Trados Enterprise: A Q&A with Luis Lopes

We have recently changed the product name of RWS Language Cloud Translation Management to Trados Enterprise. For this blog, we wanted to take the opportunity to chat with Luis Lopes, our Principal Product Manager for Trados Enterprise, to get his view on key development milestones, a bit of background to the renaming, and look ahead to the future of TMS.

Well, I joined SDL (acquired by RWS in 2020) back in 2003 and spent a long time in Customer Support. I managed the German support team and later moved to product management. Now I’m the Principal Product Manager responsible for the overall roadmap of the RWS Language Cloud platform in collaboration with other members of the RWS product management team.

Our goal was to create a new localization platform geared towards solving real-life customer problems for now and the future. To realize this, we analyzed what the market needed, what our customers were telling us both about their plans and the challenges they were facing, and then we looked at what worked well across our existing products. For me, the first notable milestone was when we launched our cloud TMS offering in September 2019. 

We’ve had a significant focus on UX through interviewing our users to make sure the experience in the product is fit for purpose for their specific role. At the same time, we leveraged our Trados heritage to build a super-modern online editor, which features our existing leading-class technology innovations such as uplift sub-segment functionality and real-time previews for over 24 file formats. 

We also recently released a market-leading visual workflow editor, allowing customers to model their business processes. As well as self-service reporting, customers no longer have to know scripting to leverage data for reporting purposes. 

There’s much more milestone functionality I would like to talk about, such as sophisticated costing and quality management functionality. Instead, let me point you to our regular product update blogs.

The rebrand is an exciting move for us! We are very proud to offer a single converged technology platform with a solution for all of our users including, individual translators, small teams looking to collaborate, and those in need of a fully fledged TMS. Importantly it is tightly integrated with Trados Studio, meaning we can offer a hybrid solution. 

We renamed RWS Language Cloud Translation management to Trados Enterprise because we want to more clearly distinguish between the platform, which will continue to be the RWS Language Cloud platform, and the product offerings it supports.

Clients have often told me they see localization needs increasing, but the processes and systems used to translate content are still time-consuming. This makes it tricky to deliver exceptional customer experience to a global audience. Trados Enterprise offers a more integrated, automated, and holistic approach to help companies go to market faster. With Trados Enterprise you can manage translation for all content types, across all repositories, using any translation method! 

Consistently localized brand messaging is also a major challenge for brands – particularly those with globally dispersed teams. Trados Enterprise allows companies to overcome this challenge by bringing together all stakeholders and centrally managing translation resources. 

Of course, with budgets stretched, companies are always looking for ways to lower costs. Trados Enterprise gives more control over the entire content supply chain, and with the ability to accurately plan and cost projects, companies can make significant savings.

We currently have around 120,000 accounts set up on the RWS Language Cloud platform. Since last September there’s been a 490% increase in content passing through the platform, and a 740% increase in projects. 

A great customer example is how Paula’s Choice deployed Trados Enterprise and launched a Danish ecommerce website in just two days! Following that success, they are now deploying more languages and seeing triple-digit growth. You can read all about this case study here.

All products on the RWS Language Cloud platform have a continuous delivery model, meaning clients no longer need to wait for new functionality or bug fixes delivered via service packs. Instead, the team deploys updates to the platform multiple times a day, so they now have access to the latest features as and when they are released. I know how important this is from my days in the support team! 

We have designed Trados Enterprise based on an incredible amount of localization knowledge and technological expertise. It’s linguistically sophisticated and handles an almost limitless amount of information and content. 

A key differentiator is how we use the power of RWS Linguistic AI in several ways, starting with fully integrated, state-of-the-art machine translation. There’s also a content analyzer to extract domain classification and keywords from any file, so you can confirm it’s the content you expect and assign the most appropriate resources. And you can add users’ domain specializations to their profiles to get assignment suggestions of the translators that best fit the job. 

The user interface is easy to use. We’ve consciously made it simple for different stakeholders across the localization process, and each user’s experience is tailored for their specific role in the process. 

We are proud to be the first translation software with an AppStore, which now offers over 250 RWS-built and third-party apps, thanks to our dedicated RWS AppStore team. Apps mean users can extend the functionality to suit their unique ways of working. A key priority for the RWS Language Cloud platform was to offer APIs and apps for cloud-based solutions. We have started with machine translation apps, and this is continuing to evolve to other areas.

I believe the future is bright. Localization demands are ever-increasing, and that is not going to change. Instead, companies will need to enable more content at far reduced turnaround times. To make sure translation quality is not impacted, our technology is already prepared for this trend. 

Translation management systems will become the ‘mission control’ system of the localization process, ensuring that every stakeholder in the process – from translator to subject-matter expert – can be involved very easily with a user experience that is fit for their purpose. 

They will also need to be more open, and that’s where connectors come in. We already have a large ecosystem of connectors, so that almost any department within a business can be involved in the process – without getting into the nitty-gritty details of the localization process. 

AI will of course play a central role in the future success of translation management systems. Not just to streamline the process, but also provide insights on what works well (and doesn’t). This will all help drive a more streamlined, efficient localization process across the business. 

It’s important to remember, that despite all the advancements in AI, humans will always be needed in the localization process. AI will just help remove those more menial tasks – and elevate the role of the linguist to perform more high-value tasks.