Managing Localization from End-to-End:Going Global with DITAKeith Schengili-Roberts | November 16, 2010

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Localization at AMD

• Introduction

• Who We Are and What We Do

• Understanding the Importance of Localization

• Improving our Processes

• Making Localization Work for Us

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Who We Are and What We Do

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Who am I?

Keith Schengili-Roberts• Manager for AMD’s Documentation

and Localization department for the Professional Graphics division (formerly ATI)

• Lecturer at University of Toronto’s Professional Learning Center since 1999, teaching courses on information architecture and content management (sample slide decks available from: http://www.infoarchcourse.com/)

• Author of four titles on Internet technologies; last title was “Core CSS, 2nd Edition” (2001)

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AMD Worldwide

Founded in 1969

HQ in Sunnyvale, California

Employs over 10,400 worldwide

Annual revenue of $5.4 Billion (2009)

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AMD CPG and GPG

CPG = Computation Products Group, CPU focused

GPG = Graphics Products Group, GPU focused

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End-User Documentation

My team is responsible for GPU product documentation:

End-user manuals for Radeon/FirePro products

Online help for Catalyst Control Center

Custom documentation for Dell, Fujitsu-Seimens, etc.

Some marketing materials, such as product packaging and inserts

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Engineering Documentation

We are also responsible for GPU documentation aimed at OEM/ODM partners:

• Technical Training manuals

• Other internal training materials

• Hardware-related specification documents, ASIC databooks, etc.

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Understanding the Importance of Localization

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Why is Localization Important to Us?

Localization is vital to AMD for two reasons:

• It allows us to reach out to our customers

• It enables us to do business on a global scale

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Why: Reaching Out to Customers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3r51a6_q9M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3r51a6_q9M

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Localizing the AMD Web Site

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Localizing AMD Marketing Materials

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Why: Enabling Business Across the Globe

By localizing our documentation, we can:

• Provide ODMs/OEMs with detailed technical information in their native language

• Provide end-users with language-specific GUI/documentation

• Sell products in markets that have local/regional language requirements

• Enhance brand awareness and experience

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Localization as a Requirement to Do Business

• In Canada, all boxed shelf product must be in English and French

• In Turkey, we are required to produce end-user materials only in Turkish

• Around the world our OEM partners expect end-user manuals in multiple languages in order for them to sell their product (typically 9 languages including English)

Business users on the Web are three times more likely to buy from sites in their native language and stay two times longer on sites in their own language. What’s more, a full 76% of all Web users who encounter sites not in their native language either look for a translated version or leave the site.

“Are you Really Globalizing Your Website?” by Prema Nakra (2006)

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OEM Language Requirements

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Localization Deliverables

Arabic

Chinese (Simplified)

Chinese (Traditional)

Czech

Danish

English

German

Greek

Finnish

French

Hebrew

Hungarian

Italian

Japanese

Korean

Norwegian

Polish

Portuguese (Brazilian and Iberian)

Russian

Slovenian

Spanish (Catalan and Latin-American)

Swedish

Thai

Turkish

Taken together, this enables us to have localized products for over 80 countries.

Currently, we localize to a maximum of 25 languages:

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GPG Software Localization Target Languages

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Localization for HR and Legal

Localizing internal communications allows us to reach out to our own people in their own language. Some samples:

• Our “Worldwide Standards of Business Conduct” document is localized to 7 languages

• HR forms

• Internal training materials

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Poor Translation Affects Branding

Some classic mistranslations:Chevy Nova = Spanish: “Doesn’t

go”Finger-lickin’ good = Chinese "eat

your fingers off" (not appetizing); in Iran was translated as "so good you'll eat your fingers”, which is a traditional Farsi saying/compliment

Intel Pentium IV = original Korean translation: “chip of death”

Examples derived from Time Magazine’s “And What Does it Mean in Farsi?” on localization blunders:http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,184974,00.html

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Need for Better Terminology Management

Examples closer to home (none done by our current localization vendor):

“Senior Thermal Engineer” was translated as:

“Senior Keep-Warm Engineer”“Catalyst A.I.” translated into

Russian as:

“Catalyst Intelligence Quotient”“Click OK to finish.” translated

to: “Click OK to [become] Finnish.”

The English is clear enough, but the Welsh reads:

"I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated."Keeping better track of commonly used terms (“vehicles”, “residential”) using Translation Memory might have helped.

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Improving our Process

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Improving Our Process

Our process for localization was an uphill struggle before our reforms. We had inefficiencies in our tooling, internal routing processes and in choosing localization vendors.

