Phrase
AI Translation and Localization for Multilingual Markets

Georg Ell, CEO

Expanding globally requires successfully navigating several mission-critical areas. Key among these is maintaining brand identity and consistent messaging, along with establishing suitable pricing and payment options. Additionally, compliance with local laws and effective engagement with customers and employees while adapting to cultural differences are essential— all while staying competitive. It is a hefty remit – but the return on the investment across these areas can be significant.

At the same time, the importance of language and cultural sensitivity in the global expansion of businesses cannot be overstated. Employing a domestic business strategy in international markets often leads to failure, primarily due to significant cultural and linguistic differences. However, effective localization can provide a substantial competitive advantage.

Take the e-commerce sector, for instance. CSA Research, which surveyed 8,709 consumers across 29 countries, showed a striking 76 percent of online shoppers prefer buying products with information in their native language. Furthermore, 40 percent avoid purchasing from websites in languages other than their own.

These findings highlight how understanding and connecting with local consumers in their language is essential for driving sales growth, enhancing customer satisfaction and building a loyal customer base across global markets.

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity, the Pillars of Progress

Given the significant changes in the global cultural landscape in recent years, the importance of sophisticated translation and localization solutions has become increasingly clear.

Phrase combines multiple capabilities into one platform and offers one of the most integrated solutions in the language technology industry

The uniqueness of Phrase’s technology lies in its extensive integrations and high configurability, allowing content from various sources to be efficiently localized and published at scale.

A Case Study in the “How To” of Localization at Scale

Consider what Phrase did for the food delivery company, Deliveroo. As Deliveroo ventured into new markets, it recognized the need for efficient localization of its app and website to ensure seamless customer experiences. The primary challenge was finding suitable translation software and integrating localization into its broader business, including the engineering, design and product units. The aim was to enhance translation efficiency, and speed up turnaround times for high quality translated content to support an aggressive expansion strategy. Deliveroo found its solution with Phrase. This adoption led to a notable reduction in project management time, saving managers between 35 and 40 percent of the usual time required for these tasks.

Ultimately, Deliveroo wouldn’t be able to execute its comprehensive localization program without Phrase. “By investing in Phrase, we centralized the process and ensured consistency across all content types. Most importantly, thanks to Phrase, we helped improve time to market and customer satisfaction in new regions,” commented the senior localization manager from Deliveroo.

To be successful in global expansion, businesses must adapt their communication strategies to meet the linguistic and cultural needs of diverse consumer groups.They also need to personalize messages beyond just recognizing past interactions. Achieving linguistic accuracy and cultural relevance is crucial for resonating with global audiences, building trust and empathy.

Georg Ell, CEO of Phrase, points out that, “A simple misstep, like using the term ‘soccer’ instead of ‘football’ in the UK, can be a glaring indicator of a brand’s lack of localization efforts.The ability to tell a consistent brand story that respects different cultural contexts is not just a strategic advantage but a necessity. It is a balancing act of maintaining brand identity while being relevant; key to thriving in the global marketplace.”

He added, “Apparently, simple operational efficiencies, like allowing a passenger and a ride-hailing driver to converse via in-app messaging, each in their native language, can be highly automated with AI and drive loyalty on both sides of a marketplace transaction.”

The Future of Localization: AI and Automation

Advancements in generative AI, large language models and overall language technology are revolutionizing how businesses produce high quality localized content and communications at scale. The advances in technology enable businesses to connect with global customers on a more individualized level, setting the stage for a future dominated by more personalized customer experiences.

"By keeping technology and language services distinct, businesses gain the flexibility to work with multiple language service providers and freelancers, optimizing cost, quality and specialized knowledge"

The cloud-based Phrase Localization Platform offers a comprehensive solution for localization at scale, from marketing and web content, to products and apps, as well as sales and service information.

It comes equipped with all the key capabilities needed to drive an end-to-end localization strategy, including:
● World-leading translation management: Underpinned by a suite of AI-powered, cloud-based solutions aimed at automating, managing and translating content with speed, accuracy and scale.

● AI-driven machine translation: AI provides high quality, accurate and fast machine translation, with third-party translation engine aggregation that ensures the best engine is used for the task.

● Software localization: Enabling organizations to make their products and brands multilingual, to reach a whole new set of users with efficient, intuitive and collaborative software localization.

● Machine Learning Models and Data Cleaning: Automates data cleaning for tailored machine translation and machine learning (ML) models, enabling rapid customization for specific business use cases such as sales and marketing. This results in highly accurate translations that surpass traditional expectations.

