How Stanley Black & Decker cut translation costs by 70% and improved efficiencies
As part of their localization strategy to help international end clients get the most out of their tools, the eCommerce team at Stanley Black & Decker wanted to translate their Learning and Development training materials into several languages. To streamline the process, the company started using the Smartcat translation platform, quickly seeing the benefits when translation speed, spending, and quality improved.
Achieved results
50-70%
Reduced translation costs
2-week
Decrease in average translation turnaround time
100%
Quality with Automated Project Management
The Challenge
Operating in more than 40 countries, the localization of learning and development content is a part of Stanley Black & Decker’s corporate mission to ensure that global end users understand how their products fit their needs.
The goals
Produce and distribute training materials swiftly across different demographics and meet their overall corporate communication goals.
Translate learning and development (L&D) materials, such as online courses, quizzes, PDFs, Word docs, PowerPoint presentations, and P&P books with InDesign as well as localize emails. The aim was to translate this content into six different languages.
Prior to using Smartcat, the eCommerce team at Stanley Black & Decker did not have a unified way of handling translations, including how to collaborate with stakeholders, manage resources, or store linguistic assets.
Problems they faced without a comprehensive enterprise language AI platform
1
Translation costs were higher than necessary
often due to expensive agency rates or lack of a platform that learns from each translation and can reuse existing content where relevant
2
Processes were fragmented
across several non-translation-related software solutions
3
Manual work was excessive
due to a lack of automation and integration with Stanley Black & Decker’s existing tech stack
3
Invoicing multiple suppliers was complex
4
There was no quality assurance process
The Solution
The eCommerce team responsible for learning and development wanted to increase translation turnaround times in a significant way, from weeks to a matter of days. After hearing about Smartcat’s simple-to-use, secure, enterprise language AI platform, they decided to try it to solve their challenges and cover all of their translation needs.
They believed that the combination of features and functions it offered would help them meet their goals more quickly:
1
AI translation:
AI-human workflows for high-quality translations into 250+ languages, cutting turnaround time from months to minutes.
2
Collaborative Translation Management System (TMS) workflows:
Improved efficiency and project transparency for stakeholders.
3
Marketplace of 500,000 vetted translators:
AI-sourcing of professional reviewers facilitates the assignment of the best suppliers from the world's largest marketplace of reviewers, around the clock.
4
Unified enterprise-compliant procurement platform:
Administrative burden is reduced thanks to a single contract and simple invoicing system to pay all suppliers anywhere in the world.
Smartcat Automated Project Management
Smartcat’s industry-first AI-matching algorithm sources the right translator for each project (based on your content and the skills and track record of the translator) and delivers the completed job with guarantees on budget, timeline, and quality.
Projects under Smartcat’s Automated Project Management are monitored 24 hours a day with no downtime, and, like the rest of the platform, are data-protected. Companies benefit from complete transparency throughout the process and are able to collaborate directly with translators in order to generate the highest quality results.
AI translations
This unique offering is a combination of adaptive learning algorithms which learn from your edits, as well as translation memories, glossaries, and brand voice/tone to produce the most accurate and high-quality results.
Transparent and flexible project management
With regard to workflows, the centralized nature of Smartcat’s simple- to-use enterprise AI platform means all stakeholders are in sync and experience smooth communication. All the content and translation documentation is stored and accessible in one spot, making it easy for everyone to follow and understand the translation process.
The team at Stanley Black & Decker also enjoy the intuitive and user-friendly interface of the Smartcat AI enterprise platform, which has an unlimited seat model. The platform is highly flexible too, with teams able to create separate project folders by market or business discipline and custom streamlined workflows for each business unit. Additionally, Stanley Black & Decker team members can curate workflows that take advantage of company-wide intelligence and terminology–all made possible by Smartcat’s adaptive AI.
Separate projects also let business units attribute the correct billing information to the right cost center. For example, the company has operations in Benelux and the Nordics, which have their own cost centers. With Smartcat, there’s no longer any need for the company to cross-charge internally.
File and document support
The team at Stanley Black & Decker also regularly use Smartcat’s easy file translation feature. They found they could quickly upload or drag and drop documents of any format, such as Google Docs, Google Sheets, Word, VTT, Excel, InDesign, or PDF, and have it instantly translated, while keeping the document’s formatting intact.
Being able to create multiple projects also lets Stanley Black & Decker attribute the correct billing information to the different cost centers. For example, they operate in Benelux and the Nordics, which each have their own billing details, so they no longer need to cross-charge internally.
Website translations for eCommerce
Recently, more members of the eCommerce team in Europe have also started using the platform after seeing the Learning & Development (L&D) team’s positive results. They have been able to translate numerous web pages, including product descriptions, features, and benefits, into six different languages at speed and to the highest accuracy thanks to Smartcat’s adaptive AI and industry-leading AI-human workflows.
The results
Stanley Black & Decker were able to reduce translation costs by up to 70%, significantly reduce turnaround time, and keep quality consistent throughout.
They experienced noticeable results since switching to Smarcat’s simple-to-use, secure, enterprise language AI platform for all of their translation needs including costs, internal resources, and turnaround time. Using Smartcat’s AI-driven course creation tools, the team were able to translate digital learning modules and quizzes into six different languages in days rather than weeks.
50-70%
reduced on translation costs
2-week
reduction in turnaround times
100%
quality with Automated Project Management
The company produced more and kept quality high, while saving time and costs overall.