How A Streamlined In-Country Review Process Improved Efficiency and Brand Accuracy

With global teams and locations, the client’s Human Resources (HR) team knew they needed to incorporate an in-country review (ICR) process into their translation workflow. ICR is beneficial because it improves translation accuracy while preserving brand voice and tone. However, it can add time and cost, so efficiency is the key to driving success. 

Glossaries are foundational to a smooth ICR process, as they provide translators with approved terminology for a consistent brand voice. The HR team did not have a standard ICR process or glossaries in place for the six languages they were translating content into: French, Canadian French, Latin American Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Thai, and German. This made the ICR process more cumbersome than necessary, increasing turnaround time and project cost. 

ULG’s experts partnered with the HR team to streamline and update the ICR process, train the ICR team, and set up glossaries and translation memories.  

Our team collaborated directly with the client’s reviewers, holding training calls to educate them on translation best practices and how to best use ULG’s online review portal. 

To set up the glossaries, ULG’s Linguistic Asset Management team performed an initial key term extraction on previous projects. Then, we worked with our linguists and client’s reviewers to establish preferred translations for each term. With these preferred translations in place, translators now know which words to choose to stay on brand. Translations take less time, are more consistent and require less editing and review. 

With this initial phase complete, edits and change requests from the review team are now incorporated automatically into the glossary and translation memories, further reducing review times on future projects.

The client also benefited from an updated, technology driven ICR process using ULG’s online review portal. The portal played a key role in streamlining ICR reviews by eliminating email flow and managing multiple files in a safe, central location that all team members can access. Reviewers are automatically notified when new projects are available. Once they log into the portal, they can compare the source content to the translated content and edit or comment as needed. Edits are captured automatically, and all changes are tracked to improve future translations. 

Compared to the former way of logging emails that included managing multiple files and multiple reviewers, our real-time, cloud-based solution has benefited client in several ways:

• Greater efficiency as preferred translations are automatically incorporated into future projects.
• Fewer comments and edits at the ICR stage of the translation process.
• Less time spent on review, which generates cost savings.
• Decreased turnaround time for projects that require ICR review.
• Greater buy-in and deeper understanding of the material as the client’s employee voice comes through in all translations.
• Less need for ICRs unless the content is new since approved translations are automatically incorporated.

At A Glance