Translation Management Systems: What and Why?

Translation Management Systems: What they do, and why you want one!

A Translation Management System (TMS) is software designed to streamline and automate the translation process for businesses and language service providers. A TMS automates repetitive or manual tasks, helps manage multilingual content efficiently, improves collaboration between project managers, translators and clients, and ensures quality and consistency across translations.

Imagine you are launching a new product: your designers, developers and marketers will need to coordinate with the translators, as well as local market specialists, to ensure the translated and localised content reaches, and resonates with, your local market. This process requires multiple steps and multiple people, often in different locations. First you must extract the source content, provide it to your translators — with the necessary termbase (glossary), style guides and other instructions — once translated, the content will need to be reviewed, and finally re-inserted into your website, with SEO completed in the relevant language(s). Now imagine that an unexpected change is needed to the source content – your existing, and in-progress, translations need to be updated immediately.

As well as being a time consuming process, the possibility of error is high.

A TMS is a centralised platform — meaning all users across roles, teams, time zones, or locations can access the same data, update as required, and see any changes occurring in real-time. Plus, project managers know what everyone is doing, what tasks are complete, and where the project stands. Furthermore, by combining traditional computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools and machine translation capabilities with project management and business intelligence features, a TMS can serve as the central hub for smoothly adapting a product to a specific language, market, and culture.

Global business requires effective communication with your buyers — modern customers expect quality content that is considerate of cultural context and nuance. A Translation Management System will help you to manage your multilingual content effectively and scale up accordingly — as such, a TMS is a tool for global growth.

Find out more: 6 Key Benefits of Website Localisation

Key Features of a Translation Management System

A good TMS includes several essential features, such as:

Computer Assisted Translation (CAT) tools

A TMS incorporates three essential CAT tools that help maintain quality and consistency across languages:

• Translation Memory (TM) – A TM stores previously translated text and compares word-for-word matches to determine if an existing translation can be re-used. This ensures consistency, cuts time, and reduces translation costs.
• Terminology Management – A term base or glossary is a list of approved, preferred terms that appear frequently in your content. For example, your termbase should include product names, technical specifications, legal terms and taglines. This ensures accuracy and uniformity across translations (this is particularly important when translating SEO keywords consistently).
• Translation style guides – A TMS may support the creation of native language style guides that are automatically included in a translation package — ensuring brand alignment across languages and regions.

Team tools

• Workflow Automation – A TMS automates project management, reducing manual tasks – such as extracting/uploading content, assigning translators appropriately, and real-time discovery of new or edited copy – and improving efficiency. The ability to leave comments and notes for other team members, send automated notifications to other tools used within the company, and deliver real-time status updates can dramatically boost productivity across the board.
• Integration Capabilities – Connects with your existing CMS, e-commerce platform, or marketing tools to facilitate fast and seamless multilingual sites.
• Collaboration Tools – Enables multiple translators, editors, and project managers to work together in real-time. May offer screenshots and in-context editors for visual support during translation
• Multilingual File Support – Handles various file formats, including documents, software strings, and website content.

AI tools

• Machine Translation (MT) Support – Integrated AI-driven translation tools will speed up the translation process. A good TMS should offer a range of MT engines and automatically select the best engine for your content type and language pair. Human post-editors can then review, and fine-tune the copy.
• Quality Assurance (QA) Tools – Includes fixing typos, grammar and spell-checking, as well as formatting issues, incorrect markups, terminology inconsistencies, untranslated text, and automated QA workflows.

Reporting & Analytics tools

• Reporting & Analytics – Provides insights into translation progress, costs, and performance. You will need to track the progress of your projects, measure translation efficiency, and monitor performance. A good system should provide informative metrics that will allow you to quickly identify trends, spot areas for improvement, and make data-driven decisions.

How to Choose the Right Translation Management System

When selecting a Translation Management System, you should consider the following factors:

Find out more: Transcreation: the next level of Localisation

Final Thoughts

With a Translation Management System supporting your global strategy from the start, the improved ability to manage multiple languages across a product or service line can lead to three key results:

• Faster time to market
• Greater global brand reputation
• Stronger global revenue growth

Essentially: the faster you can launch your product in a new market, the faster you can start selling it, and see the localisation ROI (return on investment). Maintaining a strong brand identity — a TMS’s integrated QA processes can contribute significantly — results in a positive customer experience across markets that holds buyers and keeps them coming back for more. The right TMS depends on your specific translation needs, budget, and existing workflow. It’s a good idea to test a few platforms through free trials or demos to determine which system aligns best with your requirements.

Would you like recommendations tailored to your industry or company size? We offer free consultations – Contact us!