The world is becoming a smaller business place, so finding the right strategy to localize your content for international markets and maintaining a close relationship with your brands has become increasingly important. Whether to work with a localization agency or build an in-house team always arises when you can expand your business internationally. Which option should you choose? Pros and cons to consider when creating an in-house localization team:
Should you work with a localization agency or have an in-house localization team? In this article, we will look at each option’s pros and cons, challenges, and crucial questions that you should keep in mind to help you make the right choice for your business. By the end of this post, you will better understand which way suits you best based on your company’s unique needs and circumstances.
The Case for In-House Localization Teams
The first is that our in-house translators know our company culture the best. They are surrounded by English-speaking people daily and pick up the latest buzzwords and expressions during their workday. They can reflect our company’s language and mood in our translated content, without doubt helping to make the translated version more authentic. Faster turnaround time and better internal communication are the second advantage of having an in-house localization team. Our in-house translators are closely linked to our other departments. They can collect feedback from the marketing, PR, or customer service team more quickly than outsourcing translators and solve problems with their colleagues. This setup is instrumental when we need to localize complex or technical content since we need our translators to have technical knowledge.
Lastly, having an in-house team gives us more control over the localization process. It also helps maintain a consistent tone and style across all our materials and suits our need for handling confidential information; all the contents in and out of the company stay within us. Setting up an in-house localization team can be an expensive initial investment. Still, it is often a cost-effective approach for the company in the long term, especially when the company has constant localization needs.
Advantages of Working with Localization Agencies
So, we have decided to work with a localization agency in London. A localization agency is a real-time partner for our translation and localization efforts. We don’t need to worry about finding a professional linguist for every language because most agencies have a pool of freelance native professional linguists. This means that we can expose our content to native linguists from all around the globe and get it culturally adapted to each local market. They also specialize in all language services, such as transcription, audio localization, and subtitling (captions). They have an extensive global network of freelance professional linguists connected to their offices. This helps us beat the time zone challenges and scale our localization efforts more effectively. Localization agencies have advanced translation tools and automation. This reduces the TAT (Time-to-translate) and cuts down costs. They usually have strict quality control mechanisms for every text at every stage of the localization process before delivering it to the end customer. When we’re running against the clock to enter new markets, they can manage our projects effectively by using their global resources and help us adhere to our tight deadlines for product releases. In a nutshell, a localization agency is a real-time partner for our translation and localization needs. They convert our workflow into a streamlined process, providing us with every language service under one roof.
Challenges and Considerations for Both Options
We’ve learned that in-house teams and localization agencies come with their own challenges. A common issue is tight time to market, which is, or should be, an essential factor in any business. Global content creation can be bumpy due to the right team selection and linguistic scope. Writing with localization in mind from the start saves time and improves accuracy. Another issue is dealing with complex workflows involving many contributors and stakeholders. Visualizing and reporting on each production stage in real-time can help to detect bottlenecks and address inefficiencies. If existing project management tools do not allow us to balance time and quality, then more specialized translation management systems might be a good idea. Globalization is not the solution for faster and cheaper content production. Do not expect professionally localized content to take less time or effort than your original content.
Conclusion: Making the Right Choice for Your Business
Suppose you’re deciding between a localization agency and an in-house team. In that case, you’re going to have a significant influence on whether your company can be effective and understood around the world and how far your company reaches. There are pros and cons to working with an in-house team versus a localization agency. I’ll go into those in a moment, but ultimately, think about what you need for your business, how much you have to spend, and where you want to be in a year, two years, five years from now to make the right decision.
In summary, there is no perfect fit for everyone. Companies may need a mixed solution with in-house staff running localization for some content and languages and using agency support for others. Finally, as your company develops and transforms, your localization needs will too. Localization is a live issue that should be reviewed continuously to ensure it aligns with your company’s internationalization and generates the correct output for your business.
