What is Localization?

When a business wishes to expand its operations to other countries than the one it is based in, it makes certain adjustments on its product or service according to the factors in the country it is expanding such as the country’s native language in order to make it as convenient as possible for the local consumer. This process is called localization.

 The purpose of localization is basically to make a product sellable in a foreign market by changing whatever elements of the product necessary for something the local population would be familiar with. These elements include language first and foremost and generally also the slogans and the audio-visual elements such as the colors, the pictures or the artwork and songs. A localization project usually includes translation, graphic design and advertising, but depending on the project, there may also subtitle, voice acting and even singing involved. Every aspect of the target country is taken into account during localization; the language, the cultural norms, the regulations, units, date and address formats etc. all influence the final product. For instance, the user interface of a smartphone or a PC are on opposite sides such when the language is set to Arabic because Arabic is a language that is written from right to left and English is written from left to right. The expiry date of the same product is written on the package as Month/Day/Year in the US, whereas in Turkey, it would be written as Day-Month-Year. European cars (unless they are British cars) have gauges with different units when sold in the US because most of Europe uses the metric system, whereas the US uses the imperial system. 

 Localization is usually provided by language service providers (LSP) or companies that specialize on localization such as Lionbridge, TransPerfect or Welocalize. A company may also have its internal localization team. A localization team usually has at least a translator, a graphic designer and a marketing specialist onboard, though, again, this may change depending on the needs of the project.