How to approach new languages in your SAP system
Embarking on an SAP translation project may be necessary for several reasons. If your business is growing into new markets, translation could be needed to comply with local regulations, to enable your regional teams to work more easily in your SAP system and to ensure standardisation across all your business locations.
However, as we established in one of our recent blogs (which you can read here), the process of translating SAP content can be complex and varies from company to company. Using this innovative software as a means of enterprise resource planning is undoubtedly advantageous to businesses of all sizes and sectors. When rolling it out to new markets, however, dealing with the matter of translation can be very challenging.
Typically, you will have customised SAP to suit your company’s needs and will use it in the language of the region or country that you’re based in. Although SAP offers language packs to assist with translation, these won’t always be suitable for the SAP content that has been specially adapted to your business. If you want to make sure that your end users in new regions understand the SAP system and can use it effectively, you will need to translate texts into their language.
Who uses SAP?
Industries worldwide use SAP to streamline their operations. From aerospace and banking to chemicals and the media, SAP helps businesses from all sectors operate more efficiently and cost-effectively.
Below are just a few examples of its many applications.
In the retail sector, SAP can track inventories and automatically replenish stock, and it can also analyse data to identify trends in specific regions or stores. Its solutions for the automotive industry include optimising the e-charging process for electric vehicle fleets and simplifying communications between car manufacturers and dealers. In the world of agriculture, SAP systems make AI-powered forecasts that can simplify crop-growing decisions and encourage sustainable practices.
Technology companies also benefit from using SAP. Rapid change is a permanent feature of this sector, and SAP can help businesses to stay ahead in this turbulent industry. Insights driven by SAP support the operations of tech companies in several ways. SAP can, for example, speed up design and production, automate tracking and reporting or transform supply chains.
Organisations that use SAP often operate across different markets and regions. To maintain optimal business function, providing the necessary SAP processes in a variety of languages is essential.
SAP and technology companies
SAP offers many advantages to software creators, from the possibility of reducing development costs or enhancing customer support to managing payments or subscriptions.
d.velop, a long-time customer of text&form│t’works, is an IT services and consulting company that develops and markets systems for the end-to-end digitalisation of business processes, often involving industry-specific procedures. d.velop uses SAP and tasked text&form│t’works with the translation of custom content in its SAP system from German to English. For this particular project, the SAP translation tools that text&form│t’works has developed in partnership with the SAP translation consultancy LUDECKE proved the ideal solution, as they allow the necessary work to be carried out more efficiently in the SAP environment.
Finding the most suitable solution for your company’s SAP translation project can be difficult. Some businesses decide that an Excel spreadsheet is sufficient for their basic needs, while others – like d.velop – require professional language expertise and tailored solutions. What’s clear is that anyone planning an international SAP rollout should decide on the optimal way to translate their content is early as possible. Understanding what’s involved is a helpful starting point.
SAP project scoping
One of the most crucial aspects of any SAP translation project is knowing what needs to be translated and how.
However, identifying which texts require translation and which don’t is far from straightforward. Text might include table entries, role menu texts or forms, amongst other things, and you may also have SAP Fiori elements or ABAP components that require translation. If your SAP system has been customised to meet your company’s precise requirements, SAP’s off-the-shelf translation solutions may not be the right choice.
Scoping means deciding which parts of your SAP system – customised or otherwise – will be used in your new business locations and selecting the relevant texts for translation on this basis. Once you have identified and refined all objects for translation and have chosen the best tools for the job, an all-important cost estimation can take place.
What are SAP Translation Hub and SE63?
When it comes to transforming texts into new languages, SAP offers useful tools that can significantly increase the efficiency of the SAP translation process. The SAP Translation Hub can provide suggestions for translations from either its repository of previously translated SAP products or via AI-driven machine translation. This means that short texts, particularly UI texts developed in-house, can be translated automatically.
Transaction SE63 is a tool developed by SAP to provide access to objects for translation directly in the system. It represents a powerful translation solution in its own right and permits the translation of short and long texts, forms and other text types within the SAP environment itself.
(Visit the resources at text&form│t’works for more in-depth information on all aspects of SAP translation).
Both the SAP Translation Hub and SE63 are of great assistance to translators. However, they will probably only form a part of your translation workflow, and integrating them can be very complex.
Cost-saving tools
To cope with growing demand, translation is becoming increasingly automated. The key now is knowing how to optimise the available translation tools and using them as effectively as possible to achieve the best results.
Our in-house SAP translation tools offer significant benefits to our customers.
text&form│t’works have developed important add-ons that help to optimise the SAP translation workflow and facilitate the integration of SAP’s own translation aids. Our in-house software helps you to access the data in the SAP Translation Hub before exporting the necessary texts for translation or translating them directly in SE63. Moreover, it assists with identifying entries in customising tables for translation and, crucially, also simplifies the scoping process.
Our objective is always to provide our customers with the highest quality at the best price, and our SAP tools make a significant contribution in this regard.
The text&form│t’works advantage
A dedicated SAP translation partner like text&form│t’works has many years of experience with SAP projects. We are certified by SAP and regularly verified to ensure our translation and language consultancy conform to SAP’s exacting standards. This means that we have the necessary expertise to quickly and efficiently calculate the full extent of your translation project and the corresponding budget, apply cost-saving measures to the overall process and supply the language excellence required to oversee the technology-enhanced workflows.
Depending on the size of your project, working with a certified and quality-assured SAP translation partner could be extremely cost-effective.
Contact us today to talk about your SAP translation projects.
