Best Practices

Bureau Works vs. Memsource

Lucky Eze

27 min

Effective translation and localization services are crucial in reaching a diverse audience and expanding into new markets in today's globalized business landscape. As a result, translation management systems (TMS) have emerged as essential tools for businesses and language service providers (LSPs) to streamline their translation workflows. Two popular TMS solutions that have gained significant attention are Bureau Works and Memsource. In this blog post, we will delve into a comparative study of the differences between these two platforms, shedding light on their unique features, strengths, and limitations.

Bureau Works, a leading TMS provider, boasts comprehensive features designed to enhance collaboration, automate processes and repetitive tasks, and ensure linguistic quality. With its user-friendly interface and robust project management capabilities, Bureau Works excels in handling large-scale translation projects, enabling seamless communication between project stakeholders, translators, and clients.

On the other hand, Memsource, another powerful TMS, offers a wide array of advanced functionalities and other tools that cater to the specific needs of LSPs and enterprises. Its cloud-based infrastructure and innovative AI-powered tools allow efficient project management, streamlined translation workflows, and integration with various content management systems.

This comparative study will explore key aspects such as pricing models, scalability, integrations, language support, quality assurance mechanisms, and customer support. By gaining insights into the contrasting features and strengths of Bureau Works and Memsource, you'll be better equipped to decide which TMS solution aligns with your specific requirements and objectives.

Company Overview

Bureau Works Overview

Bureau Works is a pioneering California-based translation company that entered the market in 2018. Leveraging the expertise and experience of its founders, Bureau Works has emerged as a leading provider of innovative language solutions for enterprise language, development, and learning teams worldwide.

Built upon a foundation of existing automation, Bureau Works offers a state-of-the-art translation platform that revolutionizes how organizations communicate across borders. With a deep understanding of various languages and the unique challenges faced by global businesses, Bureau Works is committed to empowering companies to navigate linguistic and cultural barriers effectively.

At Bureau Works, we recognize that accurate and efficient translation is essential for companies to thrive in today's interconnected world. Our comprehensive suite of language services encompasses translation, localization, and interpretation, ensuring that businesses can seamlessly connect with their global audiences. By combining cutting-edge technology with a network of highly skilled linguists, we deliver exceptional results that meet the diverse needs of our clients.

Our client-centric approach sets us apart. We collaborate closely with our customers to understand their specific requirements, timelines, and budgetary considerations. From small-scale projects to large-scale multilingual initiatives, we provide tailored solutions that enable businesses to expand their global reach and drive meaningful connections with their target markets.

With a commitment to continuous improvement, Bureau Works remains at the forefront of innovation in the language services industry. Our agile development team continually refines our platform, incorporating the latest advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning to enhance our translation solutions' speed, accuracy, and scalability.

Memsource Overview

Memsource, originally founded in 2010 as an offshoot of a Charles University project in the Czech Republic, has emerged as a pioneering force in translation technology. As one of the earliest Cloud-based computer-assisted tools featuring a robust API, Memsource quickly gained traction worldwide. It gained significant popularity among Nordic, Japanese, and Russian translation companies, enabling seamless and efficient translation workflows.

Driven by a relentless pursuit of innovation and customer-centricity, Memsource expanded its operations to the United States, capturing the attention of the enterprise customer segment. This expansion marked a significant milestone in the company's growth trajectory, further solidifying its position as a global leader in the translation industry.

However, as the company continues to evolve and adapt to the changing landscape, it has transformed. Memsource, known for its cutting-edge technology and commitment to excellence, has rebranded itself as Phrase. This new brand identity represents the company's renewed vision and focus, building upon the strong foundation established by Memsource.

Key Differences Between Bureau Works and Memsources

The translation tool industry is crucial in bridging language barriers and facilitating effective communication in today's globalized world. With the increasing demand for translation services, translation tools have become essential for streamlining the translation process and ensuring high-quality translations. Two prominent players in the translation tools market are Bureau Works and Memsource. This comparative study will explore the key differences between these two platforms and analyze their strengths and weaknesses.

