Measuring translation quality is a persistent challenge for the localization industry. As the amount of multilingual content created every year continues to grow, translation quality becomes critical for achieving desired business goals and requires a predictive assessment at the center of the translation process. These slides of our latest webinar "A data driven approach to translation outcomes" challenges the presumption that translation quality cannot be quantitatively measured and examines the data that is needed to improve modern translation management strategies. The unparalleled transparency made possible by data enables global brands to make shrewd evaluations of translators. Smartling’s newly-launched Quality Confidence Score™ (QCS) is a prediction of expected accuracy based on the analysis of more than 75 behavior-based success factors. As a result, the QCS™ can identify and predict the likelihood of careless translations, and it can inspire strategic workflow adjustments based on metrics gathered and analyzed throughout the translation process, allowing customers to gain reliable and actionable insights to optimize their business in real time. Watch the webinar recording: https://www.gala-global.org/ondemand/data-driven-approach-translation-outcomes Read on: https://info.smartling.com/symptoms-broken-localization-process-ebook

1. Using Technology & Data
to Improve Translation Outcomes

2. Translation Outcomes

3. Smartling Supports Leading Brands Across All Industries
Smartling By The Numbers

4. Billions of Words Processed
Smartling By The Numbers

5. Translation Outcomes
Traditional Translation Focus Is On Speed, Quality, & Cost
Speed Quality Cost
+ +

6. Quality Drives Translation Option Choices
High
Cost
High
Speed
Transcreation
Professional
TEP
One-Pass
Translation
MT Post-
Edit
Machine
Translation
Adaptive
MT

7. Quality Drives Translation Partner Choices
OR
OR
OR
Agency A Agency B
In-House
Agencies
Outsourced
Freelancers

8. Quality Drives Translation Process Choices
Should I have internal reviewers?
How should I provide context to translators?
How often should I build and update glossaries?

9. Translation Quality is Top of Mind for Buyers…
of customers say translation quality is the
most important factor in their decision
making

10. ...Yet the Least Understood Outcome
of customers say
translation quality is
the most important
factor in their
decision making
of customers
understand how to
measure, track, and
improve translation
quality

11. Translation Quality Management:
Current State

12. Quality Management
Greatly Dictated by Translation Maturity

13. Ask for certified
translators
Quality Management
Greatly Dictated by Translation Maturity

14. Ask about vendor
quality assurance
process
Quality Management
Greatly Dictated by Translation Maturity

15. ISO Certifications
Sample Translations
Error reporting
Quality Management
Greatly Dictated by Translation Maturity

16. Data-driven quality
measurement
Quality Management
Greatly Dictated by Translation Maturity

17. ü Variety of frameworks based on content types,
industries and use cases
ü Error Typology Framework: most widely used
ü Standardization of error categorization, weighting,
reporting, and benchmarking
TAUS DQF
Gold Standard for Quality Measurement

18. The Challenge with Today’s Gold Standard
Reactive Resource
Intensive
Sampling
Driven
Delayed

19. A Reactive and Manual Approach to Quality is Growing
Increasingly Impractical
More content
More languages
Less time
Less budget

20. Status Quo
Manage translation quality in a black box
OR
Compromise speed and cost to partially measure quality
Traditional Approaches Have Forced Stakeholders to…

21. Translation Quality Management:
A New Approach

22. Defining the Ideal State
Predictive Automated Real-timeCensus
Reactive Resource
Intensive
Sampling
Driven
Delayed

23. What Factors Predict Translation Quality?
People
Content
Process

24. People
Content
Process
• Number of (and time spent in) workflow steps
• Engagement (issues raised and answered)
• Mechanical errors corrected
What Factors Predict Translation Quality?

25. Content
Process
People
• Past performance of translator/editor
• Industry expertise
• In-country presence
What Factors Predict Translation Quality?

26. People
Content
Process
• Length/complexity of string(s)
• Presence of visual context
• Extent of TM leverage
What Factors Predict Translation Quality?

27. Translation Quality Factors
75+
DATA POINTS
Glossary
adherence
Placeholder
use
Visual
context
available
Edit
distance
Linguist
rating
String
length
Target
locale
Spell
check
Grammar
check
Translation
re-use
Time
spent
Content
type
Smartling’s platform
automatically compiles
and analyzes hundreds of
metrics, in real-time…

28. Smartling’s Solution
Quality Confidence Score
QCS: A multinomial logistic
regression model that uses 75+
variables collected during the
translation process to predict
the probability of a translation
achieving a professional quality
threshold
QCS
Glossary
adherence
Placeholder
use
Visual
context
available
Edit
distance
Linguist
rating
String
length
Target
locale
Spell
check
Grammar
check
Translation
re-use
Time
spent
Content
type
… to provide a single, unified
metric of translation quality

29. Quality Confidence Score in Action
Sample QCS Calculation

30. The Quality Confidence Score…
Is predictive, automated and real-time
Focuses on the causes of good/ poor translation quality, not the effect
Distributes the burden of translation quality between buyer and supplier
Compliments existing quality evaluation frameworks

31. Tying Quality Confidence Score to
Translation Outcomes

32. Leveraging the Quality Confidence Score
An Objective Measure of Translation Quality Across Locales & Projects Over Time

33. Improve Quality Outcomes
Understand root causes of low
quality resulting from content,
people or process 96%Percentage of translations
published without requiring correction
Leveraging the Quality Confidence Score

34. Leveraging the Quality Confidence Score
Accelerate Time To Market
6xImprovement in time to market
since implementing Smartling
Workflow changes and velocity
reports allow you to bypass
unnecessary internal review
steps that are not improving
overall content quality

35. Leveraging the Quality Confidence Score
Reduce Costs
Remove agency steps that are
incurring additional expense and
delaying content delivery but not
improving quality
33%Reduction in annual expense
within one year of implementing Smartling

36. Leveraging the Quality Confidence Score
Establishing measurable SLA around quality
A Quality Confidence Score is calculated for every translation job
Smartling offers Quality Confidence Score SLAs with money-back
guarantees

37. Key Takeaways

38. What data does our process and software offer as leading predictors of
translation quality?
Are we appropriately sharing the responsibility of translation quality
with our vendors?
Is our translation process dynamic enough to respond to and benefit
from real-time indicators of translation quality?
Key Takeaways
Translation Buyers

39. What information are we providing customers to objectively understand
translation quality over time?
Do we have visibility into our own supply chain to identify drivers of
translation quality?
How do we move from reactive error correction to proactive quality
measurement?
Key Takeaways
Language Services Providers

40. For more information visit smartling.com/language-services
ksarda@smartling.com
@sardakunal