VideoAssumptions can prove costly. Just ask managers at Panasonic.
Adam Lincoln, executive editor at CFO Asia, contributes regularly to eCFO.
The Goulash Archipelago
In the bad old days of the Iron Curtain, workers in Hungary's IT industry imitated Russian code, pirated software from the West, and toiled to translate technical manuals. Even securing a phone line called for the patience of a saint. Tamas Nikolits, technical director of Budapest-based GamaxNet, a network equipment reseller, remembers: "Not long ago, you had to wait 10 years for a phone line."
Things have changed. "Now they ask, 'How many lines?' " says Nikolits. The vastly improved, privatized phone service has ramped up Internet use. According to Carnation Internet Consulting, an ebusiness advisory firm, about 1 in 10 Hungarians uses the Net regularly. Carnation expects B2C ecommerce turnover (not counting financial services) to double by 2002, with B2B revenue growing at 75 percent annually.
Still, ecommerce companies are hardly rushing to launch Hungarian versions of their corporate Web sites. For one thing, there are only 10 million inhabitants in the entire country. Traffic jams in Manila have more people.
Beyond that, the Hungarian language presents localization experts with serious obstacles. The language is derived from the Altaistic peoples of Inner Asia, whose linguistic legacy can still be seen in a few countries stretching across Europe and Asia (this connection explains why Hungarian is related to both Finnish and Japanese). The Magyars' language has also been colored by generations of occupation by foreign overlords, including Attila the Hun (hence, Hungarian).
Given this peculiar lineage, it's no surprise that Hungary poses a real challenge to hundreds of millions of Teutonic- and Romance-language speakers on the Continent. Even native speakers admit that Hungarian is a tough nut to crack. Says Peter Surjan, localization manager at Gamax (www.gamax.hu) (which owns a share in GamaxNet), a translation and localization services company in Budapest: "Sometimes, it's easier to read a document in English than a bad Hungarian translation."
Eric Forssberg knows all about it. The CEO at CargoNow.com (www.cargonow.com), a Gothenburg, Sweden-based emarketplace for transportation and logistics, Forssberg headed the recent launch of a Hungarian-language version of the company's Web site. All told, CargoNow.com has been translated into eight languages for 25 markets, and can be accessed by users globally.
But why Hungarian, ahead of, say, French? Even neighboring Poland has some 40 million people. Forssberg points out that the CargoNow.com business model relies on partnerships with local corporates that know the lay of the land. He says that when he was introduced to executives at CeWeb (www.ceweb.hu), a well-connected company in Budapest, he decided to proceed.
Even then, the project involved a steep learning curve. "We had to get deeply involved in the industry," says Gyorgy Kemeny, CeWeb's project manager for CargoNow.com. Mostly, that involvement meant understanding how best to handle payments and regulations. But Kemeny says some localization issues were more fundamental. "We had to understand the mindset of the people who will use the system," he explains. "How do we convince them to use the system and not fax or call each other?"
It took three weeks to complete the initial translation work. While CeWeb runs the business in Hungary, CargoNow.com oversees control of the (outsourced) system servers in Sweden. Kemeny admits it's an unusual way to conduct a translation project, but says it has an important benefit: The system can easily translate basic site information -- even requests posted by a member -- in every language, simultaneously.
This year, Forssberg has his eyes set on two much larger markets, China and Japan. In fact, the Chinese-language version is already out; the Japanese edition is slated to go live this spring. Although this means a leap into the "double-byte" world of Asian character sets, Forssberg thinks the localization efforts in the region will be worth the trouble. "Once we launch a Web site in the local language in a country where we also have a partner, site activity increases a lot." Forssberg notes. "In certain markets, it's the only way to succeed." -- AL
CFO: The Highest Patsy?
Generally speaking, relying on free Web software to translate important corporate material is a really bad idea. For proof, check out the following freeware translation of a recent announcement flogging a seminar for finance executives in Japan. The pitch, written in Japanese, was published on the sponsor's Web site. The translation software used is a no-charge program that's available on the Internet.
"Now, the CFO (the highest financial affairs patsy) is greatly expected very at small-to- medium sized venture enterprise. But, demand from enterprise it is insufficient contrarily very. Presently in Europe and America, investment appraisal is has reached extent and the important role which are done not only the CEO vis-a-vis the management team which includes the CFO from as for VC ... As for this lecture, the people who would like you to do the skill rise in the midst of holding office, the people who would like to utilize the employment change of occupation, we have become the practical program which in each can compensate for experience insufficiency. ..."
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