A client once sent us a sales deck, a brochure, and a website that referred to the same flagship product by three different names. The translators, quite reasonably, produced three different translations.
How it happens
Marketing names a product, engineering shortens it, sales adds a nickname. Nobody writes any of it down.
The fix is boring and it works
- A one-page terminology list, agreed before translation starts
- Product names marked as “do not translate” in the glossary
- One owner for the list, usually in marketing
| Term | Translate? | Note |
|---|---|---|
| LumenKit | No | Product name, keep capitalization |
| content audit | Yes | Prefer local marketing term |
| sales enablement | Yes | Check regional usage |
Terminology sits at the center of our case studies more often than you would think.
