The Definitive Guide to

Choosing the Best TMS

for Your Business
The Definitive Guide to Choosing the Best TMS for Your Business

Navigating an Ocean of Options

After much deliberation, you decided you In this ebook, we’re not going to compare one
need to buy a Translation Management TMS against another. The right TMS for you
System (TMS). That means that you intimately depends on how you’re going to use it and
understand the localization program at your what you intend to achieve. What this ebook
company and determined that you are ready will show you is the TMS selection process and
for the next step in improving workflows. So how to approach it in a step-by-step manner,
far, so good. eliminating unnecessary surprises later on. It’s
a simple, seven-step process we developed to
What lies ahead, though, is complicated.
ensure our clients build only the toolset that’s
Dozens of TMSs currently exist in limitless
right for their business.
permutations: open source or commercial,
cloud-based or server-based, business-
focused versus language- or management-
focused and more. Translation management
solutions have never been more customizable,
adaptable and automated than they are today.
It’s tempting to simply go for the solution
with the most features, but then you might
be buying more than you need. On the
other hand, you don’t want to lock yourself
into technology that doesn’t support future
scalability. Your TMS shouldn’t just streamline
the translation process—it should grow along
with your business.
So, how do you choose a TMS that aligns with
your company’s localization infrastructure and
goals, both now and in the future? How do you
sort through the myriad features to choose
only the most critical or relevant?

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The Definitive Guide to Choosing the Best TMS for Your Business

Seven Steps to Choosing the Right TMS

1. Identify stakeholders and their goals
TMS selection must be based on a systematic
needs analysis and must involve all
stakeholders.
First, gather your stakeholders. This includes
anyone in the organization with an interest
in translation management: marketing,
IT, product managers, the localization
department, finance and even your support
or help desk. And don’t forget budget
approvers and InfoSec. Identifying as many
potential users as possible now will ensure
you aren’t held up or shut down later, so bring
them in early so you can learn about their
specific requirements.
Now for their goals: What do they want
to achieve? Cost savings? Speed? Brand
consistency? Transparency? You might think
you know your organization’s goals for the
TMS, but they are best revealed through
conversations with users in the trenches.

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The Definitive Guide to Choosing the Best TMS for Your Business

2. Gather feature requirements

It could take one meeting or several to nail
down everyone’s needs, depending on how
centralized your localization process is. As you
collect the requirements, remember that no
request is too ridiculous or unimportant. (You
can discard impossible or irrelevant feature
requests later.)
The important thing is that the relevant teams
define what their needs are today and try to
forecast what they might need over the next
two years.
At this stage there are no wrong answers; you
just want everyone to tell you what they’re
looking for in the TMS.

We’ve compiled a list below of the functions your TMS solution must support as a baseline,
whether requested by your stakeholders or not. Be sure to review this list with everyone to
ensure you capture all their needs.

Integrations Cloud-based deployment

A pre-existing integration with your content
management platform (as well as with any
additional tools) saves you from either building
one yourself or waiting until the TMS vendor
creates it.
The only way to handle increasing volumes,
business continuity and collaboration between
teams and locations is to manage translations
in the cloud, where you can store and share
content in real time.

APIs Tools and assets

All areas of the TMS must be accessible A good TMS will include the use of a translation
via a strong, well-documented application memory (TM), automated quality checks and
programming interface (API). version control or an audit trail.

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The Definitive Guide to Choosing the Best TMS for Your Business
Vendor management
Does your localization strategy use multiple
vendors and translation methods? If so, you
need a vendor-agnostic solution that gives you
the flexibility to choose the resources you need
without disrupting processes.
Customizable workflows
Look for a TMS that lets you automatically map
projects to the most cost-effective translation
methods. You should even be able to modify
them mid-project, if necessary.
Security
Last but not least, your TMS needs to be
secure, updated regularly and compliant with
all industry-relevant security standards and
certificates. This might sound like a given, but
insufficient security is still out there.
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Customizable reporting
A good TMS continuously monitors data on all
aspects of the translation process and distills
the metrics that matter most to you into easy-
to-read reports.
Visual context
The more contextual information you can
provide translators, the better. Ideally, they can
see the source and translated content in the
original format and layout for both visual and
contextual reference.
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The Definitive Guide to Choosing the Best TMS for Your Business
3. Sort ‘must-haves’ from ‘nice-to-haves’
No TMS will be able to accommodate all of
your needs. That’s why you need to separate
the “must-haves” from the “nice-to-haves.”
To do this, simply label each feature critical,
important or helpful.
The critical features are deal-breakers. If
a system is missing just one of them, it’s
disqualified. Ideally you don’t want to have
too many, but expect critical requirements to
comprise 35-40% of your total criteria.
TIP: Stakeholders might be tempted to mark
everything they want as “critical,” but everyone will
need to make trade-offs and separate wants from
needs for the company to be able to arrive at a
consensus.
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Next, important features are the items that
you want almost as much as the critical ones,
but they’re not mandatory. Lastly, helpful
features are non-essential functionality and
interface elements that may be beneficial for
users of the system, but not show-stoppers to
getting the work done.
Now, scoring can be tricky, and you might
need to arbitrate between stakeholders.
Not everyone’s going to have the same
perspective: what may be trivial to one team
might be critical for another.
But it’s better to let these differences surface
at the start of the decision-making process
rather than at the end—or worse still, after
the decision is made. And it’s essential that
you identify your most important needs
before moving on to the next stage, when
you’ll be shortlisting vendors that meet them.
TIP: To get this step done efficiently, plan to have a
qualified facilitator lead this ranking exercise in a live
group meeting. Don’t do this by email or a shared
document.
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The Definitive Guide to Choosing the Best TMS for Your Business

