Challenge:

Some people will tell you there’s nothing like that new car smell. But the Verbatim Solutions team prefers the smell of burning rubber because that means speed. When Verbingo, Verbatim’s revolutionary new translation platform was recently released, the team took it for a test drive on the most challenging course they could find—a high-volume, multi-language translation project. They knew the customer would see impressive time savings but Verbatim also wanted to measure the precision and performance within a real project.

Project:

The test project required 300,000 words to be translated into Latin Spanish and 400,000 words into Brazilian Portuguese with a deadline of 60 days or sooner.

To start, Verbatim’s project manager uploaded Excel files containing “strings” of text (phrases, sentences, etc. that can stand alone) into Verbingo for evaluation. This process only took a few minutes. Next, she divided the project into 30 pieces (12 for Spanish and 18 for Portuguese). She determined that since a good translator can do about 3,000 words per day, and there were roughly 40 business days until the deadline, the project required a multi-person team, including four Portuguese translators and three Spanish.

Before Verbingo, it took considerable time to mesh the translations and finalize the results from multiple translators. The translators each worked from different files and rarely shared information with each other. This lack of collaboration created a high risk for inconsistency in translated terms. Once the translated versions were pieced back together, an editor had to perform a top-level review to check for flow and consistency. All the effort was then repeated in the next translation project as there was no way to save the translation memories.

Now, with Verbingo, the process is transparent among translators as well as with clients, so translators can collaborate and visualize the whole job, which minimizes post-translation work. Translation memories are also stored for reuse, boosting speed and efficiency in future projects.

Results:

Verbatim beat the deadline with the Portuguese portion of the project by four weeks while still maintaining excellent quality. The Verbatim team completed the Spanish portion with ease and delivered the project to the client with time to spare.

Verbingo isn’t just an upgrade to an existing system—it is a whole new vehicle for traveling through the translation service process. Speed is the result when you coordinate all aspects of translation, including the automation with the human. Translation has never run more smoothly or powerfully.