Moving from a domestic system to an international system encounters a number of problems that have to be coped with:

  • Different business needs
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  • Different legal & commercial environments
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  • Different Technical Infrastructures
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  • Different Customisations needed
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  • Language differences in the 5 types of data.
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  • Sensitivity to number and date conventions
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  • Sensitivity to different country character sets.
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  • Different address formats
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  • Different PAF (postcode addressing files) software
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  • Translation of help files, documentation and screens
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  • German words are 30% longer than English words.
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    You can take language out of the equation by just making it a single language system. This might stop some users from using the system. A bad decision? Make sure you understand the language issues up front.

    Budget for each country being as hard as the first.

    Always get a native to translate. One who understands the business.