Business translation: Powering global growth

Business translation is the process of adapting company content for customers, employees, and partners in different languages and markets. It can include translation, localization, terminology management, quality assurance, technical implementation, and the delivery of multilingual content to end users.

The required workflow depends on the content type. Software interfaces need accurate terminology and regular updates, marketing campaigns may require transcreation, support documentation must remain consistent with the product, and internal documents need to stay current across regional teams.

This article explains the main types of business content, the challenges involved in translating them, how to choose between an agency and an internal team, and how a translation management system can support the process.

Types of business content and their translation challenges

The effort, expertise, time, and budget required for business translation depend on the content type and industry. Specialized content in fields such as medical software and fintech may require subject-matter expertise, approved terminology, additional reviews, and stricter quality controls.

The following content types present different translation challenges.

Software and product content

Software and product content includes mobile and web applications, websites, games, platforms, and other digital products. Users interact directly with this content, which means its translation can influence usability, product understanding, and customer satisfaction.

Common challenges include:

• Maintaining a consistent tone of voice: Interface elements, notifications, onboarding content, and other product text should follow the same writing style. Users should not encounter highly formal wording in one part of the product and casual language in another.

• Keeping translations aligned with releases: When product teams release new features or update source content, every supported language must be updated accordingly. The process becomes more complex as the number of languages, platforms, and releases increases.

• Managing technical requirements: Translators must preserve placeholders, markup, character limits, variables, and other technical elements that affect how translated content appears and functions.

• Connecting localized content correctly: Websites and digital products must direct users to the correct language versions and avoid missing, duplicated, or incorrectly linked pages.

Technical documentation, help center articles, user guides, and support content help customers understand and use a product. Clear multilingual documentation can also reduce repetitive questions for customer support teams.

The main challenge is maintaining consistency between the product and its supporting materials. Product names, interface labels, steps, and terminology should match across the software, documentation, and help center. Instructions must also remain accurate when the product interface or workflow changes.

Some companies use chatbots to answer common questions and transfer more complex requests to human support agents. Chatbot localization therefore often forms part of the broader support content workflow.

Technical and support content

Technical documentation, help center articles, user guides, and support content help customers understand and use a product. Clear multilingual documentation can also reduce repetitive questions for customer support teams.

The main challenge is maintaining consistency between the product and its supporting materials. Product names, interface labels, steps, and terminology should match across the software, documentation, and help center. Instructions must also remain accurate when the product interface or workflow changes.

Some companies use chatbots to answer common questions and transfer more complex requests to human support agents. Chatbot localization therefore often forms part of the broader support content workflow.

Marketing and sales content

Marketing and sales content often provides the first interaction between a company and a potential customer. It includes websites, campaigns, advertisements, product descriptions, landing pages, presentations, and sales materials.

This content may require transcreation in addition to translation. Slogans, idioms, cultural references, and creative messages cannot always be translated directly while preserving their intended effect.

Read more → Brand names and idioms: Challenges in localization

The main challenge is adapting the message to the target audience while maintaining the company’s positioning, terminology, and tone of voice. Style guides and market-specific instructions help translators and reviewers make consistent decisions.

Internal documentation

Internal documentation includes employee manuals, policies, training materials, onboarding content, process descriptions, and company guidelines. It helps multilingual teams follow shared procedures and communicate consistently across regions.

These documents frequently contain a large amount of interconnected content that must remain accurate as internal processes change. Companies need a reliable process for identifying updates, translating revised sections, managing access, and ensuring that employees use the latest version.

After identifying the relevant content types and requirements, companies must decide who will perform the translation work. They can use an external agency, freelance translators, an internal team, or a combination of these models.

Now that we have covered the main business content types and the pitfalls of translating them, let’s examine how to handle these complicated tasks. First, you need to decide whether you want to use in-house performers or external agencies. Below, we have provided an overview of the pros and cons of each option.

How to choose a business translation provider

Companies can organize business translation through an external agency, freelance translators, an in-house team, or a combination of these models. The right option depends on translation volume, language coverage, subject expertise, budget, deadlines, and the amount of internal control required.

A translation agency can provide project management, access to several languages, and established quality assurance processes. This can reduce the effort required to recruit and coordinate individual translators, although communication may pass through an additional project management layer.

An in-house translation team offers direct communication, close product knowledge, and greater control over priorities and workflows. However, companies must recruit specialists, manage workloads, provide translation technology, and maintain enough capacity for changing content volumes.

Freelance translators can offer specialist knowledge and flexible support for individual languages or content types. Many companies also use a hybrid model, keeping strategy and review internally while outsourcing selected languages, markets, or projects.

Regardless of the collaboration model, a central system helps teams organize multilingual content, share terminology and context, track progress, and maintain a consistent translation workflow.

How can LingoHub TMS support business translation?

LingoHub is a translation management system that helps companies organize business translation workflows with external providers, freelance translators, or internal localization teams. Its localization features centralize multilingual content, linguistic resources, collaboration, and quality management within one platform.

When working with an external translation agency or freelance translators, LingoHub helps teams:

• Exchange structured translation files: XLIFF support allows companies to transfer source text, translations, identifiers, and structural information between compatible translation tools without relying on unstructured documents.

• Centralize multilingual content: Projects and files provide one location for software, website, support, marketing, and documentation content.

• Share linguistic context: Glossaries, style guides, translation memories, labels, screenshots, and segment descriptions help external translators understand approved terminology and intended usage.

• Automate quality checks: Quality checks identify potential issues involving terminology, placeholders, markup, whitespace, punctuation, length, and formatting.

• Track progress centrally: Project and language views help internal teams monitor workflow stages, content requiring attention, and translation status.

For companies with internal translation teams, LingoHub also supports:

• Collaborative translation and review: Translators, reviewers, localization managers, and other contributors can work within shared projects and structured workflow stages.

• Repository and application integrations: Content can be synchronized with development and content systems, reducing manual imports and exports.

• AI-supported translation workflow: LINA, translation memories, glossaries, style guides, and contextual information support translation and review tasks.

• Role-based permissions: Workspace and project roles help companies control access to projects, languages, and localization content.

• Activity visibility: Activity and audit information help teams understand changes and maintain oversight of the localization workflow.

Conclusion

Business translation is a complex process that depends on the industry and content type. In addition to the professional team, handling this process requires a robust tool that can reduce manual tasks and human errors and save time and budgets.

At LingoHub, we designed the solution to create a top-notch user experience. Try LingoHub for free or book a demo to discuss your business translation workflow with our team.