Website Globalization through the Ektron Platform

The Montana World Trade Center® (http://www.mwtc.org) is a program of The University of Montana operating in cooperation with universities throughout the state. The Center’s purpose is to help Montana businesses establish and strengthen their international commercial capabilities. Needing a new website with features and functionality useful for its membership organization, MWTC called on the expertise of Ektron Partner Globalization Partners International (http://www.globalizationpartners.com) for a comprehensive multilingual website.

“MWTC needed a site with multilingual capabilities and driven by an affordable content management system so we could build relationships for our members with businesses located around the world,” says Arnie Sherman, Director, MWTC. Especially important to MWTC was the ability for the new site to be easily updated via a content management system by non-technical staff. Since the MWTC’s primary goal is to develop international trade opportunities for the state and region, the site needed to be available in a variety of languages including Arabic, Russian, Chinese and Spanish. Working in conjunction with MWTC personnel, Globalization Partners International established that, together with multilingual capabilities, the new Montana World Trade Center site should include such features as:

• Automated approval processes for content contributors
• Automated translation workflow for language versions
• Internal search of content and library assets
• Content timed to “go live” and expire on a defined schedule

Two distinct measures of success would be an increase in lead generation and optimized search engine results. All these considerations led naturally to the Ektron Web content management platform. Ektron provides a complete solution for managing multilingual web content, including native support for the XLIFF file format – an important localization standard – and integration with popular software translation tools. Ektron’s content management system gives non-technical authors the power to create, edit and manage Web and document content without the assistance of IT personnel, while site managers can focus on deploying and managing advanced features such as search engine optimization. Ektron’s scheduling, internal asset search capabilities and search engine optimization tools all made the platform a perfect fit for the MWTC site.

Today, on MWTC’s Ektron-powered site, visitors use a menu bar to select their language of choice. A simple click and the visitor sees the site instantly refresh to reflect the content in their chosen language, with links and content placement remaining intact. Hidden from visitors are the powerful internal features Globalization Partners International implemented for the site, including Web calendars, allowing MWTC members to schedule individual and group meetings, a social tool automatically creating forum topics based on new calendar entries, an automated workflow and approval process making content editing and publishing a much easier task for contributors and an automated translation process.

“Globalization Partners did a great job working within our budget,” notes Arnie Sherman. “By using the Ektron CMS, GPI gave us a great set of features including the capability for non-technical staff to update the website daily, as well as giving us the ability to add language versions easily.”  

Overview

• MWTC called on the expertise of Ektron Partner Globalization Partners International for a comprehensive multilingual website. 

Challenges

• User-friendly CMS for the non-technical 
• Multilingual capabilities 

Results

• Site displays in English, Arabic, Russian or  Chinese at visitor command
• Ektron system easy to access, add and  amend content by non-technical users
• Improved lead generation and search results
• Web calendars provide individual and group scheduling
• Automated workflow and approval process