Translation Process and Machine Translation

Both Bureau Works and Memsource offer comprehensive solutions for the translation process. The translation process involves several stages: file preparation, translation, editing, proofreading, and finalization. Both platforms provide the following:

Features that facilitate these stages.
Ensuring a smooth workflow for translation agencies.
Freelance translators.
Language service providers.

Machine translation, an integral part of the translation process, is also supported by both Bureau Works and Memsource. Machine translation service refers to using automated translation algorithms to generate translations. It can significantly expedite the translation process, especially for large volumes of content. Both platforms integrate machine translation services, enabling users to leverage the power of artificial intelligence to enhance productivity and reduce costs.

Use of AI

Bureau Works and Memsource are two popular translation platforms that utilize artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance their services. While both platforms harness the power of AI, they differ in their approach. Bureau Works incorporates AI for automated translation, utilizing machine learning algorithms to provide accurate and efficient translations. On the other hand, Memsource focuses on AI-assisted translation, where human translators work in tandem with AI tools to improve their productivity and accuracy. These distinct approaches allow users to choose the platform that best aligns with their translation needs and preferences.

Translation Tools and CAT Tools

Translation tools, commonly computer-aided translation (CAT) tools, are essential for efficient translation management. Bureau Works and Memsource offer robust translation software incorporating various CAT tools to optimize the translation workflow.

Bureau Works boasts a user-friendly interface and access to various advanced features to enhance translation management. Its CAT tools enable translation agencies and freelance translators to efficiently handle multiple language pairs and collaborate seamlessly with clients and colleagues. Additionally, Bureau Works' translation management system and memory capabilities contribute to consistent and high-quality translations.

Memsource, on the other hand, provides a cloud-based translation platform that offers a wide array of CAT tools. These tools assist in translation memory management, terminology management, and quality assurance. Memsource's translation memory feature allows users to leverage previously translated text segments, ensuring consistency and reducing translation time. Furthermore, the platform's terminology management tools help maintain accurate and consistent terminology across projects.

Translation Agencies and Human Translators

Both Bureau Works and Memsource cater to the needs of translation agencies and human translators. These platforms provide the infrastructure and tools for managing translation projects and collaborating effectively with clients.

Bureau Works focuses on providing a comprehensive translation management system that empowers translation agencies to handle projects efficiently. The platform offers advanced project management features, automated workflows, and seamless integration with other systems. This enables translation agencies to streamline operations, ensure timely deliveries, and provide high-quality translations.

Memsource also offers a translation management system tailored to translation agencies. Its intuitive project management interface allows translator agencies to handle multiple projects simultaneously and efficiently allocate resources. Additionally, Memsource's collaborative features enable real-time collaboration between translation teams and clients, enhancing overall productivity and communication.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Bureau Works excels in providing a user-friendly interface, advanced translation management features, and seamless integration capabilities. Its focus on translation agencies and their specific needs makes it a reliable choice for organizations looking to optimize their translation workflow. However, Bureau Works may be less suitable for freelance translators requiring a more lightweight and flexible solution.

On the other hand, Memsource offers a robust cloud-based platform with a wide range of CAT tools, making it suitable for both translation agencies and freelance translators. Its emphasis on collaboration and real-time communication facilitates effective project management. However, users may find the learning curve for some advanced features slightly steeper compared to Bureau Works.

Pricing Structure

Bureau Works offers customized pricing based on the specific requirements of the translation agency or organization. They provide personalized quotes and packages tailored to individual needs. On the other hand, Memsource offers different pricing tiers based on usage and features, allowing users to choose a plan that best suits their budget and requirements.

