tcworld - magazine for international information management

A new edition of tcworld

The global internet population has reached one billion spanning across 6,700 languages, 230 countries, 147 currencies and 24 time zones, according to the California State University website. Surely the electronic highway has become the most popular route for traveling around the world. But globalization is not only happening on a virtual level.

To meet the requirements of foreign markets companies need to have more and more sophisticated communication strategies. Employees who know the language, culture and the political conditions of a targeted market as well as understand the business concept of the company that is approaching this market, are becoming increasingly valuable. Schools and professional communities are slowly starting to fulfill the job market’s demand for well-trained localization experts. Various institutions around the world offer trainings and certification programs (page14). Trade organizations such as the Globalization and Localization Association (GALA) are quickly growing (page 28).       read the magazine

Regarding safety instructions in technical documentations, there seems to be a trend among companies to disregard the local requirements and regulations of the new markets. Instead companies tend to apply European guidelines, asserting rightfully that the EU standards are higher than those of the approached markets anyway. However, localization is not always that simple, as Dr.-Ing. Hartmut Benckert, board member of the Putzmeister AG, points out (page 13). Supplying construction sites all over the world with concrete pumps that fulfill the local requirements is quite challenging (page 10).

Other companies have decided that the fast-paced environment of the city is not the ideal place for productivity and creativity and have moved to the countryside instead. Therefore, in this issue of tcworld we introduce the science and technology park of Sophia Antipolis, Southern France, (page 23) along with one of its most famous inhabitant, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) (page 22). In addition, we provide some relevant considerations when doing business in France (page 26).
We hope you enjoy this new issue of tcworld.