Background

The Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) in the USA has an 85-year history of operation in the United States. They have been offering the certification of Certified Management Accountant, or CMA, for the past twenty years. Their domestic certification registration growth rate has been steady & consistent.

They have approximately 60,000 members with 86% from the USA and 14% from outside. The international membership was very much ad-hoc, but they recognised that the increasing global economy could open up international opportunities for them, so they decided that they wanted to actively pursue international membership growth.

Their vision is to be the world's leading association for management accounting and finance professionals.

What were the initial considerations?

• Is the certification applicable internationally?
• Does the Body of Knowledge (BOK) lend itself well to translation/adaptation?
• How to handle the increasing competitiveness of developing countries in the most positive way?
• Will this be tapping into the needs of multinational companies?
• Is this a profession with standard “global” elements of competency?
• Which country or countries should be investigated?
• Were there already members of the association in the target country?
  

Why translate?

If a professional association is striving to better the career prospects of members and improve their knowledge of the subject matter, then a test of their competency in the BOK should not depend on how well they know English. English proficiency can be tested using a TOEFL test.

If the subject matter is of a technical nature, then the knowledge of the subject matter should be more important then any other consideration.

Which country?

The IMA decided that the first country in which it wished to offer its certification would be The People's Republic of China. What were the reasons for this?

• There was expressed interest from Chinese executives, academics and potential members
• There were already members of the IMA in China
• It was the market with the highest potential growth (12 million + Accountants)
• This would offer them a competitive advantage over other associations entering the Chinese market
• There was a long history of testing in China and a huge thirst amongst the 7 million new university graduates each year for professional certifications
• It offered the greatest chapter network expansion opportunity
• The level of English was not necessarily such that the certification and training could be offered in English
  

Feasibility Study

The first step was to conduct a feasibility study, which was carried out with the help of local experts, including government officials, potential delivery partners, academics, CEOs, CFOs and other associations.

Once this had been accepted, a full financial and risk analysis was carried out and a roadmap and business plan were produced to chart the way forward.

TLA

This stands for Translation, Localisation and Adaptation. For a project such as this, it is vital that all these three steps are followed.

Localisation is all about understanding the culture in which you will be operating and then adapting the text so that it is culturally, administratively, technically and legally valid and acceptable in the target country. A critical part of the whole process is ensuring that the content is customised to reflect local case studies and practices.

It is also important to consider that you don't just need to translate the exam materials, but also all the training and preparation materials, administrator's manuals, marketing materials, web site and more.

Results

The translation process commenced in October 2006 and was completed 8 months later. This was followed by a pilot programme to test out the translated materials and the exam was officially launched in September 2007.

Since the launch, the programme has been very successful. The membership of the IMA has been growing at a rate of 50% every 6 months in China. More and more people all the time are becoming aware of the exam and more and more people are taking it, thus continually building up the pool of professionally qualified Accountants in China.

The Future

Work is continuing on promoting the translated exam in China and there is growing government support for the programme. Whenever there are changes to the English version of the exam, it is important to allow time to update the language versions of the exam and preparation materials as well.

The IMA is now actively looking at continuing the globalisation programme and deciding on which countries to look at next.

Please contact us for a discussion about your particular requirements.