SAP Nordic: How to be a big small company

For many companies, large or small, developing web content that delivers global presence and local understanding can be a major challenge. Can writing in English, even if the English content will never be seen by customers, be the answer?

SAP Nordic is a recently established group that unites the software giant’s companies across the Nordic and Baltic countries. It needed a unique website for each country that showed the size of SAP and appealed to small and mid-size customers who want next-door support. But the languages across websites had to be unified through a single tone, look and navigation system.

So how do you create a single website that can be adapted both in language and message – in other words "localized" – for Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Lithuanian, Estonian, and Latvian audiences?

For SAP Nordic, the answer was to hire a specialist international communications agency – and write everything in English, although the English content will never be seen by customers. 

SAP Nordic's Mette Tang says, "The secret to this project's success was taking the basic recipe of a clear website written in great English and adding the key ingredient – local language and flavor – to each of the seven websites. SAP has many large clients. But our market also includes many small and medium-sized companies that use local languages more often than English. By using local languages on our website, we welcome companies of all sizes, and give them confidence that SAP can address their issues."

From common language to local content
Eye for Image got the ball rolling with a workshop that helped SAP Nordic design clear messages and a site structure to match. Then Eye for Image’s native-English writers produced a master text.

The benefit of creating an English master was clear. SAP Nordic team members speak a number of languages; but the one language they all have in common is English. So with English master text, it was simple for SAP Nordic to review the content, and reach agreement on tone, messages and detailed content. Eye for Image then took this feedback and finalized the English content.

Next came translating the text into the seven languages that would eventually be seen on the website. Localizing the content while maintaining the unified tone of voice in every language is a delicate balance – and the experienced hand of Eye for Image to guide the process helped keep things on track.

Matt Coyle, who managed Eye for Image’s translation process, comments, “This was perhaps the toughest stage. We monitored the work of our translation partners very carefully. We did some trial translations in each language using just a segment of pages – and SAP Nordic had some people on the ground in each country review them. But not all the reviewers were happy and we had to revise the content, even finding new translators for some of the languages. The key for us was to deliver the best possible translations, and this required close coordination between SAP’s reviewers and the translators.”

According to Cathrine Thaning from SAP Nordic, open dialogue was essential to keeping this stage smooth as the launch deadline approached, “This was a complex project with a tight timeframe and involving a lot of people. Success depended on open communications and consistent high-quality work. This is just what Eye for Image delivered, and they kept their spirits up even when the pressure rose.”  

It’s the service, not the size, that matters
In projects like these, you need to assemble a team with just the right skills and the right level of dedication. And sometimes, the most obvious solution isn’t always the best. While choosing an 11-person agency may not have been the obvious choice for an industry giant like SAP, the SAP Nordic team found that the skills matched. And as Cathrine Thaning says, company size doesn’t matter if you share the same values. “Our companies' relative size was no issue at all, since we all worked hard and shared the belief that the website should be written from customers’ perspective, with their needs in mind."

You can see the results, but remember you have to speak Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Lithuanian, Estonian, or Latvian to really appreciate them.