Is your business quickly outgrowing the domestic market? Perhaps you’re focusing on growth potential and want to capitalize on international markets. Whatever your reasons for looking further afield, you’ll need to consider localization. Going beyond the scope of translation, localization allows you to reach new audiences easily and resonate with content in their own language. However, achieving the right notes with a localization project isn’t always easy. If you’re serious about succeeding globally, you’ll need a translation management system (TMS).
A TMS can streamline your translation workflows, reduce costs, and improve efficiency across the board. Never used a TMS before? Unsure of how to choose the right translation management system? Read on for a complete guide on what to look for when choosing a TMS, along with a rundown on key benefits that can help lighten the load and increase your odds of success.
When choosing a TMS, you’ll be overwhelmed with choices. However, not every TMS is created equal, with the best ones sharing the same key translation management system features. Need some help selecting the best TMS for your localization project? Below are a handful of core features you’ll want to look out for.
Any good translation management system should allow for a good degree of automation. From translation memory to speed up workflows to collaboration features that ensure everyone’s on the same page, when you embrace automation, you can achieve the localization results you’re looking for more quickly. This is particularly useful if you’re aiming to target a particularly competitive market or are dealing with a large localization workload.
Technically, machine translation falls under the banner of automation. However, it deserves special mention considering its central role in any localization project. With machine translation, less pressure is put on human linguists to handle translation tasks. This frees up translation teams to focus on proofing and editing work.
For a successful localization project, translation management systems can’t operate alone. Instead, you’ll need to depend on other essential tools, such as a separate content management system. These systems need to be integrated with your TMS of choice, meaning the system you use should ideally include native integration as standard.
First time using a translation management system? Whether localization is a whole new undertaking for your company or new additions to your team are complete novices, a user-friendly interface can help ease everyone into everyday processes. User-friendly interfaces dramatically flatten the learning curve, making it easier for everyone to master core features quickly.
Another hallmark of a great TMS is the ability to support multiple languages. You might only have your eye on a single new market right now, but the most successful businesses ultimately cast the net wider and branch out into new territories. By choosing a TMS with support for additional languages, you’re future-proofing your localization efforts and dramatically reducing your lead times.
A typical localization team is made up of many individuals with different areas of expertise, including translations, developers, project managers, and more. No matter how big or small your team ends up being, collaboration tools can significantly streamline localization workflows. By offering a centralized platform, updates and urgent requests are displayed in real time, ensuring everyone stays in the loop and important milestones are met.
Think you can pull off a localization project without a translation management system? Think again. From increased productivity to significant reductions in human error, there are many TMS benefits that can bolster your localization efforts and increase the odds of success.
Whether it’s a large-scale project or a more modest undertaking, the average localization project is a highly collaborative process bringing together multiple roles. In many cases, most roles will be remote, with team members scattered across the globe. Fortunately, translation management systems offer collaboration tools to help overcome this.
Collaboration tools allow stakeholders to leave comments on previously translated texts, send notifications, and add updates to enhance productivity. While they’re useful if you’re managing an in-house team, they’re equally essential if you’re relying on the input of a language service provider.
One of the most significant TMS benefits is increased accuracy and quality of translations. Translation management systems bring together a suite of translation tools that can help maintain consistency, reducing the burden on QA teams and ensuring first-rate quality is upheld.
CAT tools like translation memory save previously translated text to a central database. This database is then searched to see if previously translated words and phrases can be reused. This improves translation quality and increases consistency. Other useful tools include translation glossaries, with these guidelines giving translators greater insight into term definitions and direction on usage.
Translation management systems can be integrated with your current systems, with APIs allowing you to build custom integrations with ease. This allows you to rapidly streamline key processes, such as pulling materials to share with translators and other team members. These integrations allow you to scale your localization efforts easily. Ideal if you quickly decide to expand into multiple territories, rather than focus on a single new market.
By leveraging the potential of automation and taking advantage of time-saving integrations, you can redirect resources to focus on urgent tasks, saving you a considerable amount of money. For example, machine translation tools allow you to translate large volumes of text without having to allocate a large budget for human translator costs.
Automation also helps you minimize the incidence of human error. In the past, spreadsheets were the standard for localization and translation projects. While they served a purpose, using these meant a reliance on manual monitoring and updates, with a high margin for human error. Translation tools powered by automation remove this risk, with centralized platforms streamlining workflows and making it far easier to avoid misunderstandings and common mistakes.
Eager to capitalize on untapped markets and beat the competition? A translation management system can help you achieve just that, with the best tools making it easy to make your mark in new territories. Never used a TMS before? Perhaps you’ve had bad luck previously with a system that fell far short in terms of functionality. Below, we’ll take a look at some of the most important features to consider when choosing the best TMS for localization.
Never underestimate the importance of scalability when selecting a TMS. Even if you only intend to target a single market right now, there’s a good chance you’ll want to cast the net wider if your efforts prove fruitful. Translation management systems empowered by integrations allow exactly that, making it easier to scale your efforts and add to your workflows.
