Is your content multilingual and your marketplace global?

The biggest return on investment from structured modular reusable content comes from translation savings, especially important for firms competing in today's global marketplace.

If you have quantitative estimates of your content (number of pages and average words per page), the fraction of your content that can be reused, and the number of localization languages, you might run a simple calculation of your cost savings. The formula is: Number of pages x Average number of words/page x Translation cost per word x Number of languages.

With a translation management system (TMS) you can develop a much more sophisticated estimate of costs and cost savings. For more accurate estimates of the fraction of content that can be reused, a TMS will usually include a tool to calculate simple repetition of words and phrases. These words and phrases may need only be translated once.

Up to Making the Business Case for DITA.