Clay Stobaugh
Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Office
Wiley
Because Wiley is a global company that is present in 65 countries, providing localized and translated content across their international markets is critical. Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Clay Stobaugh says the company has a significant digital footprint, with hundreds of mobile apps and products being provided in their customers’ native languages.
Wiley is considered a knowledge provider, and as such, it is important to provide content in consumers’ languages—whether it’s online engagement content, textbooks or consumer books. In order to manage this process, Stobaugh says they handle some of the process internally, but they also sell foreign rights.
“We are able to handle all of the localization requirements for certain countries—depending on the business unit that is involved—but when we sell foreign rights, our partner becomes responsible for that aspect,” he says. “There isn’t one standard way of managing this process, and the whole concept of being local means having the flexibility to deliver local content.”
The ability to cater to different countries and add different languages is core to the business at Wiley, and this flexibility is critical to their success. For example, Stobaugh says that in order to be present in Brazil, content must be presented in Portuguese while in many of the Gulf countries, English is the business language, so translation is not essential.
Regardless of location, when it comes to localization, he says it is all about delivering a positive customer experience and serving a particular community.
“If you are an individual seeking to obtain a particular certification, for example, the need is the same regardless of where you’re located,” he says. “From our perspective, it is about providing the right content and solutions to meet those needs no matter where the customer is located.”
While the company has experienced some challenges in terms of determining what content needs to come to market first, Stobaugh believes he has learned some valuable information to help other companies along their journey.
“The most important thing is to know that you’re creating the right content and that there is a market for it,” he says. “Most companies simply don’t have the internal resources available to handle this process themselves, so it is essential to find a good partner to help with localization and translation efforts.”