GlobalDoc’s LangXpert Enhances Toshiba’s Worldwide Content Workflow

Assessment:
In 2012, IBM, the leader in Smarter Commerce, and Toshiba TEC Corporation, Japan’s leading maker of point-of-sale systems and related technology for retailers, announced an agreement under which Toshiba TEC would acquire IBM’s Retail Store Solutions (RSS) business, which offers retail point-of-sale solutions worldwide. Upon completion of the transaction, Toshiba TEC became the world’s foremost retail point- of-sale systems company, offering hardware, software, and integrated in-store solutions.  Toshiba teamed with IBM as an IBM Business Partner to bring the Smarter Commerce experience to retailers and their customers worldwide.

During 2013, Toshiba employees across multiple departments were tasked with deciding what content and translation systems were going to be retained, and what new processes and procedures would be necessary after the transition of business from IBM to Toshiba.  GlobalDoc was asked to determine how LangXpert translation management software could be customized to accommodate aspects of global content management that Toshiba would require after the business transaction was complete.  Translation support for multiple languages across numerous Toshiba product lines utilizing years of glossary, memory, and terminology data had to also be retained and migrated during the process.

Solution:
GlobalDoc, having responsibility for providing global communications and translation services to Toshiba’s marketing, product development/programming, technical documentation, training and website development departments, proposed a cost effective, LangXpert-based technical solution to enable ease of entering content and data.  The content is translated and distributed in any language required by Toshiba.  LangXpert was integrated with Oracle’s ECM system to facilitate automated delivery of translated content for distribution globally in multiple mediums.

In addition, LangXpert was customized to accept original English content within LangXpert template-based content management files.  Toshiba was able to transition to this new offering with minimal cost impact and no disruption to business.  During the first year of use, Toshiba saved over $1 million dollars in comparison to what was being spent on managing content for translation in previously used systems.  These savings are ongoing, and Toshiba continues to utilize LangXpert to manage content for global distribution across multiple departments, with further enhancements underway in 2018 to accommodate more web-based content.

Value Add:
Innovative-minded collaborations between GlobalDoc and Toshiba teams across multiple internal departments, product groups, and companies resulted in an extremely cost effective, user-friendly solution for a client in transition.  Data from legacy systems was retained to reinforce consistency of terminology and general translation quality in all Toshiba-required languages during the process.

Today, Toshiba is realizing up to 50% cost savings on translated information because of the LangXpert integration along with continued savings by utilizing LangXpert content technologies.  The long-term partnership continues and demonstrates how creative, transparent collaboration between client and vendor can produce significant technology-based results, while maintaining focus on cost control and quality in support of a client’s worldwide communications requirements.