Overcoming Growth Challenges With Scalable Localization

XING case study featured image | Phrase

The leading social network for business professionals in the German-speaking market, XING, provides more than 20M members with a platform to improve their own work lives. A hub for job-seeking, hiring, news, and idea-sharing, XING propels careers and drives business success in every industry.

As XING’s operations expanded, it found that its outdated software localization platform lacked the process streamlining and collaboration features required to meet evolving business needs. By replacing the aging software with Phrase Strings—an all-in-one, web-based localization platform—XING has streamlined translation, simplified management, and enabled scalability.

Results

  • No more risks in delaying the release cycle
  • Improved scalability
  • Streamlined the proofreading process

Stats & facts

XING by the numbers

200+
localization team members
29
localization projects
5
languages
8M
words processed

Challenge

Growing pains

For businesses operating in a multilingual environment, releasing new resources is rarely as simple as creating a single, native-language version. To maximize reach, localization is an essential step. Translating text into numerous different languages can be a time-consuming process; and without an effective software localization platform in place, localization can often delay the release of new products and features.

This is something that XING knows all too well. With as many as 250 resources needing to be translated into five languages each week, the business relies on its software localization platform to coordinate its vast number of localization projects. And, with XING enjoying a strong growth trajectory, its localization requirements have steadily increased. As a consequence, the business network found that its translation solution was in need of an upgrade.

Tilman Büttner, Senior UX Writer at XING, explains: “Our existing software localization tool was built internally by our developers, but it became buggy and we realized that it wasn’t scalable. We also wanted to outsource the maintenance of the tool. So, we knew that we needed a professional solution.”

If left unchecked, the issues of their old tool would have risked delaying XING’s release cycles, negatively impacting the platform’s pace of development—and XING knew that as its business continued to expand, the problem would only get worse.

Solution

Partnering for success

XING wanted a new translation platform that was fast, reliable, scalable, and secure.

It looked at several different solutions, and—following a thorough evaluation process—the company’s engineers, copywriters, and translators unanimously agreed that Phrase Strings was the best choice.

“We decided on Phrase Strings because we found a team that was very open to our feedback, ideas, and suggestions. Also, we felt that this was a tool that was constantly evolving and improving,” recalls Tilman Büttner.

Above all, though, XING was impressed with the solution’s versatility. Phrase Strings supports all kinds of software environments and it can be quickly set up to work with both small and complex projects. Phrase Strings’ versatility—41 localization file formats across various platforms and programming languages—is highly beneficial for XING, given that its services run on a variety of platforms and use a number of different frameworks and programming languages.

As a leading-edge software localization platform, Phrase Strings offers many features—including a powerful API and an intuitive central dashboard—that are designed to streamline all aspects of the localization process, making it easy for XING to create and manage its translation projects. Delivered as a web-based service, Phrase Strings is also highly scalable—easily capable of supporting XING’s increasing localization requirements.

With Phrase, we have found a scalable solution, which can adapt to our various requirements and workflows, while enabling us to offer a seamless localized experience to our 20M users.

Tilman Büttner

Senior UX Writer

Benefits

Superior scalability and reliability

“What I like most is that it’s a very reliable tool, which is very important because if something breaks, often you can see it directly either on the platform or the app,” says Tilman Büttner. “So reliability is key in this business. And it’s also scalable. We have millions of customers, so we need solutions that can handle this kind of traffic.”

Additionally, with Phrase Strings in place, many localization tasks are now much simpler than they used to be. Thanks to the API, it’s become easier for XING to create projects, add languages, upload keys, and update resources. New verification options have helped streamline the proofreading process, and automated suggestions simplify translation.

As a result, Phrase Strings offers improvements throughout the entire localization process, and it’s been well received by everyone involved: engineers, copywriters, and translators.

Tilman Büttner concludes: “For us, reliability, performance, and security are key. With Phrase Strings, we have found a scalable solution, which can adapt to our various requirements and workflows, while enabling us to offer a seamless localization experience to our 20M users.”

Features used

Key Phrase Strings features that help XING localize at scale

Checkmark icon | Phrase
API
The API allows you to import locale files, download locale files, tag keys or interact in other ways with the localization data stored in your Phrase Strings account.
Checkmark icon | Phrase
Basic review workflow
Automatically notify your translators about changes in the source language and request a revision of the translated keys to ensure a consistent communication in all languages.
Checkmark icon | Phrase
User roles and access control
Organize your localization team by assigning dedicated roles and access rights to each team member according to projects and locales.

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