Business Globalization and Localization Research and Consulting Firm, Common Sense Advisory, Releases Report for Organizations Developing Products for Global Markets

“Developing Products for Global Markets” delivers product developers, language service providers, and global organizations insight and analysis on the development of local-market editions of company offerings.

Boston, MA (PRWEB) July 14, 2006 -- Business globalization and localization research and consulting firm, Common Sense Advisory, Inc., has released its latest report analyzing the best way to adapt software products, corporate applications, and manufactured goods for international markets. The report, “Developing Products for Global Markets,” delivers product developers, language service providers, and global organizations insight and analysis on the development of local-market editions of company offerings.

“More than anything else, localization involves a commitment to offer the same quality of product or website experience for every market you choose to do business in,” said Don DePalma, president of Common Sense Advisory, Inc. and the lead analyst for the report. “Local familiarity begins with the message, proceeds through user interfaces, product manuals, online help, transactions, and customer support. In an ideal world, localization would be deliberate, step-wise, and comprehensive. But in real life, localization is something done to a moving object.”

This report benefits organizations or individuals developing or selling products or websites or dealing with localizing application code, business content, or manufactured goods for international sales. Companies doing such work themselves or outsourcing it to third parties such as language service providers will find this information valuable as they plan, execute, and evolve their global product or website offerings, both in terms of benchmarking and best practices.

Related best practices and highlights of the report include:
· Where localization fits into the engineering and development processes
· Actionable guidance on how to progress from reacting to localization, to managing it
· The “Five Phases of Localization Maturity”, a descriptive model of organizational maturity developed by Common Sense Advisory
· How the size and budget of localization teams affects the final product

A large amount of valuable research is featured in the report, including information on the processes companies go through while localizing.
· More than half of participating software companies incorporated localization into their development project.
· Most of the time, specialists work with engineers on these projects, although about 30 percent use a separate team.
· Only 10 percent of software firms utilize the least popular option: to completely outsource localization work to language service providers, specialty coding houses, or offshore developers.    

The full report is available on a subscription basis by calling +1.978.275.0500 or visiting http://www.commonsenseadvisory.com.

About Common Sense Advisory, Inc.
Common Sense Advisory, Inc. is an independent research firm committed to objective research and analysis of the business practices, services, and technology for translation and localization. The firm also provides hands-on consulting and training to global business teams. For more information, visit www.commonsenseadvisory.com. To subscribe to Common Sense Advisory’s research, contact Renato Beninatto at +1-978-275-0500.

About the Lead Analyst, Donald A. DePalma, Ph.D.
Don DePalma is the President and Chief Research Officer of Common Sense Advisory. After initiating the coverage of content management in 1996 at Forrester Research, DePalma wrote subsequent reports on CMS, where he expanded his coverage to include organizational issues, the need for integral globalization and the evolution of corporate platforms. Author of the seminal research report on globalization, “Strategies for Global Sites,” published by Forrester Research in 1998, DePalma also wrote Business Without Borders: A Strategic Guide to Global Marketing, published in 2002 by John Wiley & Sons, and has written and led a variety of research projects since Common Sense Advisory began its coverage in 2002 of the business and technology issues related to globalization.

###