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Chapter 4 E-environment 235

4 Highly-localized web sites. Country-specific web sites with language translation; they also
include other localization efforts in terms of time, date, postcode, currency formats, etc.
Dell (www.dell.com) provides highly localized web sites.
5 Culturally customized web sites. Web sites reflecting complete ‘immersion’ in the culture
of target customer segments; as such, targeting a particular country may mean providing
multiple web sites for that country depending on the dominant cultures present. Durex
(www.durex.com) is a good example of a culturally customized web site.

Deciding on the degree of localization is a difficult challenge for managers since while it has
been established that local preferences are significant, it is often difficult to balance localiza-
tion costs against the likely increase or conversion rate through localization. In a survey
published in Multilingual (2008), the importance of localization was seen as important with
88% of managers at multi-national companies stating that localization is a key issue, with
76% of them saying that it is important specifically for international customer satisfaction.
Yet, over half of these respondents also admitted that they allocate only between 1% and 5%
of their overall budget for localization.
An indication of the importance of localization in different cultures has been completed
by Nitish et al. (2006) for the German, Indian and Chinese cultures, assessing localized
web sites in terms not only of content, but cultural values such as collectivism, individual-
ism, uncertainty avoidance and masculinity. The survey suggests that without cultural
adaptation, confidence or flow falls, so resulting in lower purchase intent.
A further aspect of localization to be considered is search engine optimization (SEO, see
Chapter 9) since sites which have local language versions will be listed more prominently
within the search engine results pages for local versions of the search engines. Many special-
ist companies have been created to help manage these content localization issues for
companies, for example agency Web Certain maintains a forum advising on localization
(www.multilingual-seo.com).
One example of the effect of localization on conversion rates is provided by MySpace
CEO Mike Katz who stated in NMA (2008) that: ‘All the 27 sites are localised, we don’t
believe that one size fits all’, says Katz. ‘We know that from the first day we localise in any
language, we triple our sign-ups on original users.’ In 2008, 45 million of the 130 million
MySpace users were outside the US; new sites were planned for Russia, India, Poland and
Korea, each requiring a local version of the MySpace model.
To explore the implications of globalization for consumer-oriented companies, refer to
Case Study 4.1.

Case Study 4.1 The implications of globalization for consumer attitudes

The article starts by discussing anti-globalization. It then it has manifested the belief that the world is small and
explores the implications of variations in the characteris- that consumers are becoming more and more alike, thus
tics of different cultures on businesses providing services allowing companies to use the same advertising and
to them. At the end of the article, research about attitudes marketing across regions and countries. Such a
to globalization is summarized, along with its implications doctrine has enabled companies to act global and think
for businesses trading internationally. global, much to the distaste of the anti-globalisation
Globalisation, or maybe more specifically, anti-global- lobbies. Indeed, in 1985 it was Friends of the Earth that
isation issues, are never far from the headlines, whether it’s coined the slogan ‘think global, act local’ in its desire to
coverage of the latest anti-WTO demonstration or news counter such global forces – particularly with regards to
that McDonalds has replaced Ronald McDonald in France environmental issues.
with Asterix – in a move to ‘appease anti-globalisation However, such ‘glocalisation’ [global localisation]
protesters’ (BBC News, 22 January 2002). makes a lot of sense for multinational companies oper-
But what does globalisation actually mean? ating today and planning new market entry, for a
Stemming from the application of free market principles number of reasons. Firstly, the term globalisation for