The $34 Billion Multilingual Business Conversation

Good overall description of what's happening today in the localization industry. New, lean and innovative technology companies like Cloudwords are disrupting an industry that was stagnant and dominated for a long time by slow-moving translation vendors.

via www.cnbc.com

...The innovations are enabling corporations to enter markets and disrupt many sectors that were previously unreachable. Language is the mother tongue of global business opportunity.

Coupa Software, a San Mateo, Calif., maker of cloud spend management solutions, wanted to test the waters in Latin America by sponsoring a trade show in Mexico City. But finding interpreters and building in-house technology to translate the intricate code of its websites, marketing materials and social media—for a project that may not result in new business—required too much time and other resources.

Instead, Coupa contracted with Cloudwords, a San Francisco-based firm whose project management software streamlines the translation process. What would have taken Coupa about three months took about four weeks with Cloudwords.

"They're taking a process that is relatively dated in the industry and turning it on its head," said Coupa CEO Rob Bernshteyn, who has three deals in the pipeline from the trade show.