When rethinking our process the following factors were vital:

• Reducing cost• Reducing time to market

• Increasing our focus on QA• Decreasing time spent on administration

• Increasing content reuse• Eliminating DTP and the costs associated with it

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Initial Steps to Making Localization More Efficient

Old toolchain was costly and inefficient; we were consistently over-budget with no improvement in sight

Decision was made to go with using DITA XML within a CMS; chose Ixiasoft’s DITA CMS in 2006

Began production in February 2007; have published over 2,000 documents since that time• 46% of this is in English

• 54% is in the languages we localize to (25 maximum)

Localization process streamlined, providing more time to focus on QA than on administration or fixing formatting issues

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DITA Advantages from a Localization Perspective

Topic-based approach is doubly efficient:• Focus on self-contained meaning + minimalist approach (as

opposed to the narrative style favored under the old toolchain) leads to significantly greater opportunities for content reuse

• Smaller, more easily divisible (and consistent) “chunks” of content = better segmentation matching for localization purposes

100% reuse of original English content is multiplied by # of languages when the exact same content is localized

• Material is localized once, and thereafter does not have to be re-localized (barring any changes made)

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DITA Advantages (cont.)

No DTP means that localization vendor focuses more on content rather than formatting style

• Have observed better quality and more consistent translations from our localization vendor as a result

• Doing DTP takes time, not just for writers but for the localization vendor; turnaround time for localization has improved substantially as a result

DITA XML data lends itself well to programmatic tools• Open standard means that there is no hidden API “surprises” for

programmers

• Value-add for localization firms is in software engineering, building software tools to automate processing on top of existing translation workbench software

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DITA Reduces Localization Delivery Times

In addition to greatly-reduced costs, removing DTP from equation reduces turnaround time greatly

• In our experience, a typical 200-page doc that would have taken 3 weeks to handle using the old toolchain now takes 2 weeks or less

• Prior to using the DITA CMS, we could only hope to localize Catalyst Control Center software every 6 months; now, we can keep up with the monthly software release cycle.

Topic-sized “chunks” lend themselves to parallel processing• A team of localizers can more easily be tasked to work on batches

of discrete topics than a more typically “narrative” work would

Pro: faster turnaround time

Con: consistency problems can arise; this is where additional software tools and processes (provided by the localization vendor) can greatly help

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More Nimble Localization Processes

DITA XML allows us to be more nimble: for critical large documents, we can send the localization firm finished “parts” as we get them (“70/20/10”):

• When roughly 70% of a large document is done, we send it off for translation, which is followed a week or two later with another 20% of new and updated material, then the final 10% when the source document is completed.

• While this process does cost more than sending in a whole document at once, it reduces the turnaround time from weeks to days, and quality is much improved because it is not done in a rush.

• This approach was simply not feasible using our old toolchain; ultimately, the new toolchain is still cheaper and much faster.

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Making Localization Process More Efficient

Blue line= localization budget for quarter Red line= actual localization spend

Our annual localization budget is now 2.5 times less than the year before we started using the CMS (2006)

Content audit +Single-sourcing

“Bad Old Days”CMS ROI

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Relationship Between English and Localized Publications

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Localization Segments Auto-translated within CMS Monthly

Portion in orange is the percentage that were 100% matches, and never needed to be sent for localization

From July 2008 –July 2009 an avg. of 54% of segments were auto-translated within the system

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Making Localization Work for Us

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Searching for a Company-wide Localization VendorPrior to this year there was no coordination for localization purchases within AMD.

An internal survey of localization purchases made in 2008 found that we were dealing with over 30 individual localization firms. The following problems became immediately apparent:

Translation Memories (TMs) were not shared, so the quality of translation was highly variable.

In many cases work was obviously sub-contracted, leading to higher-than-necessary localization costs.

Processes across various regions tended to be haphazard.

Regional offices were often locked into using a single regional vendor.

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Selecting a Vendor

A team was convened containing members from Marketing, Sales, Engineering, Legal, and HR to advise on the firm’s localization requirements.

The selection process had two distinct phases:

• Request for Information (RFI): The first phase winnowed out vendors who could not meet our needs.

• Request for Purchase (RFP): The second phase further pared down the field and ranked the remaining vendors on TQCFS principles: Technology (processes, hardware/software used), Quality, Cost, Flexibility, and Service.

