As a truly global company Siemens AG employs a workforce of 430,000 people, working on renowned products in about 190 countries. The global presence of Siemens implies that a large proportion of all employees communicate in languages different from their native tongue. Siemens has developed sophisticated localisation mechanisms and training programmes that focus on English as the unifying corporate language. In this context finnlabs supports Siemens in the field of e-learning. Finnlabs’ engagement at Siemens comprises the development of user centric translation services in order to increase quality, user acceptance and learning effect of a major training initiative by reducing language barriers that training users encounter.
The project that Siemens and finnlabs set up focused on two key aspects. First, finnlabs re-designed the deployed glossary mechanism which plays a key role in Siemens’ corporate knowledge management and training programmes. Definitions and concepts that are used uniformly in every subsidiary across the globe are centrally maintained. Web services give easy access to these definitions from e.g. the Siemens intranet and can be closely embedded in a multitude of training manuals and other educational material. finnlabs united all steps of the glossary content management in one intuitive web interface. Changes can be deployed in real time. Editors are not required to possess technical skills to roll-out changes. Definitions do not have to be hard-coded into training content anymore, which drastically reduces development and maintenance costs. Multiple roles and a clear access concept allow for content design and maintenance in multiple steps.
The second challenge was to reduce language based frictions in the training process. Unfortunately, the most direct approach would be prohibitively expensive: translating all documents into each of the many languages used within Siemens is simply out of reach. finnlabs provides technology driven language solutions that enable a larger set of employees to work confidently with materials in English or German, without being native speakers in either of the two languages. High quality translations of words within the training content are provided for in the user’s native language. Beside company and industry specific vocabulary very extensive general dictionaries are integrated, making sure that users receive support for more basic requests, as well. Employees do not have to leave the training environment but get help in place.