How to create an adaptable and scalable international markets framework?
A few days ago, I had a lovely conversation with a smart, ‘know their stuff’ Senior International Product Manager. One of the things we talked about is, what is the best approach for companies to build the international product and business framework.
Very commonly, when companies are ready to grow outside their home market, they think about languages or translation - “Let’s launch in Spanish because it covers many countries”. The thinking behind this is that, if their product is in Spanish, it means they open themselves to all the markets where Spanish is the main language. Once they have their products translated into Spanish, they then look into French, Mandarin, Portuguese and so on. It all sounds like a reasonable plan. However, without realising, they put themselves in a tricky situation as they continue to grow globally.
Why so? Setting your products and business based on languages as a strategy to international markets is far more than ideal. It is a rather short-sighted strategy. There are many reasons for that.
Let’s illustrate the issue in the simplest way. Take French (the language) as an example. It is the (or one of the) primary languages in many countries. Many companies would assume that if they’ve their products in French, they’d, therefore, consider themselves to be in many markets such as France, Canada, Switzerland and so on. However, even the fundamental needs of these French-speaking users could differ in many ways.
Scenario 1 I’m from France. I speak French. I want to see dates in DD/MM/YY. I use the 24-hour format. I want to see prices in Euros
Scenario 2 I’m from Canada. I speak French. I want to see dates in YYYY - MM - DD. I use the 24-hour format. I want to see prices in Canadian dollars
Scenario 3 I’m from Switzerland. I speak French. I want to see dates in DD.MM.YYYY. I use the 24-hour format. I want to see prices in Swiss Francs
Bear in mind that this example only demonstrates the visual element of your product. There are many other culturalisation elements which could impact the level of localised experience your global users would have.
Users' needs, motivations and behaviours very often are defined by a wider context which involves many elements (e.g. their country’s political and economical history, infrastructure setup, social norms and so on). Language is only one of the subsets of the overall ecosystem that define their needs.
As you progressively learn more about your users in different markets and their context (e.g. moving from one level to another on this 3-level culturalisation ladder), you will want to adapt your products and services accordingly in a more refined and accurate way for global growth.
If your products and back-ends are built based upon a language-based framework, you will soon realise how challenging and restricted it is for you to do any tailoring for individual market needs.
Rectifying the ‘wrong’ approach
When I worked with Marriott International back in 2016, they were very much operating on the basis where everything is based on the idea that the US experience is modified for each country based on, for example, language. This made it challenging and expensive for them to meet the needs of each locale and market. This issue became even more apparent as we had more and more understanding of their users in different markets via significant amounts of research internationally.
As the company was (and still is) a keen advocate in giving their users an experience which is as localised as possible, the global team wanted to look into how they could do so for users in each market.
With the high number of languages their websites already supported serving users in many countries, to implement an ideal international framework properly, we recognise it would take time and require careful planning. Coming up with a short-/mid-term approach felt like a sensible strategy.
Through various research and working closely with the global team, we cater for the different needs of users accessing their websites, a hierarchy of elements based on user needs was created:
Language (e.g. Brazilian Portuguese)
Content (e.g. written in and for the Brazilian Portuguese users)
Preferences (e.g. currency, date, time format, etc)
Local features (e.g. payment in instalments)
Localised look and feel (e.g. Brazilian design aesthetic)
Triggers were based on: Browser settings, IP/Geo-location, first-party data and third-party data.
One thing very important to highlight: When presenting to the business and the board, we made it very clear that this approach should not be treated as a long-term strategy, but it was just the optimal, feasible, immediate ‘fix’ with the right balance between matching their global user’ needs as much as possible and investment required (e.g. costs, resources, efforts).
This is because, even though this approach enables Marriott to offer their global users a better-localised experience, it requires a complicated algorithm (which means a higher likelihood for mistakes to happen) and it is not sustainable (higher costs to run, maintain and grow).
An adaptable framework
A good way to manage this is to have a core experience that is shared universally. Content, functionalities, look and feel, portfolios and propositions can then be adapted based on regions or locale. There might be overlaps for commonalities and shared elements between markets.
An example of how an international framework could look like - All markets shared a core experience. However, where appropriate, various aspects within the business, product and service can be adapted easily for different markets. Some might be unique to one market, others might be shared between markets. Note that two markets might share the same element in one aspect (e.g. feature set), but might require a completely different setup for other aspects (e.g. payment infrastructure). This diagram does not illustrate all the possible aspects that could vary from market to market and the country groupings are just examples (and are based on real insights).
With this approach, you have the ability and flexibility to switch on or off, or add new elements that are relevant to one or more markets. Each team (product, design, marketing, business proposition, partnership, etc) could work together to offer a coherent local experience to your users. For example, the proposition team might identify that a lower price monthly plan with fewer features would work best for one of your markets. The product team would then not only work with the developers to make sure that disabling some features only for this market is feasible and easily implemented, but also making sure the product experience is still great and feels intact without all other features. If a product and business are set based on languages, you can easily see how these adaptations might be tricky (if not, impossible) to implement especially if this market is one of the markets that speak the same language like many others.
Regardless of what stage you are at - whether you’re just about to tackle your first international market or if you are already in few markets (or are offering more than one languages) or maybe you are big internationally covering many markets and languages - it is important to pause and review your international strategies and framework, if you haven’t done so. How adaptable are they in catering to both macro and micro levels of user needs? How easy (and cheap) it is to implement them? The earlier you do so, the better it is. It would save so many headaches, money and effort down the road for you and the business.
If you are not sure whether or not your setup is appropriate, or if you’d like to talk it through and have someone to be your sounding board to make sure you are on the right track, feel free to get in touch.