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09.14.05
Why Globalize?
 By
Don DePalma
As an English-speaking American who travels a lot, I'm often struck by a paradox. Most of the world doesn't speak English, but wherever I go in Europe, Asia, or South America, I find enough English speakers to talk to, direct me to where I'm going, and do business with. As Seinfeld might ask, what's up with that? Let's consider the facts.
· Over six billion people live in over 200 countries spanning 24 time zones. These people use hundreds of currencies to conduct business in thousands of different languages and dialects. Their business practices are literally all over the map, ranging from simple barter to cash to electronic payment to sophisticated arbitrage. Most speak Chinese, Spanish, Russian, or something other than English.
· Trade is centered around a few economic superpowers - the United States, the European Union, China, and Japan. For these markets only a few currencies and languages really matter - and English matters a lot more than most others. Corporate websites offer some insight into how important it is. Companies often publish information on their sites in just one language besides their own, and that language is likely to be English. Everyone, it seems, wants to sell to Americans, Australians, and the English.
Which Languages Should Matter to Your Company?
Based on our data, it would be easy to say English is all you need. For a report on global website design titled "Design Practices for Global Gateways" (Sep03), we analyzed the home pages of the top 25 revenue-producing companies in 16 countries from Western Europe, Asia, and the Americas. We cataloged the languages that each of these 400 firms supports at their corporate websites. Including companies in Anglophone countries, 98.5 percent claimed some English. When we eliminate the firms from English-speaking countries, the percentage of sites offering English dropped just 9.4 percent to 89.1.
No other language came close to English. The next most widely used tongue was Spanish: 21.7 percent of the companies claimed Spanish, but when we excluded Spain and Mexico from the count, the number dropped to 6.8 percent. Support for French comprised 17.2 percent of the sample if we included French-speaking countries, but the support dropped off precipitously to 3.6 percent when we normalized the sample by removing French and Canadian firms.
Read the rest of the article.
About
the Author:
Globalization, internationalization, and translation and localization industry expert and analyst Don DePalma is the founder of research and consulting firm Common Sense Advisory. For additional information, visit www.commonsenseadvisory.com or e-mail Melissa@commonsenseadvisory.com. |
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