VistaTalks Ep - Unn Villius
Unn Villius is the Chief Sales Officer at Vistatec; after ten years in the localization industry and various positions – everything from Swedish Localizer to Engineering Manager – Unn joined Vistatec in 1997. She helped set up Vistatec’s US operations in early 1998 and is now its Chief Sales Officer. Vistatec is a leading Global Content provider. Established in 1997, it counts some of the world’s largest organizations amongst its current client base.
Unn discusses how Ireland was pretty much the cradle of localization, and how today, companies that are starting are thinking differently; they are often thinking globally from the outset. Localization was historically somewhat limited to the IT industry, but all content is online and available for localization these days.
Unn shares crossfunctional working and centralizing localization for new and existing organizations and how this can create challenges and opportunities. Unn shares how the pandemic has impacted businesses around the world, including accelerating some companies. People who might have had nicely laid out plans for the next ten years suddenly had to really shift overnight and move much more quickly.
Unn discusses how English might have been accepted as a business language until recently and how we continuously see that this is no longer acceptable. Unn shares an example of how expectations are changing in India, how they want content in their language; they do not want to be spoken to in a language that is not their own anymore.
With the rise in platforms, content and the growing need to communicate in more languages, Unn shares thoughts on the importance of infrastructure automation, taking any friction out of the process. (Which can lead some organizations back to the drawing board to think about content and content infrastructure.)
We discuss the localization decision making process and views around selecting a TMS in the context of the widening technology landscape. Unn mentions a recently published Language Technology Atlas by Nimbzi, that describes how navigating 700+ language technology solutions can be daunting.
This episode touches on the Digital First Initiative that Visatec has developed, which includes how different organizations at different stages of their digital journey can deliver tangible results. Unn shares an essential point about the importance of people in this digital landscape and how not all parts of a global organization or brand are necessarily moving at the same speed or direction. An extremely important area to consider, the people and processes as part of an overall solution.
Finally, we discuss several other exciting areas, including year five of The Think Global Awards, X Cultural, All Things Global, and the Vistatec Charity Ball. As Unn herself says, “One of my thoughts every morning when I wake up these days, is, interesting times ahead!”