How to Optimize Translations and Accelerate Time to Market

NEW YORK, NY, December 29, 2010

To succeed in the global business arena, companies that manufacture and distribute products must be agile, efficient and operationally adept at marketing in unique local geographies. At the center of this formidable challenge is the often complex process of translating and localizing high-quality product-related content ¨C typically under intense time pressures. Combined with an ever-expanding list of markets and languages, these multilingual projects can become overwhelming. This requires companies to treat translation as a critical path event, not merely an afterthought, in the product marketing life cycle.

As content becomes more modular, updates more frequent and processes more complex, the time and cost of translation management often exceeds the time and cost of the translation task itself. Technologies that automate and streamline job tracking, workflow, project management and content management yield greater control, lower cost and faster turn times. Of course, the optimal strategy proactively aligns and integrates people, processes and technology associated with each stage of multilingual translation projects. This white paper will guide you in leveraging the right technologies, managing human resources more effectively, improving time to market, increasing efficiency and quality, and ultimately enhancing your product¡¯s global brand identity.

Managing multilingual projects

By definition, translation projects involve multiple participants in multiple countries separated by language barriers, time differences and work cultures. Several key factors can help you better manage teams engaged in complex translation projects.

Creating ¡°localization-ready¡± documentation

Authors and designers of source content can take steps to significantly reduce the time and effort required for translation pre-processing and translation formatting. These steps, in turn, can dramatically reduce time to market.

Designers of source language documentation should recognize that their documents will ultimately support a number of languages, each of which will have different characteristics.

For most localization projects, you will select a partner outside your organization. The project might involve individual translators for each language, requiring you to complete desktop publishing functions yourself. Or you may choose to outsource full-cycle processes to one or few partners, which will result in print-and distribution-ready multilingual documentation.

By aligning the right resources, companies can improve the quality of their global efforts, control costs and accelerate time to market.

About Merrill Brink International

Merrill Brink International (www.merrillbrink.com) is a leading provider of complete translation and language solutions for global companies and law firms, with special expertise in serving the legal, financial, life sciences, software, heavy machinery and corporate markets. A proven leader with more than 30 years of experience, Merrill Brink offers a wide range of language solutions including translation, localization, desktop publishing and globalization services.

Merrill Brink is recognized in the industry for its commitment to quality and its pioneering approach of leveraging technology to reduce costs, eliminate redundant processes and accelerate translation life cycles. Merrill Brink is certified to ISO 9001:2008; ISO 27001:2005 and ISO 13485:2003, and registered to EN 15038:2006 and ISO 14971:2007. Together, these standards provide assurance that the most stringent process and quality standards for translation are followed.

About Merrill Corporation

Founded in 1968 and headquartered in St. Paul, Minn., Merrill Corporation http://www.merrillcorp.com is a leading provider of outsourced solutions for complex business communication and information management. Merrill¡¯s services include document and data management, litigation support, language translation services, fulfillment, imaging and printing. Merrill serves the corporate, legal, financial services, insurance and real estate markets. With more than 5,000 people in over 70 domestic and 15 international locations, Merrill empowers the communications of the world¡¯s leading companies.
If you want to know more, please view http://www.merrillbrink.com/whitepaper-request.htm