Today we have guest post authored by Ken Brown of Lucernex. In this post he elaborates about the international challenges that companies face when expanding globally. As we see those challenges as well I have already written a post series about internationalization challenges.

While no one can say for sure, it appears based on the recent positive GDP announcement, that the U.S. economy has bottomed out and we are now in the midst of what may be a longer and slower recovery when compared to past economic recessions.  The events of the past 24 months have forced growth-minded real estate companies to re-examine or retool their business models to optimize efficiencies and harness opportunities.  Economists believe future growth is expected to come from overseas markets, especially Asia and the “BRIC” nations (Brazil, Russia, India, and China).

Many corporate and retail real estate companies are using this opportunity to expand globally into Asia, Europe, and the BRIC nations.  New stores are opening and new manufacturing facilities are under construction.  There are many reasons for this shift.  Growth in the United States is not expected to be as strong as projected growth from the emerging markets.  And, the financing markets may be more receptive to opportunities in these faster growing regions of the world.  As part of a push by companies to tap into global growth, companies must accordingly adopt a strategy to “globalize their corporate real estate portfolio.

However, moving into foreign and emerging markets does not come without risk and challenge.  In order for any company to operate a global real estate portfolio, they need to be able to standardize and track the real estate life-cycle process.  This may span several different countries and include different languages, currencies, time zones, and measurement systems.

As an example, imagine a United States headquartered corporation with manufacturing facilities opening in Brazil, China and Canada.  How is this United States-based company expected to be able to track the development and eventual operation of these different facilities in real-time, and be able to actively manage all processes? At Lucernex, we believe it is critical to implement a system that will standardize all variables for a company’s global real estate portfolio.  The newest version of IWMS software can do just that – easily track and standardize currency, measurements and time zones.  And, this software will also help a company better track its leases, costs, and employee count, too.  Lx IWMS also now has Lx LseMod software integrated providing fully internationalized lease analysis using any currency or measurement with all results flowing automatically into Lx IWMS site selection module for optimal decision making.

Companies using Lucernex applications are actively benefiting from these tools and have found the value and efficiency it provides to be critical to the real estate development and management process. In today’s emerging global real estate business, if an IWMS system cannot handle a company’s complete portfolio, that company is at an extreme disadvantage.

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Over the last couple of years IWMS vendors have extended their customer horizon from local region / country specific customers to the large Fortune 500 multinationals.

When IWMS vendors are crossing borders, they have to face all kinds of internationalization (i18n) challenges. In this week’s post about I18n challenges of IWMS’s, multi-time zone will be discussed.

Business Challenge

Cooperation between local subsidiaries of a company is extremely important for all organizations. This can be a problem when those subsidiaries are based in multiple time zones in the United States let alone when we rest of the world is becoming the playground for Integrated Workplace Management Systems and their vendors. Within the IWMS domain some business functions are affected more than others.

(Video)Conference Meetings

One of the most affected areas within the IWMS domain is video conference meetings. Over the last five years virtual meeting technology has leaped forward. WebEx, GoToMeeting, Saba, Microsoft, and other vendors provide excellent meeting technologies that can reduce the number of flights dramatically. In our weekly poll about Virtual Meeting Software usage, 80% of the respondents indicated that they use Virtual Meeting Technology.

Although these Virtual Meeting Software providers are quite solid in technology for the meeting itself they do not take into account the meeting costs, video conference room charges, catering costs, etc. which are extremely important for the Facilities Manager / Building Manager of a particular property. Therefore close integration with an IWMS is imperative.

One of the key challenges that IWMS’s face in supporting these online videoconference meetings is the integration between the technology that enables the meetings with the core management of the videoconference rooms. Some IWMS vendors provide full integration with Microsoft Exchange / Outlook (Tririga, PeopleCube, Planon, etc.).

Service Requests and Service Delivery

The second business challenge an organization faces when spanning multiple time zones is about service requests and service delivery. As an employee in a particular building I’m entitled to a number of services which I can request via the corporate intranet or a telephone based help desk. Back in the days I probably knew the Facility Service Provider personally and I ensured quality of my service by dropping by his office.

Over the last decade RE/FM organizations have become increasingly centralized and need to improve relationships with their internal customers, the business management and their supply chain (Marty Chobot, FM: Systems).

The centralization of RE/FM departments ensures that in most cases service requests are collected centrally in an IWMS. Fulfillment of these service requests however can be routed to an external services provider that is in a different time zone than the requestor of the service. Monitoring on task completion is very much depending on correct time registration. Is the service provider living up to its’ SLA or not?

Guidelines for multi-time zone

When your organization is present both in the United States and the rest of the world you will face multi-time zone issues within Facilities Management and Corporate Real Estate without doubt. Bear in mind the following:

1. Time zone entities

When thinking about your IWMS and multi time zones issues some immediately arise. A time zone is relative to what aspect of your IWMS you focus on. In most IWMS implementations I see four different time zone entities which need to be taken into consideration.