4. Shortlist vendors
To narrow down the huge number of tools
on the market, the first place to start is
the corporate website of each tool you’re
considering. Many have feature lists so you
can begin determining who has what. Set up
a spreadsheet with the feature on the left and
the tools across the top. You’ll put yes or no in
each cell.
Then, you can look at industry directories for
TMS recommendations. (Check the back of
this book for a few helpful resources from the
likes of GALA and TAUS.)
Next, talk to your LSP about the TMS they
prefer. Remember that a TMS that works well
for your LSP isn’t necessarily one that’s going
to be great for your enterprise. But let them
know what your priorities are, and they may
be able to recommend some solutions, since
in the course of their work they evaluate a fair
number of TMSs. (If they use or sell only one
TMS technology, they might not be of much
help.) Keep in mind that even if a TMS vendor is able to
meet your current needs, that doesn’t necessarily
mean they can continue to support you as your
needs and the market change. To ensure your
TIP: Bear in mind that your LSP must be able to take vendor is future-proof, ask about:
ownership of any new processes introduced by the
TMS. Consult with them to ensure their needs are 1. their feature roadmap for the next 1-2 years,
met, too. 2. the rate at which they roll out new releases,
3. any major changes to the solution in the last
1-2 years and
Similarly, you can ask your language services
industry connections as well as colleagues at 4. whether they support custom development.
other companies if they have done any TMS If the technology vendor says they cannot customize
evaluations. Again, keep in mind that what their tool, and their recent and future changes are
worked for them may not necessarily work for not that impressive, these might be red flags. If they
are willing to customize the tool to your needs, at
you, as their priorities may be different from
least you’re more assured of their capability to adapt
yours. to you in the future even if they can’t fulfill all your
Finally, you can go to an independent requirements right now.
consultant to help you shortlist options, which
we will discuss later.

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The Definitive Guide to Choosing the Best TMS for Your Business
5. Set up demos
Now that you have a handful of options, it’s
time to see them in action. Ask candidates to
demo their features via a live meeting, either
in-person or remotely.
TIP: TMS vendors need time to prepare their demos.
Send your requests in writing at least one week in
advance.
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If you have done a good job of listing your
needs and ranking them into a hierarchy,
this stage should be relatively easy. As you
demo various tools, you are simply looking to
gather as much data as possible about how
well they meet your requirements. You can
do this by assigning each solution a “fit” score:
an objectivized number on a scale (of 1-5 or
1-10, for example) that indicates how well the
software performs.
To make sure a solution has as many high-
priority features as possible, try to start the
demo by seeing the needs you ranked as
critical. If vendors don’t provide all of them,
they’re instantly out. While you might have a
large list of six to ten potential TMS vendors,
ideally the pilot stage will help whittle them
down to three or four for the next step.
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The Definitive Guide to Choosing the Best TMS for Your Business
6. Execute RFPs
Next you will conduct the lengthier, solution-
oriented Request for Proposal (RFP) process.
Since you already have all the feature
information, you now want to examine which
solution will work the best for you and how
(including customization). This is the time to
investigate the rest of your requirements.
Can the vendors that meet your high-priority
requirements also support your nice-to-
haves? Ideally, they will.
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An RFP is also your chance to start considering
things like:
››Pricing: Are you operating under a strict
budget that eliminates solutions solely on
cost?
››Vendor stability: Is the TMS vendor a small
startup with venture capital, a provider of
both tools and services or a well-established
company perhaps more built to last?
››Speed of deployment: Can they deploy the
solution within your specific time frame?
››Interoperability: Does the solution make
it easy to switch translators or vendors if
needed without added delays or costs?
››Support: What level of customer support
does the vendor include (or charge more
for)? Is the vendor generally accommodating
and easy to work with? Don’t forget there
is a human component to technology
solutions.
››Your LSP: If you work with a language
service provider, are they able to take
ownership of new processes introduced by
your chosen solution?
Now you have to evaluate the RFP. If you’re
using a numerical scoring system, you
can also assign a weight according to your
priorities, so that your scores reflect what’s
actually important to you. If a vendor scores
high in the trivial categories but not so much
in areas important to you, the weighting
system should help balance out the picture.
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The Definitive Guide to Choosing the Best TMS for Your Business
7. Pilot
After evaluating and shortlisting no more
than three systems, you should do a proof-of-
concept or “pilot” project.
This is essentially an extension of the
evaluation stage, the difference being that
it is hands-on. If your mind is already made
up, you may feel you don’t need a pilot. But
from a technical perspective, it is important
to validate the vendor’s sales pitch and make
sure everything works as intended with your
set of requirements.
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It’s also a good opportunity to test working
with both the vendor and their system. If a
vendor isn’t willing to work through a proof
of concept with you, you might not want
to prioritize them. A TMS is too big of an
investment not to confirm that it fulfills your
needs in production.
When you arrange a pilot, the best-case
scenario would be to have the TMS installed
and connected to your content systems so
that you can see how a translation project
actually works. If it’s cloud-based, the
installation should be pretty simple.
However, if your organization is large or has
complex content management systems, the
required integrations may not readily exist.
Neither you nor the prospective vendor
may want to invest in the cost of a custom
integration to connect the TMS to your key
system at the pilot stage. Still, you could try
setting up a demo account and a staging
website, which is basically a simulated
environment for you to test everything
without actually touching your live systems.
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The Definitive Guide to Choosing the Best TMS for Your Business

