Getting Your Local, Foreign ‘Phrase’ Just Right
Phrase is a global leader in enterprise localization software. The Phrase Localization Suite powers the entire localization ecosystem for global businesses, connecting, automating and managing high-quality localized content at speed and scale. The Phrase software can handle more than 500 languages, supporting 50+ file types and processing 2B+ words monthly. It has 200K global users. The company recently integrated Japanese-English and English-Japanese into its Phrase NextMT. In this article, Phrase CMO Jason Hemingway gives deeper insights into the company and its offering.
How does Phrase enable localized ad translation services that are different or better than its competitors?
Integrations are one of our key differentiators. We understand that integrating and connecting different systems is a must. As a result, Phrase allows for greater volume than you’ll find elsewhere in the competitive space, thanks to high degrees of flexibility and adaptability to different business needs. The sheer connectivity of Phrase TMS with other tools and technologies in a brand’s stack is integral to our platform.
The Phrase Localization Suite brings state-of-the-art AI-powered machine translation (MT) and localization management capabilities and tools to market while ensuring superior ease of use for our customers. Our advanced MT capabilities are embedded in our translation-management platform and support more than 30 translation engines, working jointly to streamline translation workflows, improve translation quality, and accelerate product development and the overall GTM process. We effectively empower businesses that operate globally to reach new markets more quickly and cost-effectively than others in our space.
We recently launched Phrase Next MT to achieve a 50% increase in translation quality through adaptation—and added Phrase Orchestrator for a completely tailored end-to-end translation workflow & Advanced Analytics so brands can see what’s optimized, what’s costing money and where bottlenecks might be happening.
Phrase NextMT is the first neural machine-translation engine developed specifically for a translation-management system. Now, Phrase customers have unparalleled customization, automation, integration, self-service analytics, and reporting capabilities.
Who is the target customer for Phrase?
Any company with global ambition is a potential Phrase customer. We work closely with language service providers and localization teams, as well as key stakeholders within businesses charged with driving growth globally for their organizations. Decision-makers are targeted across marketing, product development, and design, as well as C-suite executives, VPs, directors, and senior managers of medium to large companies. Supporting all vertical segments really; customers are spread across a diverse group of industries, such as:
- Engineering and manufacturing
- Education
- Life Sciences
- Automotive
- Technology (including software)
- Professional services
- Retail (including e-commerce)
- Travel
- Media
- Language service providers (translation/localization)
- Fintech and financial services
- Gaming
What are some of the challenges in the ad-localization space these days?
The localization industry is a fragmented space with many niche technology players. Most tech players focus on a specific part of the localization process or a specific department or use case. However, we saw an opportunity to build a unifying Suite of products that would cater to the end-to-end needs of a business, whether that’s accessing new markets, acquiring new customers, complying with regulations, or retaining existing customers.
Phrase can leverage top-ranked cutting-edge technology, the Phrase Localization Suite, our team’s industry expertise, and our comprehensive understanding of the different markets and languages. These elements, combined, form a technological background that allows us to power the entire localization ecosystem for global businesses, connecting, automating, and managing high-quality localized content at speed and at scale.
Who checks on the accuracy of the translations? How quickly?
The Phrase Localization Suite seamlessly orchestrates the entire translation and localization process within an organization, fostering real-time collaboration among all contributors in the translation and localization ecosystem. This includes content creators, language service providers, linguists, reviewers, and approvers. The Suite’s workflows are flexible, allowing users to tailor them according to various business needs and timelines.
Furthermore, Phrase NextMT leverages existing translation memories (TM), improving the translation quality by up to 50%. Unlike most engines available today, Phrase NextMT’s glossaries go beyond simple search and replace substitution to ensure that terms are correctly used and inflected for the best possible translation quality.
Our approach to development operates on a quarterly cadence, which serves to enhance the Phrase Localization Suite continually. We focus on aligning with customer needs and keeping pace with the dynamic business landscape. As part of these releases, we often integrate new languages.
Ultimately, our aim is to keep broadening the scope of our technology so that language never poses a barrier to businesses. We’re excited about the impact this has and the potential it creates for the future.
How many companies use Phrase’s software and services?
We already work with over 4,500 customers across a broad range of industries, from gaming and social networks to language service providers, manufacturing, IT, and healthcare. Our clients include Shopify, Zendesk, Huawei, Fujifilm, Skoda, and Lionbridge.
