Building Translation Capability

I'm not a fan of 'step by step' processes. They work in predictable and linear problems. They are a waste of time in complex and messy problems. Instead, I believe in building capabilities. They are the strengths that enable you to do navigate a mess. And cross-context expansion is a messy mess!

In my experience, these are thecapabilities that distinguish companies that succeed from those that fail. The five capabilities represent domains where translation success is won or lost. Weakness in any one creates failure risk. Strength across all five creates the translation capability that makes cross-context expansion possible.

Context Intelligence

Understanding the political, regulatory, and cultural ecosystem

Context intelligence is about the soft infrastructure: how the system actually works, who holds power, what the unwritten rules are. It requires what anthropologists call thick description: understanding not just what happens but why, what it means to participants, how it connects to other elements of the system. Much of this is what we discussed in the previous article on 'The Gateway: The Translation Problem'.

The test: Can you explain how decisions actually get made in your destination market, not how the formal process says they should be made? Do you understand the cultural attitudes that will shape adoption of your solution? Do you understand the economic incentives that will shape the market? Do you understand the regulatory incentives that will shape the market? Do you understand the political incentives that will shape the market?

Market Analysis

The hard data on whether this opportunity is real

Context intelligence tells you how the system works. Market analysis tells you whether the opportunity is worth pursuing. This is the quantitative, analytical capability: sizing markets, mapping competitors, understanding customer segments, modelling economics.

The test: Have you mapped the market structure, customer segments, and competitive landscape with rigour? Have you modelled unit economics specific to this market? Can you articulate where you fit and why customers would choose you?

Strategic Intent

Knowing your non-negotiables and what possibilities you want to explore

This capability is distinct from partnership. Partnership is about the how. Strategic intent is about the what: what outcomes are you actually willing to accept?

Some companies enter with clear intent: we want our own brand, our own presence, our own customer relationships. We are building a global company, not licensing our technology. Other companies have different intent: we want to monetise our innovation but do not need to operate there ourselves. Neither position is right or wrong. What matters is knowing which you hold.

The test: Can you articulate the range of outcomes you would accept in this market? Do you know your non-negotiables? Do you have an idea of what kind of value you want to capture?

Selective Adaptation

Identifying what is essential and what can change

The temptation is binary: either keep everything the same or change everything for the new market. Neither works. What you need is selective adaptation: surgical precision about what changes and what remains constant.

Some elements are core: the underlying science, the algorithm, the evidence base. These usually stay. If you have to change them fundamentally, you are building a new product. Some elements are variable: user interface, pricing, delivery model, partnership approach. These almost always need adaptation.

The hard part is the boundary cases. Is your business model core or variable? It feels core because it is how you make money. But a model built for Indian out-of-pocket payment may be fundamentally incompatible with NHS value-based procurement. Selective adaptation also means choosing how deeply to adapt:

The test: For each element of your product and business, can you articulate whether it is core or variable? For the variable elements, have you determined what level of adaptation is required?

Local Partnership

Understanding what partners will do, what you will do, and where mutual value exists

This is the capability where I see the most consistent underinvestment. Companies treat partnership as optional, as something to consider after they have tried to go it alone. This is backwards. Partnership should be the default assumption for cross-context expansion.

The core problem: you do not know what you do not know. You do not know which hospitals are genuinely innovating versus just talking about it. You do not know which clinical champions have real influence versus impressive titles. Local partners have this information. They have relationships that took years to build. They have credibility that you cannot manufacture.

The test: Do you have local partners who provide genuine market intelligence, relationship access, and credibility? If not, are you personally investing the time to build this yourself?

Building the capability

These five capabilities reinforce each other.

Context intelligence and market analysis are two lenses on the same territory: one qualitative, one quantitative. You need both. Partnership accelerates both; local partners see things you cannot see and have data you cannot access. Strategic intent shapes how you engage with all of these; you need to know what you want before you can evaluate whether the market offers it. Selective adaptation connects everything; it translates your understanding into concrete decisions about what to change.

Most companies attempting cross-context expansion are weak in at least one dimension. Many are weak in several. Identifying your gaps is the first step toward addressing them.

Building translation capability takes time and resources that most companies underestimate. It is not a project with a defined end date. It is an ongoing investment in the capacity to operate across contexts.

What success looks like

A company with strong translation capability can take innovations from one context and make them genuinely valuable in another. Not just present. Not just functional. Valuable, in ways that matter to local patients, clinicians, and health systems.

This is rare. Most cross-context ventures produce inferior versions of home-market products: technically operational but missing the deep fit that creates real adoption. The companies that achieve genuine translation create value that could not exist without the cross-context move. They bring Indian frugality to UK efficiency challenges. They bring UK evidence rigour to Indian scale ambitions. They make the gateway productive, not just passable.

If you are considering the India-UK gateway, or any cross-context healthcare expansion, the question is not whether you have a good product. The question is whether you have the capability to translate that product into genuine value in a new context.

That capability is buildable. These articles have outlined what it requires. The rest is execution.

Related reading:

• The Gateway: The Translation Problem - Why cross-context innovation is harder than it looks
• The Gateway: Five Ways to Fail - The recurring patterns that doom translation
• UK Health Tech Compliance: See the System - Mapping the UK regulatory landscape