Adobe’s Globalization Strategy – A Deep Dive into Global Expansion and Localization

A lesson by Inge Boonen

About Adobe

Adobe is a global technology company that aims to change the world through personalized digital experiences. For over four decades, Adobe’s innovations have transformed how  individuals, teams, businesses, education, enterprises, institutions, and governments engage and interact across all media types.  

Over the years, Adobe's achievements have been numerous, including the creation and subsequent ubiquity of PDFs through Adobe Acrobat. Products like Adobe Photoshop,  Illustrator, and Premiere Pro are industry standards in graphic design, video editing, and digital content creation. Meanwhile, Adobe's marketing and analytics offerings, such as Adobe Experience Cloud, provide powerful tools for global businesses to engage with customers and optimize their digital experiences like never before.

TL;DR

Adobe boasts a robust international presence, underpinned by a dynamic expansion strategy and a cohesive approach to globalization. The strategy is not just about reaching numerous markets but also involves a deep commitment to localizing content extensively, ensuring cultural relevance and user engagement across diverse global audiences. 

Key Points

Extensive Content Localization: Adobe supports over 100 languages for digital media and up to 17 for digital experiences, localizing a wide range of content, including software interfaces, marketing materials, user documentation, and multimedia elements like tutorials, video, and graphics. 

Unified Globalization Framework: Streamlined through the Globalization Platform, Adobe’s approach ensures consistency and operational efficiency across all business units. 

Collaborative Quality Assurance: Involves pre-release beta user review process,  Linguistic Review Board and Customer Influencer Program, ensuring the relevance and quality of localized content.  

Technological Innovation: Utilizes GenAI capabilities and various Large Language Models (LLMs) to enhance real-time localization capabilities, supporting agile product releases. 

Advanced Vendor Management Strategies: Employs an international quality assurance platform and innovative vendor management techniques to maintain high standards across all products. 

 By leveraging these strategies, Adobe effectively optimizes global business needs while ensuring impactful local engagement. 

Fast facts

Leadership and Team Structure 

Globalization (Engineering): Led by Ankush Sharma & Jean-François Vanreusel, this team spearheads innovative platforms and integrations, enhancing multilingual content delivery and user experience across diverse markets. Under their guidance, this division focuses on developing advanced localization frameworks, ensuring products are culturally and contextually appropriate. 

International Strategy & Product Management: Priscilla Knoble leads this group, which strategically aligns product features with global market needs, optimizing local user engagement. 

Technology and Tools 

Translation Management System (TMS): The Globalization Platform, developed in-house, streamlines localization processes, improves consistency, and enhances operational efficiency across the company's global efforts. 

Machine Translation (MT): Employs state-of-the-art MT engines, including Microsoft and other technologies, continuously refined with Adobe’s own data sets to improve translation accuracy and reduce time-to-market. 

Additional Technology 

Continuous Localization in CI/CD Service: Developed in-house, supports seamless integration of localization processes with product development, facilitating quicker adaptation to market changes. 

Quality Assurance Platform: Ensures that all localized content meets stringent quality standards, enhancing the end-user experience. 

Acrolinx: Assists content creators in maintaining consistent terminology and style, crucial for accurate translations and coherent user experiences globally. 

Globalization Scope and Vendor Collaboration 

Languages Supported: Expansive reach with up to 100 languages for Digital Media and 17 for Digital Experience, ensuring extensive market penetration. 

Vendor Collaboration: Employs a sophisticated vendor management strategy with multiple language service providers to ensure high-quality translations and testing across all business units.

About The Interviewees

Priscilla Knoble 

Priscilla Knoble, Senior Director of International Strategy & Product Management (ISPM), leads Adobe's global international product and expansion strategy, focusing on recommended features, culturalization and additional localizations of products to meet diverse market needs worldwide. Her team develops the foundational product expansion strategy for Adobe's localized products, extending the company's business reach and positioning it as a leader in international markets.

Ankush Sharma 

Ankush Sharma, Senior Director and Head of Globalization Engineering – Digital Media & D-ALP,  leads Adobe’s globalization engineering initiatives. Based in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India,  Ankush has been with Adobe for over two decades and his team is spread across US, India & Japan campuses. His global team has played a key role in developing scalable platforms and integrating advanced machine translation and generative AI solutions, enhancing multilingual content delivery. By fostering cross-functional collaboration and optimizing processes, Ankush ensures high-quality, localized user experiences across diverse markets. His leadership has been pivotal in transforming Adobe's localization processes into a scalable and agile globalization platform. 

Jean-François Vanreusel 

Jean-François Vanreusel, Director of DX Globalization, commonly referred to as JF, leads  Adobe’s Digital Experience globalization team from San Jose, California. Originally from  Belgium, JF has been with Adobe for over two decades. His team's notable contributions include the development of the World-Readiness Program, self-service and continuous localization solutions for software and documentation, and in-product translation features, which enable customers to translate their own content within Adobe products like Adobe Experience Manager. JF’s strategic efforts ensure that Adobe’s products are accessible and relevant to users worldwide, effectively meeting the unique challenges of enterprise software. 

Included in this Lesson in Localization

This Lesson in Localization was prepared by Nimdzi's Inge Boonen. If you wish to learn more, reach out to Inge at [email protected].