Localisation in the Construction Industry

Construction Business is a successful niche, and top construction companies often operate on a global scale, working mostly on large scale projects which require impeccable communication at every point. It is quite common to see the construction company leveraging resources from multiple countries at the same time when working on high-end projects. For example, a Spanish construction company might hire engineers from South Asia as they are cheaper to hire and highly-skilled. They might also import steel from Poland, or other materials from various cheaper sources. Hence, it is a highly information-intensive industry wherein tremendous amounts of exchange of data, instructions, and multiple, diverse parties are involved. That is why information needs to flow seamlessly across cultures and languages to deliver the project on time.

Besides the coordination between the parent company and the numerous subsidiaries, localisation is much needed in daily operations:

1. Legal Document: According to the global dispute report 2019, failure to understand and/or comply with contractual obligations became the number one cause of construction disputes for 2018. It is imperative to translate or localise the legal document because even one spelling mistake/omission can cause great financial loss. This would further lead to the task of resolving the dispute through various methods (such as face-to-face mitigation, lawyers getting involved, etc.) which would cost money and time, thus in turn delaying the project. The deadline in construction industries is tight, so to lose time and money because of an error is not feasible.
2. Health and Safety manuals: Every team member, regardless the hierarchy, should have the necessary information to ensure their safety on-hand. While it may not seem important, not having appropriate information could easily cause deadly incidents. Laws regarding safety are well-developed in western countries, and legal action can be taken if proper precautions aren’t taken, however, in many developing countries, labourers work in an environment that western people could deem to be too dangerous. It is thus important to make sure that the Health and Safety Manuals have been properly translated in order to ensure compliance.
3. Company reports and assessments- Every year, company reports are generated, which can be useful for managers working at subsidiary companies as well. The reports have important information and are read by stakeholders across the world.
4. Sustainability reports - Nowadays, construction companies have to think about sustainability and use methods that would be less pollutive. They can have different reports depending on the laws of different countries. Also, The rules regarding sustainability are quite strict in developed countries in comparison to developing nations and thus, specialised, country specific reports must be created.

By Pooja Srivastava
Team Loc-N-Apps

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