At most companies, localization is a relatively small department that is backed up by a small army of vendors and freelancers. Whether you plan to build this team or outsource, the structure of the team will largely be the same.
The localization program manager is a subject expert whose responsibilities typically include a mix of system architecture, engineering management and training, along with vendor selection and management. The localization industry is a complicated and specialized place, so it is helpful for the department to be led by someone who is knowledgeable about the industry, tech and supply chain. It is not like other sectors where a short list of vendors dominate the category. There are literally hundreds of companies that are differentiated by the regions and industry sectors they serve.
Localization operations is a project management role that is specialized around localization and internationalization. These people are usually proficient in one or more CMS (content management system) and TMS (translation management system) environments, and are responsible for coordinating the day to day delivery of translation work products, as well as coordinating review work. At most small to mid-size companies, one or two people will fill these roles.
Software companies will typically engage with translation technology vendors, primarily translation management systems, to localize their applications and related assets such as their help center, video catalog, etc. These companies do not, as a general rule, provide translations themselves, but provide tools that streamline translation work done by vendors and freelancers.
LSPs provide a range of translation and copywriting (transcreation) services. They are typically specialized by region or industry segment. Depending on the languages you target, you may need only a couple of vendors, or several. We generally recommend that companies engage with one traditional LSP (translation agency) as well as a company that specializes in copywriting or transcreation (writing or rewriting original content in other languages). The latter is a different skill and is better suited to high visibility | high impact content such as marketing copy.
Lastly, you’ll want to build a team of reviewers to sign off on vendor work product (and fine tune as needed). The best people for this role are power users who both know your product and are native speakers in the languages being targeted. They can also provide a lot of useful guidance on terminology and jargon that external vendors may not be aware of. At Notion, for example, we tapped into our international user community and ambassadors to recruit language leads.
One of the things to think about is whether you want to build out an in house team or outsource. One of the things we do is jump start clients’ localization programs. Most startups and scaleups have little or no experience with localization, and often hand the assignment to a junior product manager who happens to speak another language. If that’s you, we can make you a hero by getting you set up with the best tech and service providers. You own your vendor relationships, so you can bring the localization program in house as you grow (or just let us handle it for you).