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Requesting Information

Gathering information is the first stage of the process. We had to determine who could suit our needs. The following steps illustrate how we got the search started:1. Contacted existing vendors that we had an ongoing relationship

with2. Questions were devised in consultation with key members of

divisions within the company to determine minimum localization requirements

3. Consulted with Common Sense Advisory group (www.commonsenseadvisory.com) at an early stage to help us vet the validity of our RFI questions

4. Included most of the “Top 10” firms (for a recent Top 25 list see: http://www.commonsenseadvisory.com/Research/All_Users/080528_QT_2008_top_25_lsps/tabid/1492/Default.aspx)

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Typical RFI Questions Asked

• What are the locations, if any, of your regional offices? (regional service)

• Are localization/translation services your firm's primary core competency? (core competencies)

• Within the last 24 months, how many Fortune 100 companies has your firm worked with? (experience, trust)

• Does your company have experience in the IT/Semiconductor/Graphics industries? (experience in domain)

• How would you rate your firm’s experience with specialized localization services for: Marketing/PR Material/Legal/Technical Publications (ability to handle all localization needs for AMD)

• For 2009, what is your year-on-year growth rate year to date? (fiscally stable? Long term client?)

• Can you provide translation services that utilize DITA, XML and XLIFF? (base DITA XML/XLIFF requirement)• Localization coming from our group comprises approx. 40% of

AMD’s needs by volume; vendor must have DITA XML capabilities

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Some Reasons for Disqualifying Candidate Firms• Missing key language requirements

• Revenues were too small (small firm), or were declining (viability called into question)

• Failing to meet threshold for number of years of expertise in computer hardware domain

• Did not have sufficient regional representation

• Could not meet needs for marketing/PR material localization

• Listed localization as not being their core competency

• Could not handle DITA/XLIFF

• out of 29 companies that responded, 3 said that they could not handle this requirement

• While 10% non-compliance is still significant, on the whole this underscores the widespread ability of most major localization firms to handle DITA-based content (this was certainly not the case even a few years ago)

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Request For Proposal

The RFP phase focused on the top 11-rated respondents. They were given a much more in-depth questionnaire, with responses held under an NDA to encourage sharing of information.

Candidate firms were also given sample documents to translate from several different divisions (engineering, marketing, HR, sales, legal) which were graded by native speakers from those backgrounds within the company.

Questions were separated into four major categories, all examining breadth and depth of expertise:

Probed the depth of their services

Examined their localization processes

Teamwork and localization personnel

Pricing structures for various localization services

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Sample RFP Questions

• Does your firm provide terminology management services? (depth of service; also important to co-ordinate localization processing)

• Do you have an in-house engineering team dedicated to setting up/automating processes for handling new file formats? (critical to knowing how flexible they would be in handling DITA XML content, and any other doc types we might send their way)

• How long does it typically take to localize a 250-page document into Simplified Chinese, assuming no translation memory? (response provides base level of how fast a large job could be tackled; also of credibility of response)

• What is the average employment duration of translators in your company? (localization firm with low turnover level equals more consistent translations)

• Please describe the training process to maintain / improve the skill levels of your translators. (want to see evidence of continuous improvement of quality)

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Responses Rated on TQCFS

Responses were slotted into TQCFS categories (Technology, Quality, Cost, Flexibility and Service) and then graded on a 7-point scale by the members of the localization team.

Some of the key factors that helped us select a final vendor included:

• Application of up-to-date technologies to support translators’ workbench

• Experience with next generation translation processes and techniques

• Applied solution for client notification

• Team’s skills, experience and personality profile match with needs

• Scope and quality of the QA processes in place

• Response time to inquiries

• Team motivated and willing to go the extra mile

• Local representation in key countries

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RFP Scorecard

• Scores were weighted. Overall quality was rated the highest, followed by cost, services, and flexibility.

• We started negotiations with the top 3 firms.

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Conclusion of Process

Keep in mind that the vendor selected best meets AMD’s needs; our requirements are not necessarily yours

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Future Needs

Our current plan is to move all of our engineering documentation into our tool chain for the following reasons:

• The more efficient our process gets, the lower our localization costs become, which means it becomes financially feasible to localize materials that were previously not localized.

• As processes become more efficient, it becomes possible to consider adding additional languages within the existing localization budget.

Working to improve the quality of existing toolchain further:

• Asked Ixiasoft to work with XTM International to integrate the latter’s XML-based Translation Management System (TMS) with the former’s DITA CMS

• Internal rollout expected this quarter; designed to improve localization workflow and greatly increase segment matching done within the system, further reducing the wordcount to be sent out for localization

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A Good Working Relationship Goes Both Ways

Ideally, you and your localization vendor should forge a long-term relationship:

• Actively work with your localization vendor to provide them with information that enables them to do a better job localizing your materials.

• Provide updates to your localization vendor when you plan on implementing programmatic changes to DITA XML content (such as any specializations) so there are no surprises for anyone.

• Emphasize that you value (and will pay for) nimbleness; this encourages process innovation on both sides!

Using DITA XML has allowed us to progress this far; much of what is discussed in this presentation would be very different if we remained on the old tool chain. We would not be able to take full advantage of opportunities that our localization vendor provides for us.

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Questions & Answers