Integration Capabilities

Both Bureau Works and Memsource offer integration with various systems and tools. However, their integration capabilities differ. Bureau Works focuses on seamless integration with popular project management systems, content management systems, and customer relationship management platforms. Memsource, on the other hand, offers a wide range of integrations, including connectors for popular translation management systems, content management systems, and other third-party tools, enhancing flexibility and workflow efficiency.

Collaboration Features

While both platforms offer collaboration features, they differ in their approach. Bureau Works strongly emphasizes collaboration between translation agencies, clients, and translators. It provides a centralized platform where stakeholders can communicate, share files, and manage projects. Memsource, on the other hand, offers real-time collaboration features such as in-editor comments and chat, enabling translators and project managers to collaborate directly within the translation interface.

Support and Training

Bureau Works provides dedicated support and training to its clients. They offer personalized onboarding and training sessions to ensure users are well-equipped to utilize the platform effectively. Additionally, Bureau Works assigns a dedicated account manager to assist with any issues or queries. Memsource offers comprehensive support through its online knowledge base, community forums, and email support. They also provide training resources such as webinars and documentation to help users get started.

Industry Specialization

Both Bureau Works and Memsource cater to a wide range of industries. However, Bureau Works strongly focuses on certain industries such as marketing, e-commerce, and technology. They offer industry-specific features and workflows tailored to the unique requirements of these sectors. Memsource, on the other hand, has a broader customer base across various industries and provides flexible solutions that can be adapted to different sectors.

User Interface and Experience

Bureau Works prides itself on providing a user-friendly interface and intuitive user experience. They prioritize simplicity and ease of use, ensuring users can navigate the platform seamlessly. Memsource offers a feature-rich interface that may require some learning and familiarity. While it provides a wealth of options and customization, it may take some time for users to harness its capabilities fully.

Scalability and Enterprise Solutions

Bureau Works offers scalable solutions and specializes in catering to the needs of enterprise-level translation agencies and organizations. They have the infrastructure and capabilities to handle large volumes of translated content and complex translation projects. Bureau Works' enterprise-grade features, such as advanced project management and resource allocation, make it suitable for businesses with extensive translation requirements. Memsource, on the other hand, provides scalable solutions as well, but it also caters to the needs of small to mid-sized translation agencies and freelance translators. They offer flexible plans that accommodate different scales of translation projects, making them accessible to many users.

Quality Assurance and Reporting

Both Bureau Works and Memsource prioritize quality assurance in the translation process. Bureau Works incorporates a comprehensive quality assurance and computer-assisted translation process, including multiple rounds of editing and proofreading, to ensure accurate and high-quality translations. They also provide detailed reporting and analytics to track project progress, quality metrics, and other performance indicators. Memsource offers a variety of quality assurance features, such as translation memory and terminology management, to maintain consistency and accuracy across translations. Additionally, Memsource provides real-time quality checks and customizable quality assurance settings to meet specific project requirements.

Conclusion

Bureau Works and Memsource are powerful translation management systems offering a range of features and capabilities to streamline translation workflows. Bureau Works excels in its user-friendly interface, robust project management capabilities, and emphasis on collaboration, making it a suitable choice for translation agencies and large-scale projects. On the other hand, Memsource, now rebranded as Phrase, provides a cloud-based platform with a wide array of CAT tools, making it suitable for freelance translators.

The key differences between the two platforms lie in their pricing structures, integration capabilities, collaboration features, industry specializations, user interfaces, scalability, and quality assurance mechanisms. Bureau Works focuses on personalized pricing, seamless integration with popular systems, powerful collaboration features, and industry-specific workflows, making it capable of serving organizations' and enterprises' needs. Memsource offers flexible pricing tiers, extensive integrations, real-time collaboration features, a broader industry customer base, and customizable quality assurance settings.

Ultimately, the choice between Bureau Works and Memsource depends on your translation projects' specific needs, preferences, and objectives. By carefully considering the differences outlined in this comparative study, you can make an informed decision and select the TMS solution that aligns best with your requirements, helping you achieve effective translation and localization in your global business endeavors.

