Terminology Management is an important component of quality localization. Effective Terminology Management is the key to a quality and consistent translation of a company's product documentation and corporate collaterals. Without terminology management, the product globalization process will be more challenging. Incorrect terminology translations can also lead to the misuse of a company's products resulting in higher support cost and lower customer satisfaction.

According to a recent survey conducted by the Localization Industry Standards Association, or LISA, 84% of respondents with proactive terminology management saw an increase in product quality, 74% reported an increase in productivity, and 62% achieved cost savings. More than half felt that terminology management improved their competitive edge in global markets.

Proactive terminology management involves the creation and maintenance of a multilingual database covering all the terminologies used for a company's products and MARCOM materials. More advanced terminology management involves further defining and classifying the terminologies so that they can be applied to specific product localization and projects. Beyond the easy to use Excel tabular glossary list, there are many third party tools that help collect, define, classify and lookup terminology. These tools allow a translator to efficiently lookup and manage terminologies during translation by providing automatic lookup for terminology translation and a streamlined process for verifying terminology translation and consistency. Good terminology management tools also enable technical authors and translators to incorporate additional information such as definitions, context, gender, source, synonyms and product dependency, etc. Some tools also allow terminologies to be extracted based on certain sets of criteria such as occurrence, frequency, and origin. Essentially accomplishing the same benefits as Translation Memory, Terminology Management Glossaries save time, save money, and increase consistency. The end result: higher quality output that is more representative of a client's image and style and a reduced time to market.

Finally, another terminology management possible use is to publish a company's multilingual terminologies and glossaries over the Internet so that customers, employees and suppliers around the world can readily look up the information on demand. These online glossaries will help define how a company's product, technical, legal, and marketing terms should be used across multiple languages. They also ensure quality and consistent expressions and terminologies are used for multinational marketing, branding, and regulatory compliance.

Good terminology management makes a company's products easier to use, easier to translate, and easier to adapt to global markets.

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