Decision time
By now, you’ll be pretty close to making your
decision. When you finally do choose a TMS, it
will be the result of a systematic process that
helps reduce buyer’s remorse and increase
your confidence. No one will be able to say
you made a knee-jerk decision.

Remember: you won’t get every stakeholder

100% on board with your finalists—and that’s
okay. By asking the right questions of your
stakeholders and vendors early on, you’ve at
least set solid expectations.

TIP: From a technical perspective, the general

recommendation is that your finalist meets at least
80% of your needs. From a business perspective, you
want a partner who is easy to work with, flexible and
willing and able to grow with you.

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The Definitive Guide to Choosing the Best TMS for Your Business
And what if you can’t do this in-house?
TMS selection is a very detailed and time-
consuming process. You may not have the in-
house technologists to drive the process and
facilitate the decisions, and your localization
team may not have the time, either. This is
where a TMS consultant can help you.
Here are some more reasons why you may
need professional help in deciding on a TMS.
A market in flux
The TMS market is in a state of rapid change.
Many early adopters of TMSs now find their
existing deployments aging rapidly. That’s
why, as we mentioned earlier, it’s important
to get a sense of where the vendor might be
headed in the marketplace.
For example, a wave of innovation has
introduced TMSs that don’t come with
any “baggage”—often cloud-based, with
considerably lower implementation and
maintenance costs and faster deployment.
And as more enterprises climb up the
localization maturity model and look to
implement or evolve a TMS as a way to further
streamline their translation operations, tools
will be constantly appearing, disappearing and
adding functionality. Let a TMS expert keep
track of it all for you.
Too many choices
G2 Crowd counts more than 70 TMS tools out
there—all of whose features, approaches,
bells and whistles vary widely—but there are
no straight answers on what makes sense
for your organization, since each enterprise
is unique and has very different technology
needs.
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Reviewing the features of so many TMSs
may be overwhelming. A consultant will
understand your status quo and future plans,
and can use your wish list to help narrow
down the choices.
Vendors with locked-in technology
If you work with localization vendors who
also sell translation tools, chances are they
will want you to adopt their tech as part of
the program. An independent TMS consultant
can help you weed through the pros and cons
of their tool and suggest ways to integrate
your systems with theirs, or identify areas
where the vendor may be willing to customize
or develop new features for their client to
provide you with added cost and time savings.
Too easy to waste money
Many TMSs cost between $10,000 and
$150,000 a year to purchase, license,
customize, deploy and support. A wrong
choice could result in spending too much on
features you already have or won’t ever use.
This is one of the most common ways
globalization program owners waste
precious budgets. It all boils down to not fully
understanding your requirements and not
asking enough questions of the tool providers.
You need to be confident that the solution
will flex and grow with your program, so there
have to be deep-dive conversations both
internally and with the TMS vendors.
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The Definitive Guide to Choosing the Best TMS for Your Business

In conclusion
TMS selection may seem lengthy and painful,
but it doesn’t have to be if all stakeholders
are properly motivated and engaged. Also,
by adopting a transparent and participatory
process, you will set the right expectations
and avoid a situation where you will have to
justify a poor purchase later on.
Gathering the right stakeholders, prioritizing
your requirements, doing your research,
testing ruthlessly and perhaps bringing in
a third-party TMS expert may ensure that
you get the best technology to support you
now and in the future. It’s difficult to find
the perfect solution—but with thoughtful
planning, even in this age of hyper-
customization, you can come pretty close.

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The Definitive Guide to Choosing the Best TMS for Your Business

Resources
For TMS recommendations to start your search, see:
››GALA Global, Language Technology and Software Directory
››Nimdzi, Language Technology Atlas
››G2 Crowd, Best Translation Management Software ranking

To talk more about TMS selection, you can contact us at moravia@rws.com.

We are RWS Moravia.

We help some of the world’s
most ambitious businesses create
content that hits home in any market.
We would love to do the same for you.

Get in touch.

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