate with each other. The basic idea of the value chain concept, which was first introduced by well-known management guru Michael Porter (1985), is that raw material comes into the company and passes through various value-adding steps that transform it into a final product that is delivered to satisfy customer needs. Value chain analysis involves first charting then analyzing the various value-creating activities in the web globalization process. Organizations use this process to identify value-creating activities and then to prioritize them within the organizational workflow.

In Porter’s description of a value chain, the “primary activities” in the value chain include inbound logistics, production/operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sales, and services (see Figure 7.1); the “support activities” include administrative infrastructure management, human resource management, information technology, and procurement. However, in the context of web globalization, I would not classify IT as a support activity.

Web globalization challenges

As companies leverage the web to expand globally, they also experience various challenges involved in successful international e-business expansion. A number of challenges associated with the international e-environment have been outlined in the previous chapters. In this chapter the goal is to outline some challenges related to the organizational and technological capabilities required for international e-business expansion, particularly challenges related to the development of international websites. Companies that understand these challenges are more likely to have a successful web globalization effort.

When companies launch international sites for various countries, ideally they should be adapted to various country-specific requirements. To facilitate the localization of the content for multiple locales, companies need skills, knowledge, vision, and a clear sense of direction in order to steer their web globalization efforts successfully. The concept of “web globalization” addresses all company-wide issues that are involved in successfully launching and maintaining international websites and achieving international e-business expansion.