1. The application / windows time of the server of your IWMS. This physical server is somewhere in your IT landscape in a certain time zone.
2. The time zone of sites / campuses and properties. Each building is in a specific timezone and therefore facilities within that property are also in the same time zone
3. The time zone of the end users of your IWMS. This is the local time zone linked to the specific user of the system.
4. The time zone of service provider. As service providers are centralizing their efforts as well a ticket for this external service provider might be coordinated from a different time zone.

In your IWMS implementation performance calculations should not be done based on the physical time zone of the server but based on a combination between 2,3 and 4.

E.g. Suppose that an end user requests a specific service which will be automatically directed to an external service providing company the system should be able to calculate with:

• The entry date/time based on the user property
• The priority based on the SLA
• The due date

And the due date should be recalculated to the service provider as well as the service provider might be in a different time zone.  When you are selecting an IWMS solution please ensure that the system can calculate with different time zone entities.

2. Data Integrity

In every IWMS implementation the management team has be able to make decisions based on solid and trustworthy data.  This calls in general for high quality data protection but when you are involved with SLA’s, KPI’s you have to ensure that the correct time zone entity is linked to the correct property, the correct service provider or the correct end user.

If data integrity is not quaranteed the management team will make very costly mistakes which can be avoided easily.

3. Analytical Reporting

If you have linked your time zone entities correctly to the application’s elements (properties, users, service providers) you should be able to guarantee data integrity however as a piece of advice I would recommend you report frequently on SLA performance. Not only will it help you identify underperforming service providers (and will reduce operational costs immediately) but these reports might give you an indication where time zone related errors occur.

What about you? Which would you recommend to cope with multiple time zones?

I’d love to hear your experience in coping with multiple time zones.

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3. i18n of IWMS: Multi-measurement

Over the last couple of years IWMS vendors have extended their customer horizon from local region / country specific customers to the large Fortune 500 multinationals.

When IWMS vendors are crossing borders, they have to face all kinds of internationalization (i18n) challenges. In this week’s post about I18n challenges of IWMS’s, multi-measurement will be discussed.

Business Challenge

Cooperation between local subsidiaries of a company is extremely important for all businesses which have activities in more than one country. High quality communication is imperative for making cross-border communication a success. Although most organizations acknowledge this still many mistakes are made.

When communicating with your colleagues it’s important to speak the same language in terms of measurement otherwise costly faults and errors could potentially harm your organization severely. Due to the different measurement systems mistakes between the US and the rest of the world are easily made.

One of the worst examples of a costly mistake is the loss of a $125 million NASA Mars orbiter in 1999 because one engineering team used metric units while another used US customary units for a calculation.

Imperial versus Metric

“Imperial units or the imperial system is a system of units, first defined in the British Weights and Measures Act of 1824, later refined (until 1959) and reduced. Systems of imperial units are sometimes referred to as foot-pound-second. “ (Wikipedia)

“The metric system is an international decimalized system of measurement, first adopted by France in 1791, that is the common system of measuring units used by most of the world. Metric units are widely used around the world for personal, commercial and scientific purposes. A standard set of prefixes in powers of ten may be used to derive larger and smaller units from the base units.” (Wikipedia)

As of 2008, all countries that used the imperial system have become officially metric, except for the United States, Burma and Liberia implicating that especially between the United States and the rest of the world problems could arise when measurements are involved.

Measurement within the IWMS domain

Although the official measurement units are far more complex than length and weight (and their variations) these are most common in the IWMS domain.

Challenges include:

1. AutoCAD drawings per measurement unit (ft. vs. meters)
2. Space Allocation per measurement unit (Sq ft. vs. M²)
3. Costs Chargeback per measurement unit (Sq ft. vs. M²)
4. Lease Costs per measurement unit (Sq ft. vs. M²)
5. Carbon Emissions per measurement unit (imperial tons vs. metric tons)
6. Reporting per measurement unit

Guidelines for multi-measurement

When your organization is present both in the United States and the rest of the world you will face multi-measurement issues within Facilities Management and Corporate Real Estate without doubt. Therefore iwmsnews.com is providing a number of guidelines for coping with these issues.

1. Pick one leading system

Most organizations have formalized the corporate language usage and the same should apply for the measurement system. Just as you do for your company language it should be clear for everyone which system is the primary system.

2. Think global, act local

Although you have picked the global leading measurement system, facilities management and operations are primarily locally oriented. Therefore you have to ensure that local employees can still use their measurement system. Otherwise even more costly mistakes will be made. This automatically leads to guideline 3.

3. Measurement system preference at user level

When a user from the United States opens the Integrated Workplace Management Solution all measurements should be imperial. (CAD Drawings in ft.) whereas the same drawing is viewed by an user from Europe all measurements should be in meters. This implicates that measurement information should be stored at the user level.

