In some RFPs today, it is no longer so clear what buyers really value from LSPs. This post explores why. Based on my experience on the buyer side, I share why the real need may be shifting from pure execution toward something harder to explain, but often more useful in practice.
What do you do when someone asks for the ROI of localization and you know the question is too narrow from the start? In this post, I reflect on why I stopped trying to prove isolated ownership and started talking more honestly about contribution.
Reading The Myths of Happiness reminded me of the arrival fallacy: the belief that once we reach a certain goal, everything will finally feel solved. In localization, that can look like waiting for the day when people will finally understand what we do. But organizations keep changing, so that moment may never fully come. And maybe accepting that is exactly what helps us stay grounded, avoid frustration, and keep moving forward.
In many companies, the localization budget does not sit with the localization team. At first, that may seem like a small detail. But over time, it changes how localization influences strategy
Defining localization metrics is relatively easy. In many cases, a team can write a reasonable list during a workshop, like the ones I mentioned above, or during a strategy session. The conceptual part of what to track and why rarely takes long. The real difficulty appears later: HOW you actually obtain those metrics.
AI will not eliminate (initially) localization roles, but it is reducing the time spent on certain tasks. What once took hours can now take minutes. That creates capacity.We can treat that time as a cost savings or reinvest it. If nothing meaningful replaces it, the value of the role will eventually be called into question.Jobs do not disappear because tasks are automated. They disappear when the value is not redefined.
So the real question is: what can you do now with the time AI gives you that wasn't possible before?
The world of localization is full of small, hidden details.
Some things are deeper than they seem, and I often see between in-context review and LQA in the world of Localization. They might seem the same, but if we scratch beneath the surface, we'll see they're not what they seem.
In this post, I want to focus on explaining the differences between in-context review and LQA, which is something I see being confused quite frequently, and although the tasks are similar ... they are not the same.
AI is not eliminating localization. But it is removing the illusion that execution alone is enough.
Layer 1 accuracy, delivery, quality was our playfield. Now AI scales it faster and cheaper. And when value is framed only around execution, the conversation shifts to cost and headcount.
Meanwhile, executives focus on retention and growth.
That’s Layer 2 cultural impact.
In the age of AI, localization must operate in both.
You need a solid localization tech stack before you can build a global digital product. Tools that help manage content, automate workflows, ensure consistency, handle volume, control quality, and scale across languages are essential. Without them, everything becomes slower, more expensive, and harder to manage. Today, we have great tools to support all of this. And yet, despite all these changes, something fundamental hasn’t changed in the ingredients that define good localization.
“Welcome to my blog. The space where I document my passion about Localization, Project Management and Leadership”
It's a matter of time; sooner or later, we will have a boss we label incompetent. And that's a pretty uncomfortable situation to be in. It's a situation that will add a lot of stress to our day-to-day lives.
In fact, there are legitimate health risks employees face when dealing with bad bosses on a day-to-day basis. Fortunately, there are coping strategies that we can put in place to make the situation more bearable.
How does a transcreation professional work?
My favorite discipline within the Globalization industry is transcreation. And in this post, apart from explaining what it is, I focus more on explaining the process and how a transcreation professional works.
I also touch in this article on an often confusing aspect: the difference between marketing translation and transcreation.
Transitioning from one job to another can be an enriching experience, or it can be a nightmare.
I have detected in my different movements, and after seeing many colleagues making transitions, that there are a series of usually effective tips.
T-shaped mindsets help us hone our adaptability and adjust to new trends and technologies. And that flexibility is what can future-proof our Localization career and remain relevant, living in cohesion with machine learning, machine translation, or the rise of artificial intelligence.
Sometimes we think we have a localization strategy, but in reality, we have goals.
This post will help you understand the difference between localization strategy and goals and give you some hints to help you create your strategy or goals.
There are many articles about best practices on how to prepare an RFP, but information about how to evaluate them is scarce. This blog post gives a client-side perspective on what areas are important.
While adequate Localization is still critical and is the minimum requested of a product with ambitions to be marketed globally, in reality, that is not enough- We have to go one step further; global consumers want a customer experience that connects with them at a local level. For that to happen, it is essential that Globalization that Localization activities are just another business process integrated into product development; that will not happen if when we talk to the development team and they comment that "it's way too early to talk about that" we let the conversation die there.
How many good ideas have you had about Localization and then a while later forgot about them?
How many valuable tips have you read in books or articles and forgotten over the years?
What's the point of spending time reading a book, if, when it's time to implement things I want to do, I can't remember practically anything?
We live under pressure to learn and improve.
We invest many hours in our lives reading books, watching videos, and listening to podcasts.
And yet, where has all that valuable knowledge gone?
Where is it when we need it?
If we don't speak up about our work, no one will know. Giving visibility about the work we do is important. In this post, I give three ideas to make visible the invisible.
Localization is a means to an end. This article is about how Localization contributes to making digital products more accessible.
How to develop a strategy for a life of meaningful work in the Localization industry
Understanding where we are in our professional lives and understanding the type of roles available in the Localization industry might help us to take a proactive approach to building our career
Although it is true that, in general terms, the tasks related to Localization, whether as a language service provider or as a localization buyer, have more similarities than differences, there are certain aspects, mainly from a mindset perspective, that must be considered so that the transition from provider to the buyer is carried out as effectively as possible.
Executives have a default style of decision-making developed early in their careers. Executives can fall into different categories when making decisions. By knowing the preference for hearing or seeing certain types of information at specific stages in their decision-making progress we can substantially improve our ability to pitch our Localization strategy
A Localization team interacts with many people in a day. A Localization team has many lines of communication and stakeholders to engage. This is great because it allows localization industry professionals to have a lot of visibility and opportunities to explain how the content we create and localize helps the overall growth of the company. But at the same time, this presents a challenge, since interacting with so many people requires a plan to know who are the people we need to interact with.
When it comes to public speaking, the focus should not be on what we want to say but on what our audience needs to hear. The focus should not be on us but on them. The same applies in the Localization industry. We must forget what we want to tell and focus on what our stakeholders need to hear.
In an economy where the average company finds it challenging not only to grow but sustain, it is worth considering which are the different ingredients needed to design a cross-cultural experience
We often have a disconnection between results and the speed with which we achieve them. We all want fast results; whether we are improving the level of a language we are learning or wishing to lose those extra pounds now that the summer is approaching. ... or .... in the Localization program, we are implementing in a company.
Unfortunately, many things in life do not follow linear progress. We face two types of curves when we want to achieve something.
And knowing which one we are in can significantly help us understand the skills we have to polish and the plan we have to follow.
The other day, I watched a movie in which the movie's central character infiltrates a drug gang. He gained their trust, which led him to get pretty much anything he wanted ... and my mind started to wonder what if I infiltrated inside the developers to motivate them to design the software with localization in mind from day one?
Sometimes, we can achieve good results by focusing on the essential parts and going back to the basics. In this post, I write about the crucial aspects to consider when defining a Localization strategy.
This year I don't have the typical list of goals to accomplish this year, no New Year resolutions. This year, I don't have goals, but I know the kind of person I want to become.
Identity-based concept, lessons learned from the book Atomic Habits adapted to my life as Globalization proffesional
Several factors affect the duration of localization for a digital product, including translators' availability and the technology setup level. This blog post explores the various elements that impact the amount of time needed for product localization.