The road to his own business in Frederick, Md., began in Germany for E. Smith Yewell, president and CEO of Welocalize.com.
Mr. Yewell was a field artillery officer in the Army for four years. Unlike many American soldiers in Europe, he mixed regularly with local residents.
“From the outside looking in, it was apparent to me that Americans are ethnocentric and have the wrong assumption that everyone speaks English,” he said.
That led Mr. Yewell to the idea that U.S. companies need help developing the international side of their businesses and propelled him into a field with a seemingly contradictory name: localization.
The Washington area is home to a rising number of businesses that help companies compete overseas by adapting products and services to foreign markets. Going global means cultivating a local appeal, whether the locale is Bethesda, Berlin or Beijing.
“This industry is about taking products and services worldwide,” said Michael Anobile, director of the Switzerland-based Localization Industry Standards Association (LISA). “It doesn’t matter if it’s software, automobiles or financial services.”
Welocalize.com started in 1995 as a broad-based firm that would help just about any company to create products for overseas markets. Mr. Yewell made software its strategic focus in 1997, partly with an eye toward helping booming tech companies in the Washington area make their products usable on all continents.
“All this technology is worldwide, so the user interface has to be worldwide,” Mr. Yewell said.
The decision fueled growth in revenue, which will hit about $4 million this year, he said. The company now has 43 employees in Frederick and in Germany.
The basic concept of localization is by no means new. “Since St. Jerome translated the Bible from Greek into Latin, localization cultural and technical adaptation has always been part of the translation process,” said Muriel Jerome-O’Keeffe, managing director of Alexandria-based JTG, Inc.
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