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Collaborative translation is a powerful tool for your business if you’re looking to expand to new global markets. By coordinating a team of professionals who work together in real-time, you can quickly deliver high quality translations that resonate with local audiences.

But what if you don't know how to synchronize a large team's efforts? Or are you‌ struggling to find the right software for a well-coordinated translation process? Well, look no further! In this guide, you'll learn all the know-how's of collaborative translation to bring your brand to global audiences.

Overview

What is collaborative translation?
Why seamless translation collaboration is important
Best practices for collaborative translation and global market success

What is collaborative translation?

Collaborative translation is when multiple people simultaneously work together to translate content. A collaborative translation process often makes use of specialized tools and software to make sure the translation is quick, accurate, and consistent.

Example: Let's say you're a B2B SaaS company looking to translate your marketing materials into a new language to connect with potential clients abroad. Use collaborative translation to bring together translators, developers, and other specialists to translate content into many languages at once.

Your team can use a collaborative translation platform like Redokun to work on projects simultaneously. A coordinated workflow will make sure that your translations use the same terminology and style, improving the quality of the translated product for your target audiences.

Collaborative Translation vs. Crowdsourcing

People often confuse collaborative translation with crowdsourcing and think the two are the same. However, these approaches to translation are different.

Crowdsourcing is when a large group of people contributes translations, often through an open call or invitation by a company or author. Brands can turn to crowdsourcing, community translation, or volunteer translation when they are looking to reduce costs and accelerate the process, especially for large multi-language projects.

In crowdsourced translations, the contributors can be volunteer translators, subject matter experts, or just anonymous individuals online. In other words, you may not know who's worked on the translation and what their qualifications are. It makes crowdsourcing distinct from collaborative translation, where the team would be an established group of professionals you've selected

Why seamless translation collaboration is important

As a busy B2B/B2C marketing manager or project manager, you might ask yourself: Isn't the "divide and conquer" a better strategy when working on a translation or localization project? It seems logical that each project team member, including translators, designers, and editors, works on their tasks separately and step by step.

However, collaborative translation can help your team reap many benefits compared to a traditional approach to translation projects:

Reasons why seamless translation collaboration is important

Produce high-quality translations consistently. When your whole team works on a translation project simultaneously on one platform, it's easier to stay in context and keep track of the translation accuracy for every target language. On top of that, your team can conduct agile QA throughout the project cycle.
‍Faster turnaround times. By working together, your team can complete projects faster and more efficiently. Centralization saves a lot of time at every stage of translation. And since your team can work on more than one translation at a time, you can publish your translated content in several new markets at once.
‍Reduced costs. You get to improve efficiency while working with a smaller team of translators. The smaller and more coordinated the team, the less the risk of costly translation errors. It means reduced translation costs and better project budget compliance.
‍Increased flexibility. Collaborative translation allows your team to produce translations into many languages at once and easily make changes to any project document. You can conveniently engage in a feedback loop and guarantee a continuous localization process.
‍Better communication. Collaborative translation effectively brings all members of your localization team together on one platform. It helps you make sure that everyone is working toward the same goals ‌and simplifies overall localization management.

Six best practices for collaborative translation and global market success

To be great at collaborative translation, you need to approach it strategically. Even if you've never used this approach before, you can follow the six steps below to build an efficient collaborative translation workflow. And if you're already familiar with this method, these practices will help you improve the way you collaborate on any translation projects.

Six best practices for collaborative translation for your global business success

1. Work out a detailed project plan

Before you start working on translations together, you need a clear-cut project plan. You should first identify the following items.

