Esri - translation and localisation on a global scale

Acolad provides translation, localisation and terminology services to Esri on a daily basis, including maintenance of translation memories and termbases. 

Acolad primarily translates help (UA), support, software and website updates into 9 languages: Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Turkish, Hebrew, Spanish, Polish and Dutch. Acolad also produced style guides with instructions and guidelines for Esri translators into all 9 languages.

Acolad underwent testing to translate legal content into all of the languages that are currently localised, and was initially selected to take care of Esri’s Spanish legal content after completing an RFP blind test for this challenging text type. More and more languages were entrusted to us over time, and all 37 languages for legal translations were eventually transferred to Acolad – which means we are the sole global vendor for this text type.

“Acolad has become one of our best partners. We made the decision to move all of our legal content to Acolad because we believed they could handle it. So far, they have confirmed our belief.”

“Things are going much smoother for our legal translations at this point and we’re quite happy with them. I wish we had made the decision earlier.”  

Localisation Team Lead, Esri (California, USA), Jonathan Turpin

Acolad initially performed reviews of translations into Swedish provided by other vendors. Later on, Acolad was entrusted with the actual translation assignments (primarily into Swedish), and the number of languages taken care of by Acolad has grown over the years.

Esri works with many different language service providers to ensure the best possible quality for each of the languages. Vendors are selected using an elaborate process including blind tests, and evaluations from the local distributor for the language in question are taken into account. In this quest for quality, focus on finding the best providers has led to a varied localisation environment, where Esri – depending on the language – works with both major multilingual service providers and single language vendors.

Within certain subject areas, it can be challenging for one provider to handle several languages without quality being affected. However, due to problems in the past when using multiple language service providers, Esri wanted one vendor to take care of all of its legal translations. Acolad was selected after undergoing testing for all 37 languages, and to this day cooperation has been very successful.

On a global scale, Esri translates around 100 million words a year, and this amount is currently growing by around 20% a year. Looking to Esri’s future translation needs, the company will require more translations faster – but the company’s high demands on quality will remain unchanged. It is crucial to move forward and develop the technology and systems, and Esri’s vendors will have to embrace the need for change and be willing to move forward with the company.

“We need to go bigger and faster, and we have gradually migrated from one workflow to another. It was a necessity. Acolad has moved with us in this regard, and has genuinely supported us in these changes.”

“It’s important to realize that we are all intertwined. From Europe to Asia to the Americas – it all works together. In order for us to adapt to our different markets, as a global company, we have to have local content and translations for those local communities.”

Localisation Team Lead, Esri (California, USA), Jonathan Turpin