For small to medium-sized businesses, pricing is a crucial consideration when selecting a TMS. Some systems offer rolling monthly subscriptions, with incremental discounts if you choose to subscribe for six months or annually. While some solutions offer a fixed price for a full range of features, others offer premium functions as a premium. If you want to unlock the full potential of a TMS, be prepared to spend a little extra.
Even if you have a strong team of technical experts behind you, you’ll still need to rely on the support of TMS providers from time to time. As such, it’s important to choose a provider with excellent customer support credentials. Email, live chat, and telephone support should all be offered, with the most reliable providers offering round-the-clock assistance. For perspective, it’s worth taking the time to check reviews from previous customers to get a feel of how providers are performing as far as customer support is concerned.
Finally, it’s worth thinking about customization. While some systems are better than others, there’s no single out-of-the-box solution that’s going to offer everything you’re looking for right off the bat. Therefore, you’ll need a TMS that offers ample customization options, allowing you to refine a system with features that work for you.
Searching for a translation management system to anchor your next localization project? Below are a handful of the best solutions on the market worth taking a look at:
Phrase is a widely-used Translation Management System (TMS) that offers a comprehensive suite of tools designed to streamline the localization process. Known for its user-friendly interface and robust features, Phrase enables seamless collaboration among translators, project managers, and developers. It supports a wide range of file formats and integrates smoothly with popular platforms like GitHub, Figma, and Slack, making it particularly effective for software and app localization. Additionally, Phrase’s advanced automation features, such as translation memory and machine translation integration, help reduce costs and improve efficiency, making it a versatile solution for various industries.
Crowdin is another translation management platform that utilizes artificial intelligence to streamline localization processes. With Crowdin, you can localize everything from website copy to games, desktop applications, and more. There’s an expansive suite of integrations and TMS add-ons to explore here, with hundreds of file formats supported. Ideal for those looking for a system that can handle the localization of many different types of digital assets.
Don’t have much experience with translation management systems? A user-friendly solution like Bablic might be a good fit for you. With its flat learning curve and streamlined translation dashboard, it’s easy to get to grips with the full power of this TMS. Ideal if you’re looking to improve accessibility for a global audience, this TMS supports automatic translation and impresses with reliable performance. What’s more, first-rate customer support brings peace of mind.
As one of the most popular translation management systems on the planet, Lokalise is the way to go if you’re looking for a multi-platform solution that will let you scale with ease. Perfect for agile teams, this system lets you translate everything from mobile apps to marketing material in one place. Its user-friendly interface and high degree of automation mean you can reach new markets more quickly, while streamlined workflows let you say goodbye to manual tasks and reduce localization costs.
Another useful translation management system to consider is memoQ. What makes this TMS stand out is its huge range of productivity-enhancing features. Machine translation and features like LiveDocs allow for improved consistency and inter-team collaboration, removing the chance of human error and dramatically increasing translation quality. Intuitive and user-friendly, it’s well-suited to the beginner and comes with a minimal learning curve.
While there’s a considerable amount of crossover between translation management systems, some are inherently better than others. A great TMS should embrace automation, with tools like machine translation significantly reducing the workload of human linguists.
Integrations allow you to create bespoke localization tools that are perfectly aligned with your operation, while collaboration tools make quick work of complicated tasks. Meanwhile, user-friendly interfaces make some translation management systems accessible to the beginner, saving you from having to invest in time-consuming training.
With a robust TMS at your disposal, you’ll enjoy benefits like increased turnaround and rising productivity rates, resulting in happier clients and lower costs. Automation also improves consistency, reducing human error and improving quality across the board.
When choosing a TMS for your business, ensure scalability comes as standard. This way, you can expand your localization projects or mine new markets in multiple languages with ease. A high degree of customization is also ideal, allowing you to create a unique system that fully supports your aims. What’s more, you’ll want a TMS provider that offers reliable customer support, with pricing structures that won’t break the bank.
With 18+ years in the localization industry, BLEND can help you find the right TMS for your needs. Plus, our localization platform is tech agnostic and integrates with the best TMSs on the market, including Crowdin, Phrase, XTM, Smartling, Lokalise, and more.
Looking for a single-source platform to help you with your next localization project? Make BLEND Your first port of call. Leveraging the potential of AI and loaded with localization-enhancing features, this all-in-one solution lets you easily translate content via your TMS.
BLEND’s end-to-end localization services can cover all your bases for starting up a successful localization operation, from determining the best TMS to use to creating a dedicated team of linguists you can trust for all your translations. Our API-enabled workflows make it easy to juggle complex tasks and manage multiple projects with ease, increasing your time to market considerably. Whether you need to localize marketing content, website, apps, games, or even audio and video, we’ve got you covered.
Ready to learn more about how BLEND can help you? Get in touch with our team today.
As BLEND’s Localization Solutions Engineer, Fouad is a seasoned expert in translation technologies, including TMS, CAT tools, AI and MT. With over 14 years of industry experience, Fouad ensures our clients receive the best and most efficient localization processes.
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