Are You Ready to Go Global?

Globalization, or the process of preparing your products and services for an international audience, can be an important step in the lifecycle of a startup. Particularly with technology or Internet-based products that are easy to access from any web browser anywhere in the world, at some point you'll start thinking about expanding outside your domestic market and offering your services to a multi-lingual, multi-cultural audience that extends beyond your domestic borders.

Although the immediate barrier to global market entry many seem low for Internet-based offerings, the direct and opportunity costs of global expansion can be huge. Are you ready to do it? Review the list of questions below and answer them honestly to evaluate your company's readiness for this important challenge.

Note: For most companies I've worked at, the US is considered the domestic market, but yours may be different. The questions below are generic and apply to any domestic vs. non-domestic markets.

Software Internationalization

Is your software capable of smoothly and transparently handling all of the following for non-domestic audiences?

Input and display of high-ASCII characters (for Western languages with accented characters, like French and German)
Input and display of double-byte characters (for non-Western languages)
Number and currency formatting (e.g. 1000,34 instead of 1000.34)
Date, address, and phone number formatting

For more tips, see Formatting Content for a Global Audience.

Software Localization

Who is your translation vendor?
What is the process by which the text strings in your software will be extracted and provided to the translation vendor?
What is the process by which the translated text strings from the vendor will be re-integrated back into the product to create the translated product?
Do you have a domain expert who will be capable of verifying the correct translation? What is the process by which their suggestions and fixes will be incorporated into the product?
What is the mechanism by which users will access the translated offering? Will it be under a different domain (e.g. ebay.de vs. ebay.fr) or will it be under your existing domain with a language toggle within the product?

Local Customer Support

Who will provide support for your non-domestic customers?
How will these support people be trained in the usage of your product/service?
Who will translate the support materials (either for customers or for your support agents) into the non-domestic language?
What is the process, and who will be responsible for, keeping the support materials updated in the non-domestic language as the product evolves?

Local Payment Mechanisms

How will your non-domestic customers pay you?
For credit card payments, do you have a bank that can process international credit cards?
Do you have an in-country banking relationship set up?
Will you need to make international payments? If so, is your in-country bank set up to issue payments? How will monies be transferred to your in-country bank?

Local Market Entry Partners

Do you need to form any joint-venture partnerships with any in-market providers? This will depend on your specific company/product as well as the country/region you are entering.

Local Market Employees/Contractors

Have you identified a staffing process to find and hire non-domestic employees?
What is your "corporate handbook" or policies for your non-domestic employees in terms of paid time off, holidays, bonuses, how often employees are paid, stock option grants, etc.?

If you've got solid answers to most of these questions, you've accounted for all costs of globalization, and you're ready to dive in, then have a look at the rest of the articles in this section of pathtomarket.com, which dive more into the details of how to actually globalize your company.