4. Reporting

Especially for reporting users should be able to choose their measurement system. E.g. the costs per square meter is not relevant for a United States employee. This employee needs the costs per square foot to evaluate the quality of a lease contract. However, if you need cross-border reports it’s imperative that you can choose the measurement system. E.g. compare lease contracts from the United States with lease contracts from Europe in one single report.

What about you? Which guidelines would you recommend?

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Over the last couple of years IWMS vendors have extended their customer horizon from local region / country specific customers to the large Fortune 500 multinationals.

When IWMS vendors are crossing borders, they have to face all kinds of internationalization (i18n) challenges. In this week’s post one of the most common I18n challenges of IWMS will be discussed; multi-language.

Business Challenge

Although (Business) English is the most common language in the world of IWMS vendors, other languages need to be supported by the IWMS as well when the vendors extend their reach outside the United States.

User Acceptance

If we take a look at the North American continent already three of the world’s dominant languages are present. (English, Spanish and French). These languages need to be supported by the IWMS system.

IWMS/CAFM systems are dominantly used by local employees within a particular language zone. For instance local employees use the Conference Room Booking module of the IWMS only for their building. If this building is located in Quebec most users probably speak French. If this building is located in San Diego there is good chance that the IWMS will be reqiured and used in Spanish. Business English therefore will not be accepted everywhere even in North America.

Legislation

Besides user acceptance legislation could also be causing problems. In some European countries (such as Germany) legislation obliges vendors to provide both the application as well as the training material in German without exception.

The business challenge for IWMS vendors is obviously to provide this language support to their global customers. This can be extremely difficult and time consuming for IWMS vendors, however unavoidable.

Character Sets

To raise the ante; When IWMS vendors follow their customers to regional language zones with different character sets such as Cyrillic, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, etc. additional investments in language support will inevitably be required.

The global marketplace encourages IWMS vendors to be creative with their supported languages when they want to service a global customer base.

Iwmsnews provides you with 9 guidelines for Multi-language below.

9 Guidelines for Multi-language

As stated above multi-language is a significant business challenge for IWMS vendors. However, here are some guidelines for Multi-language support.

1. Language settings at the user level

If a user in a French language area accesses the system all field labels, tabs, bars, etc. need to be in his language.

Obviously this is not the case for data in the database. If the name of the building is in English both the French and English user will see the English name of the building. (Although some systems also provide data translation it’s not preferable)

2. Language selection by end user

Through a portal or interface the end user should be able to change his / her preferred language settings.

3. Predefined lists per language

For each user lists with predefined items need to be in their own language e.g. priorities for solving maintenance requests. When an end user switches between languages these predefined lists should be updated by the system as well.

4. Separate language documents for each language

The most comprehensive methodology both for end users and IWMS vendors is to create separate language documentsfor each language. Modifications therefore do not affect all other languages which is a benefit considering guideline 5.

5. Search and Replace

IWMS Vendors should provide documents (such as csv, html, or doc.) that can also be edited manually. In this case modifications to global terminology can be done by using ‘search and replace’ functionalities of native applications.

6. Updating through the user interface

End users (system administrators) should be able to update all field labels, tabs, bars, etc. through the administration interface. In this way the organization creates its own language which is the business language of the organization.

7. Exportable user defined languages and data

Once you start working with the systems language you’ll start creating a comprehensive business dictionary for your own organization. In some cases you want to use this for other applications as well. Therefore exportable (parts) of language documents could be extremely helpful.

8. Language backup

The language needs to be backed up frequently and stored also outside the application. When the IWMS database crashes you still posses the language.

9. Old vs New Release Language

In every new release of the software new fields, labels, tabs, bars, etc., are provided by the vendor. It needs no explanation that the old language cannot be entirely overwritten by the new release language.

I’d love to hear which guidelines for multi language you can come up with. Please use the comment form below this post.

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Crossing Borders

Over the last couple of years IWMS vendors have extended their customer horizon from local region / country specific customers to the large Fortune 500 multinationals.

When IWMS vendors are crossing borders, they have to face all kinds of internationalization (i18n) challenges.

According to Jack Heine, (Senior Analyst at Gartner, 2008):

“Globalization, which is driving a need for a worldwide portfolio view of enterprise workplace assets, where emphasis on local currency, language translation and 24/7 help desk support is becoming a common requirement.”

i18n post series

These internationalization challenges of IWMS vendors are subject of a new series of posts here on iwmsnews.com.

In this series (starting May 1st) we will discuss the following subjects:

• Multi Language
• Multi Measurement
• Multi Time zone
• Multi Currency
• 24 x 7 Help Desk Support

Feedback

I’m looking forward to writing these posts. And I’d really appreciate your feedback about this subject. What do you think of i18n of IWMS?

Yours Sincerely,

Steven Hanks

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