Project timeline: Define crucial deadlines, project milestones, and the overall project duration.
Translation volume and key deliverables: Calculate the general word count, and determine the workload for every language pair if you translate into multiple languages.
Project budget: Keep in mind possible added and hidden translation costs.
Project team: Define what kind of specialists you need: translators, editors, proofreaders, etc. Will you need to find external translators? Consider all your HR needs in advance.
Your approach to the translation process: How much do you want to rely on machine translation? At what point will you edit translated strings? Answer all these questions before you go on.
Quality assurance protocol: Establish an efficient QA procedure for all the language pairs you're working on.

It may sound like a handful but the more detailed the plan, the more streamlined the translations will be down the road. Besides, you can already use Redokun to boost this stage of the localization process!

Redokun is a translation management system you can use to automate, coordinate, and optimize your translation processes from content creation to publication.

Redokun simplifies your project planning. In particular, you can use the tool to:

Monitor your ongoing translations easily. Keep track of all of your translation files and projects across multiple languages in one space, and check their progress at a glance.

Meet deadlines with digest emails. Redokun will send you daily or weekly email digests to update you on the progress of translations. From there, you can initiate one-click reminders to your translators who are potentially falling behind schedule.
Making budget planning easier. Redokun has a transparent, scalable pricing structure that will cover exactly the volume of work your project needs.

Redokun is an easy-to-use tool that requires no onboarding. Your team can start using all the system’s features right away. During your project planning stage, you won’t need to factor in a lengthy training period to introduce team members to the tool.

2. Divide tasks and assign responsibilities the smart way

Good collaboration is impossible without a well-planned distribution and organization of roles and tasks. Ensure that every team member is on the same page and understands their respective responsibilities.

For example, the project managers should divide ‌translation tasks among translation team members according to their language proficiency, area of expertise, or subject matter knowledge.

On Redokun, you can invite translators to work on different language pairs and content types depending on their skills. All you need to do is enter the translator's email. The software will send them an email invitation and let you know once they've started translating the file.
You can also invite several translators to work on one document.

To maximize the efficiency of project management and task division, establish a clear structure of your workflow. Make sure all your pages, files, and folders are well organized and team members know where to find necessary resources for their respective tasks. A centralized, cloud-based storage for all your documents is a must.

Redokun is a cloud-based software that makes file management easy. You can create folders and customize permission settings for multiple users for better organization. No more need to look for spreadsheets and lost documents scattered around different digital locations.
Don't forget to make the most of the Reporting Dashboard. It shows you the status of the translation project and helps you see how users distribute tasks (for example, what methods they use to translate different content segments).

Redokun Dashboard with translation statistics

3. Enhance the collaborative translation process with clear communication

It's important to have open communication channels among all team members in your translation project, including internal and external translators. For a successful collaboration effort, you need a shared communication space to:

Conduct regular check-ins.
Discuss translation options and other aspects of the working process.
Update and adjust requirements and guidelines.
Maintain feedback loops.

It's up to you to choose between email, messengers, or tools like Google Drive or Slack to keep your collboarative operations flowing. However, using multiple channels for different aspects of the project can get messy. It's harder to manage your team and make sure all collaborators are up to date on the ongoing translation tasks.

You can avoid these potential problems by centralizing all your communications and project management. With translation software like Redokun, you can manage, translate, communicate, and collaborate — all in one place.

Translate content in context. Your translators or editors can use page previews in Web Editor to understand the context of the text while working on it.
Work together in real-time. Use Redokun as a full-scale collaborative translation platform. It enables real-time cooperation among your team members, improving efficiency and reducing communication errors.
Use comments, mentions, and notifications to exchange feedback quickly. Redokun's Web Editor is a convenient place to stay in touch and discuss your translation progress every step of the way.

Create a hybrid workflow. Work with your in-house teams or external translators to suit different localization project formats and scalability needs.

4. Use machine translation and translation memory tools

Computer-assisted translation tools are a great addition to human translation. Machine translation (MT) helps your collaborators speed up the localization process by automating translation. Of course, it doesn't have the quality of a human professional translation — it’s more like a helping hand that's always there to facilitate the translation of complex phrases or new terms.

