Page 537 - Using MIS

Q2 What Are the Characteristics of International IS Components? 505

• Translate the user interface, including menu bars
and commands.
• Translate, and possibly redesign, labels in forms,
reports, and query prompts.
• Translate all documentation and help text.
• Redraw and translate diagrams and examples in
help text.
• Translate all error messages.
• Translate text in all message boxes.
• Adjust sorting order for different character set.
Figure ID-3 • Fix special problems in Asian character sets and in
Factors to Address When languages that read and write from right to left.
Localizing a Computer Program

of the same length, and so the forms and reports may need to be redesigned. The questions and
prompts for queries, such as “Enter part number for back order,” must also be translated.
All of the documentation will need to be translated. That should be just a matter of hiring a
translator, except that all of the illustrations in the documentation will need to be redrawn in the
second language.
Think, too, about error messages. When someone attempts to order more items than there
are in inventory, the application produces an error message. All of those messages will need
to be translated. There are other issues as well. Sorting order is one. Spanish uses accents on
certain letters, and it turns out that an accented ó will sort after z when you use the computer’s
default sort ordering. Figure ID-3 summarizes the factors to address when localizing software.
Programming techniques can be used to simplify and reduce the cost of localization.
However, those techniques must be used in design, long before any code is written. For ex-
ample, suppose that when a certain condition occurs, the program is to display the message
“Insufficient quantity in stock.” If the programmer codes all such messages into the computer
program, then, to localize that program, a programmer will have to find every such message in
the code and then ask a translator to change that code. A preferred technique is to give every
error message a unique identifier and to create a separate error file that contains a list of identi-
fiers and their associated text. Then, when an error occurs, program code uses the identifier to
obtain the text of the message to be displayed from the error file. During localization, translators
simply translate the file of error messages into the second language.
The bottom line for you, as a future manager, is to understand two points: (1) Localizing
computer programs is much more difficult, expensive, and time consuming than translating
documents. (2) If a computer program is likely to be localized, then plan for that localization
from the beginning, during design. In addition, when considering the acquisition of a company
in a foreign country, be sure to budget time and expense for the localization of information
systems.

What Are the Problems and Issues of Global Databases?

When we discussed CRM and ERP in Chapter 7, you learned the advantage of having all data
stored in a single database. In brief, a single database reduces data integrity problems and makes
it possible to have an integrated view of the customer or the operations of the organization.
International companies that have a single database must, however, declare a single lan-
guage for the company. Every Remark or Comment or other text field needs to be in a single
language. If not, the advantages of a single database disappear. This is not a problem for compa-
nies that commit to a single company language. For example, Thomas Keidel, former CEO of the
Mahr Company (www.mahr.com), states, “We standardized on English as the official company
language; we use English in our meetings, in our emails, and in other correspondence. We have
to do this because we have factories and offices in 20 countries, and it would be impossible to