In this ongoing pandemic era, 96 percent of businesses have fully or partially shifted to remote selling, a study by McKinsey & Company has shown.
According to a survey conducted on 3,000 global consumers in 10 non-Anglophone countries - countries where the majority of people don't speak English - in Europe, Asia, and South America, 75 percent of them preferred to buy products sold in their native languages. Not only this, 60 percent of them stated that they rarely or never purchase from English-only websites.
Now, what does this trend tell us about surviving in this uncertain time when businesses are either cutting back down their resources or, even worse, locking their doors forever?
Not to alarm you, but it is evident that business strategies need more focus on localization and glocalization to suit customers' requirements and create a brand identity to flourish with great Return on Investment (ROI). Companies like Netflix were able to increase their revenue by nearly 50 percent following the glocalization strategy. Undoubtedly, that makes the role of language operations crystal clear, as if it wasn't for language operations being adopted by global brands today, they wouldn't have been able to expand their reach and achieve the desired level of business growth.
Wondering about what are Language Operations?
Communication is not just about describing oneself and putting thoughts out anymore. We live in a multicultural world where people from the far east to the west are progressing and making their way to fulfill their dreams. The only thing that helps them to take this adventurous journey is through the mechanism of Language Operations.
Language operations are a mechanism that helps you to reach wider audiences of different dialects and languages through translation, dubbing, subtitling, voice-over, closed-captioning videos, and the like. It includes everything that needs communication and a thorough understanding of one's prospects and delivering the same to an audience that speaks a different language than yours without losing the essence and meaning of what was said originally. Localization and glocalization of content produced to serve the interest of users worldwide highly depend on adequate language operations.
To better understand how translation can be manipulated and portray a picture different than what was said originally, Turkish national broadcaster TRT featured an article vividly describing the role of translation in serving ideology in international relations. It brought to the picture how translation can mold politics, breaking the belief that translation is all about converting a message from one language to another. How profusely spellbinding is that?
Speaking of the United States alone, 35 million U.S. citizens, which correspond to 15 percent of its adult population, speak languages other than English.
A study on the impact of translation and communication has pointed out that though the rate of English-speaking users worldwide was steady at 468 percent between 2000 and 2013, it was greatly dominated by non-English speakers, constituting Chinese at 1,910 percent, Spanish at 1,123 percent, Arabic at 5,296 percent and Russian at 2,721 percent.
The same study pointed out that Europe at 48.75 percent and North America at 35.77 percent are the largest markets in the world today, and there isn't a need to mention that a vast majority of it speaks languages other than English.
Not only this, according to WHO, 5 percent of the world population, which corresponds to 430 million people, have issues with hearing. Keeping that in mind, if it wasn't for closed-captioning and subtitling video content, there is no way for your content to reach those people. A study has shown that transcription and closed captioning videos can increase views by over 40 percent.
For healthy growth, reputation in the market, and most importantly, creating a fanbase, we need to take care of our audiences in the best possible way, in the best possible light.
Your key to success lies in the successful implementation of language operations!
Beyond doubt, if anything that has connected the world today and help expand companies such as Netflix that rapidly grew after implementing dubbing as its localization strategy, it shows that the mechanism of language operations is the key to success.
Ollang Media Technologies focuses on giving unbiased and precise language operations services. Documentation to translating content produced for multimedia channels and multicultural audiences, Ollang has successfully helped businesses and individuals grow and get ROI well within time. We understand how the pace is changing and forcing people to come out of their comforts in the pandemic hit world, and that is what we are here for, to make your journey less cumbersome and more productive.