Redokun is integrated with two Machine Translation tools: Google Translate and DeepL. Translation suggestions by these two tools pop up right below where the translator should key in the translation, as shown here.

To enhance collaboration even further, consider using translation memory tools. They ensure consistency and save translation software users a lot of time.

Translation memory (TM) is a translation technology that stores previously translated sentences or phrases as segments and creates a unique database for your localization projects. You can reuse your translation to increase efficiency and consistency in ongoing and future translations.

With Redokun as your collaborative translation platform, you can leverage TM to:

Consistently translate any repeated word, phrase, or sentence across different language pairs and documents. It's especially important for translating technical terms, marketing slogans, CTAs, and other catchphrases. Translation memory helps you stay consistent in your marketing messaging.
Pre-translate your entire documents. Combine TM matches from your previous translations with Machine Translation to get a fully pre-translated document even before your team gets to work.
Manage your translation memory database. Import and customize your TM database to further improve translation quality and consistency.

”The speed of translation is quite impressive in that it doesn’t take [much time], maybe a couple of minutes when you translate from English to eight markets. I think that’s what I’m most impressed by.”

Read more about how Kenni and the marketing team at Rockfon increased their translation productivity by 70% using translation memories and other Redokun features here.

5. Use glossaries and style guides

Glossaries and style guides are valuable resources your team can use for reliable reference.

A glossary is a list of terms and their corresponding translations that are specific to a company or industry.

A style guide outlines the preferred tone, voice, and style for a company's marketing materials across markets and languages.

Your collaborators can refer to these resources when they’re not sure about a translation. For example is when they're deciding how to translate a company abbreviation, whether to the Oxford comma, or choosing the right tone to address customers, etc. No more ambiguity about linguistic, stylistic, and cultural aspects of your translations.

Use Redokun's glossary feature to create a glossary and style guide that outlines rules for spelling, grammar, punctuation, terminology, and tone specific to your project.

6. Continuously review and revise

A key benefit of a collaborative translation platform is the ability to review and revise translations in an agile and efficient manner. By involving multiple specialists in the process of editing and QA, you can guarantee accuracy and consistency in the translated content at every stage of the project.

To implement effective review and revision procedures in your collaborative translation projects, it is important to:

Plan for review and revision in advance. Identify who will be responsible, set the timeline, and use specific tools.
Consider involving in-country reviewers who are familiar with the local market and culture to ensure that the translations are accurate and appropriate for the target audience.
Perform regular QA checks. They should include consistency in terminology and formatting, and verify that the translations are free from grammatical errors and typos.

Pro-tip: Ever experienced the headache of having to update a translation that’s already 70% done when there is a last-minute change to the source document?

With Redokun’s revision feature, you don’t have to spend hours poring over Excel sheets and comparing files to spot the places where new words have been added or sentences have been changed. Just upload the latest document version and the system will identify new text that needs translating — saving your team’s time and effort while keeping previous translations intact.

Summary

Collaborative translation is an excellent approach if you want to improve the consistency of your translations, reduce costs, and establish a strong presence in global markets.

The key to seamless collaboration is a combination of careful planning, role distribution, agile QA, and smart use of translation software.

Make Redokun part of your collaborative translation efforts and enhance the pace of your global business growth‌. Start your 14-day free trial today and benefit from a quicker and more streamlined translation workflow.

Till next time,

Anastasia

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Lucky Eze

Lucky Ezeihuaku is an SEO expert and specialist Translation content writer with Bureau Works. He has a master’s degree in English and Literature, and has been writing professionally for at least 7 years. He has gone on to specialize in the Translation and Localization niche, churning out multiple quality, informative, and optimized articles for Bureau Works over the past year. He claims writing and developing SEO strategies keeps him going, and he’s also interested in Data Analytics.

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Bureau Works vs. Memsource