Founded in Pleasanton, California, in 2012 as the world’s first learning experience platform, Degreed onboarded large-scale companies such as Cisco and Unilever at an early stage. Its national presence grew steadily, with one in three of the top 50 US companies training their teams on the platform by 2021. This success prompted a unicorn valuation of USD 1.4 billion – and a leap into international markets.
With a growing international user base and an increasing number of target markets, it soon became clear that a smart localization process would be crucial for continued success.
Multiple languages, many formats – and limitless quality
Degreed’s localization team understands that the most successful learning takes place in the user’s native language – and that includes the UX, not just the content itself. The Degreed universe includes not only its native apps and marketing website, but also knowledge center articles, presentations, blog posts, newsletters and highly visible marketing campaigns. A challenge is the high frequency with which the company publishes new content: product updates are released every two weeks, while marketing content is kept fresh at a fast pace.
Degreed was therefore looking for a language service provider that could offer a premium transcreation service for its highly visible marketing content and an experienced project management team that can handle complexity. The partnership with Supertext began at the end of 2021, and together they have been able to seamlessly combine workflows for each of the content types with a multi-layered LQA/LSO process to achieve hyper-localization for each of the company’s languages.
From XTM to DTP: an eight-step premium localization process
The Degreed localization process involves multiple workflows and content types. In this case study we will focus on Premium asset process which includes:
- simplify communication between linguistic teams
- provide context and clarity in an automated manner
- enable the best transcreation environment for linguists
- ensure uniformly high quality across all languages
- give Degreed an overview of its projects at all times
The defined workflow integrates Degreed’s XTM translation management system, as well as Jira and Slack for communication. Third-party LQA for priority languages and an active line of communication between Supertext’s linguists and Degreed’s LQA partner also play an important role in the process. Premium transcreation projects include a content analysis step, where terms are extracted in order to meet stylistic requirements and ensure consistency. During this step, linguists might also need to adapt source copy so that it is culturally appropriate for each supported region.
Degreed’s high-visibility marketing content always goes through Supertext’s DTP step and in-context review.
The localization journey
With nearly 1,000 orders now completed, Supertext has helped Degreed localize marketing and customer support content in addition to enabling upskilling across hundreds of thousands of users worldwide by making the native app available in multiple languages. Weekly production syncs ensure a regular exchange between Degreed’s localization managers and Supertext’s super project managers covering all time zones from LA and Berlin.
According to Yulia Sokolova, Director of Localization, at Degreed, the course has already been set for further growth:
“Degreed has acquired Learn In this year. Learn In helps companies establish education benefits and skill academies so every employee can build deeper skills precisely aligned to company needs.
The team at Supertext not only helped us to localize the Learn In app and Learn In Support Center articles into Canadian French, but also became a strategic partner who is not afraid of thinking outside of the box and being flexible. We are excited to continue working with Supertext on expanding our globalization efforts.”
Cover image via Degreed