tekom-Jahrestagung 2012 - ActiveDoc

Sprachtechnologie / Language Technology
Finally, in large enterprises globalization BI often is not just the provenance
of localization departments, but is of use in other parts of the
business such as marketing, support, sales, etc.
This divides business intelligence in the context of localization into two
very different situations: one in which the full information can be obtained
from within a workflow solution, and one in which a larger-scale
solution, most likely a dedicated BI product, is necessary to provide
visualization of fully value-added content.
Whether or not BI components of TMS applications will ever be powerful
enough to reach into other large-scale corporate database solutions
may be a moot point. The most likely scenario, in the short term at least,
is that TMS applications may become more refined at providing data to
larger-scale, corporation-wide systems. At that juncture, the contentious
issue will more likely be whether or not localization personnel will be
able to obtain access to the output of such systems.
Indeed, it seems as if a seachange is afoot in the industry. The growth
of web analytics technologies in recent years, combined with greater
emphasis on social media marketing, has introduced a new element of
measurability into the BI mix. The value of localization that in earlier
years was relegated mostly to the realm of subjectivity and primarily
anecdotal opinion, can now be measured with much greater objectivity
in certain spheres of endeavour.
Interviews with localization service providers have revealed insights
into emerging service models. There is a growing genre of service offerings
that might be acronymed as BIaaS, “Business Intelligence as a
Service,” within the context of localization. Given that it is now relatively
easy to monitor Web pages and other online chatter such as tweets and
forum commentary for locale origin, the effects of localization on customer
cohorts can be much more accurately quantified. But because
localization of Web sites and related content tends to fall more within
the sphere of influence of Marketing departments, service providers are
seeing a shift in buying power away from traditionally organized localization
entities and into Marketing.
Whereas providers of commodity translation services in past years
became used to being stonewalled by traditional localization service
buyers who were infrequently understood or even given focus by C-
level enterprise managers, Marketing departments, which typically have
much more visibility with C-level management, are becoming a more
viable entry point for service providers, especially those who can also
offer accompanying BI services.
If we look into the brave new world of localization BI services, we may
see evolution of the analytical power to include the application of natural
language processing to evaluate details such as the “between the
lines” tone of commentary that is entered in online forums. When this
becomes reality – and it is a matter of when, not if – it may finally become
possible to extend evaluation from cause-and-effect scenarios
such as “does localization in language X result in more sales to that locale”
to real-time evaluations of quality as reported by users of localized
solutions when they post commentary on forums that may be scattered
throughout cyberspace.
tekom-Jahrestagung 2012
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