● Best-in-class workflow automation: Providing customizable, code-free automation to simplify the localization workflow. It can be easily integrated into a company’s existing content, marketing and design tech stack and workflows.

● Accessibility and integration: Access to a secure and compliant translation portal for all employees via an easy-to-use interface and an API for developers. Comprehensive integrations to connect directly with your existing technology and tools.

● Quality evaluation and analytics: Rigorous quality-checking output across the entire localization process, as well as generating data-driven insights from personalized reports and visualizations, aiding informed decision-making and strategy optimization.

In short, the Phrase Localization Platform is there to connect, streamline and manage every possible translation task across the enterprise.

Integrating Phrase into the solution stack has delivered significant advantages to businesses across different industries. For instance, the location platform what3words, known for mapping the Earth’s surface in 3x3 meter grids and assigning three words for precise locations, initially began in the UK with English. By leveraging Phrase, the company quickly transitioned to localizing its word-based product for other markets, enhancing relevance and customer engagement.

Separate Technology and Services for Maximum Performance

For over a decade, experts and independent analysts have advocated for keeping technology and services separate in localization. This industry best practice is also the experience endorsed by countless Phrase customers. This separation allows companies to avoid constraints and limitations on quality and cost control typically found in all-in-one solutions.

Putting Quality Metrics at the Center of Translation

An indispensable part of ensuring the accuracy, cultural relevance and contextual integrity of translated content is quality assurance.

Phrase Quality Performance Score, a key component of the Phrase platform’s quality assessment technologies, facilitates this by applying a consistent quality scoring model to content before and after translation. This enables clients to establish quality thresholds. If standards are not met, content can be reprocessed through translation, potentially leveraging large language models until it aligns with these standards. In this scoring method, human review is reserved for exceptional cases, representing a departure from the current norm of routine human review.

Such an approach has a notable impact on the unit economics for clients, facilitating cost-effective translation of vast content volumes at speed, a growing necessity in the era of rapidly produced generative AI content.

"Improvements in AI enabled a leap forward in machine translation, thanks to quality scoring and intelligent routing. These improvements also helped advance generative content creation. While human translation remains unmatched for precision and nuance in specific content areas, the overwhelming volume of content generated today compels us to increasingly lean on AI solutions"

Rethinking ROI Beyond Traditional Metrics

When assessing the return on investment (ROI) in localization, it is crucial to adopt a wider perspective than is possible with traditional localization industry metrics. These tend to focus narrowly on the operating costs and efficiencies of translation (for example, the degree of changes made to the original text). However, these metrics do not fully capture localization's broader impact and benefits.

A more comprehensive view of ROI considers how effectively localization drives business goals beyond direct costs. This includes evaluating how well the localized content drives customer engagement, shopping basket completion rates, employee hiring, enablement and retention and ultimately contributes to revenue growth.

In a recent example, Phrase collaborated with a medical information platform that initially generated 60 percent of its revenue from non-English speaking users. Still, it only provided them with English-language content. Unsurprisingly, it noticed significantly lower engagement with this same audience compared to its native English-speaking audience. By localizing content, communications and the platform, the business enhanced engagement with non-English speaking users to match the levels of its English-speaking counterparts; it realized the potential for significantly higher revenue, given the 2x to 3x difference in engagement rates.

This underscores the untapped potential of effectively communicating in the language of customers. It shows that ROI from language AI and localization should be measured in terms of how it drives wider business results. The potential for revenue growth is particularly significant when businesses consider the opportunities presented by effective language use and customer engagement.

Future-Proofing Business

For those starting their journey of expansion, the prevailing advice from Phrase is not to underestimate the importance of translation and localization. Early consideration is especially important when it comes to localizing products. For example, if the language has been hardcoded into the product, it is essential to prepare for localization by converting the hardcoded language to a flexible system that can pull from a database of language alternatives. It is ideal to start this process early, two to three quarters, before planning to localize, as retrofitting can be more time-consuming than anticipated.

It is also crucial to establish clear ROI metrics. These could include website visitors, engagement rates, new revenue pipelines from specific jurisdictions, product usage, or customer satisfaction metrics.

Phrase emphasizes the importance of not delaying the adoption of language technology. The field is evolving rapidly, particularly with the advancement of generative AI and machine learning. It is important to future proof your business by putting the latest AI for language technology in its rightful place as a driver for international expansion, global customer engagement and cross-border employee empowerment.