Machine translation (MT) has gained tremendous popularity. The latest neural MTs have made significant inroads in achieving language fluency of translated text. However, to ensure continued improvement in linguistic accuracy and quality, MT solution providers often require a large-scale human effort to post-edit the machine translated content in order to train their MT algorithms. Sometimes, millions of text segments and short sentences must be translated, reviewed, and post-edited by many translators working simultaneously to achieve the required speed and scale.

MT Training Case Study

A large Internet company needed to have millions of words in colloquial sentences translated for social networking into three Indian languages: Hindi, Bengali, and Marathi. This was required quickly in order to feed machine learning and train their MT engine. Unfortunately, traditional translation models were too slow for their needs and not built for scalability. The sheer word count volume itself would result in very long project cycles using those models. An additional challenge was the MT application’s target audience, which was a younger generation of Indian users. Many of them were not trained to use sophisticated translation software (CAT tools.) In fact, many of these Indian bilingual users did not even own desktop computers because they grew up with mobile phones. Performing translations directly on their mobile devices seemed an ideal fit. Stepes provided a perfect platform that allowed hundreds of Indian translators to participate in the translation effort using their smart phones.

Another important advantage of Stepes mobile based translation solutions is that it processes each colloquial text segment as a standalone text unit in a chat interface. As such, Stepes is able to capture important editing intelligence for revising machine translated text. These include the percentages of word changes and the amount of time spent editing a specific amount of text. The editing data is then sent back to the client to better train their machine translation engines. MT Training Case Study

Multinational companies today conduct business globally and often need to provide real time customer support in many languages. Multinational organizations require real time translation services in many areas of their global product deployment such as machine learning, cloud computing, financial services, agile software development, ecommerce, online customer support, and on-demand solutions. Creating centralized customer support centers, to support multiple languages, has largely been a fantasy. This is because traditional translation services are too slow, unable to support global customer operations that demand real-time affordable translation services they can trust. Stepes mobile translation APIs change the equation by allowing multinational companies to develop real-time translation applications for global customer support in any language.

Bank Customer Support Case Study

As an example, a large US bank needed to support customers who speak Spanish, Chinese, and Cambodian (to name a few) going to local branches with loan applications. Many of the questions and answers must be reviewed by the bank’s legal team in a centralized support center to ensure regulatory compliance. However, the bank has always struggled to obtain live human translation services that can be trusted. As such, the loan applications often took much longer, resulting in lost revenue. Stepes mobile translation solutions were connected to the bank express translation portal so as soon as a translation request is posted, it’s pushed instantly to a list of pre-approved translators on their smartphone. The translators can then immediately translate on their mobile devices allowing the results to be sent back within minutes. Bank Customer Support Case Study

Cloud, mobile, next generation hyper-connected platforms, and location-based services have reshaped global consumerism to be anywhere and anytime. Continuous and always-on translation, or continuous delivery, allows businesses to reduce time-to-market, lower costs, and improve the global customer experience. In today’s rapidly growing cloud and agile economy, customers more frequently demand the latest product and content in the shortest amount of time. A major requirement of continuous delivery is real time translations with scalability and quality. Legacy translation processes lack support for instant responses and are no longer sufficient to meet these continuous delivery requirements.

Stepes mobile translation solutions are designed to address these continuous and around the clock translation operations so businesses can compete more effectively on an international scale.

Instant Financial Translation Cast Study

A financial institution needed to support super-fast and continuous translation of security trading messages with its clients in the Middle East between English and Arabic. Many of these translation requests are highly time sensitive and require near instant turnaround. Since these translation requirements are critical stock trade instructions that often involve millions of dollars in transactions, linguistic accuracy is paramount. Most of these instructions are 50 words or less, making them ideal for mobile based translation services. Stepes was able to integrate with the customer’s communications platform through APIs for a highly streamlined content post and translation return process. Once a message is received for translation, Stepes immediately sends mobile notifications to a list of pre-approved English-Arabic linguists with subject matter expertise in the financial services industry. They can translate from their smartphones immediately from anywhere in the world. Instant Financial Translation Cast Study

Today’s agile and interactive development methodology means companies increasingly need smaller content (bite-sized content or micro content) translated in real time and on an on-going basis. In an iterative software development process, it happens quite often that the developer only needs a few strings translated at a time but they need them returned very quickly. The conventional translation model with its highly manual process and minimum charge requirement cannot readily address these micro translation requirements.

Stepes mobile translation APIs can be fully integrated with the client development environment, allowing seamless and automatic translation services to be provisioned and completed on-demand.

Medical Device Software Localization Case Study

A large medical device company needed to localize their medical imaging software using the modern agile approach. To ensure international simultaneous releases with the English language version, the customer decided to start software localization concurrently with the source application development. The customer would send out regular GUI updates, consisting anywhere from several dozen strings to just a few words. This process posed many challenges for the traditional localization model because conventional translation services are not built for on-demand solutions and take a long time to turnaround even just a few strings. The translation delays resulted in much longer launch cycles, leading to lost revenue.

This is when the client decided to try Stepes mobile powered real-time human translation solution. To the client’s surprise, not only was the translation turnaround time significantly improved, the Stepes on-demand translation model also eliminated their minimum fees. Medical Device Software Localization Case Study

E-commerce doesn't stand for English commerce. In fact, e-commerce companies are increasingly reaching saturation points in their domestic markets and need to expand internationally to maintain fast growth and capture a larger global market share. Alibaba, Amazon, and JD.com are all investing heavily in cross-border online shopping capabilities. However, with e-commerce, a product that is posted with French content is only going to be viewed and potentially purchased by customers who understand French, the same is true for Japanese, Chinese, and Spanish. This is why e-commerce companies must translate product descriptions in order to reach a broad base of international consumers. Furthermore, they must translate the content with good quality because poor translation not only leads to lost sales opportunities, but also can tarnish a brand's international image. Lastly, the highly competitive online environment means e-commerce companies must translate their content fast to keep pace with customer demands.

Medical Device Software Localization Case Study

A large online shopping platform needed to find a scalable human translation solution to support on-going translation requirements for merchandise added to its online stores from English into Simplified Chinese. Previously, the company had to export their content into external MS Excel documents to be sent to language vendors for translation. However, this process required extensive manual work involving many unnecessary human touch points, resulting in longer turnaround, and potential human errors. During peak times, large translation volumes also expose the limitations of legacy translation models.

Stepes worked with the client's engineers to connect Stepes to the customer's content globalization pipeline through our mobile translation APIs. The fully integrated solution allowed Stepes to receive content requiring translation dynamically and then sent it to Stepes' large network of vetted human translators on their mobile devices. Since product descriptions are usually short texts, they are ideal for translation on mobile devices. Stepes was able to deliver just-in-time translation services that exceeded the client's speed and volume requirements. Medical Device Software Localization Case Study