How Shure cut costs by centralizing translations with XTM

    From scattered processes to 50% lower costs, Shure centralized translations and gained complete operational visibility with XTM. 

    Case study

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    CLIENT SNAPSHOT

    About Shure

    For more than 100 years, Shure has been a trusted name in professional audio. From microphones used in live performance on stage to collaboration and conferencing in boardrooms, Shure products are found in venues and offices worldwide.

    But behind the scenes, managing translations for product guides and marketing content was becoming harder to govern.

    Every region handled its own translations, sending files to different vendors via email, tracking edits manually, and storing documents in scattered locations. Costs were opaque, quality was inconsistent, and no one had a clear picture of what was happening.

    Shure needed a way to centralize translation management, regain visibility, and scale for the future.

    From fragmented processes to one platform

    "We didn’t have any real understanding of how much it was costing us across the organization to do translations,” said Sam Gibbs, a manager in the global marketing operations team. “We had no centralized translation memory. We had no idea where the files were kept, the originals. We had no way of tracking the progress and the versioning."

    That was the reality before XTM.  

    In 2020 a dedicated team was tasked with fixing it. Instead of forcing all regions to work with a single vendor, Shure chose to implement a translation management system (TMS) that allowed teams to keep their preferred vendors, while still centralizing everything in one place.

    After a careful evaluation, XTM stood out as the best fit.

    “At the time XTM seemed to be the best option for us on what we needed and at the price point,” Sam explained. 

    Early wins with visibility and control 

    The impact was immediate. For the first time, Shure could track projects, see who was working on them, and follow version histories.

    That visibility translated quickly into measurable efficiency gains.

    • Within 2 years of implementing a TMS, Shure saw a 50% reduction in costs.

    • All translation memory was now located in one place allowing them to leverage existing content, reducing turnaround time.

    • New processes and workflows were established across the division creating predictable timelines and quality outcomes.

    “Pretty quickly the benefit of having everything in one location was obvious. Being able to track the progress of the projects, seeing what stage in the workflow, who had them, the versioning, from the beginning really was great.” 

    For Sam and her team, XTM also brought much-needed flexibility. Tailoring workflows and building templates became simple, even with the diverse needs of regional teams.

    “Once I'd understood that, it was so easy… we could tailor workflows to them, which was absolutely super. And having the ability to build templates based on our requirements at the click of a button. It just makes a project manager's life a lot easier.”

    Proving ROI 

    While efficiency gains were quickly visible to the teams using XTM every day, leadership wanted clear evidence in numbers. The business case needed to show that centralizing translations wasn’t just operationally smoother, but financially worthwhile.

    “We had a target of what we wanted to achieve within the first two years and we achieved it. Having those results to show that and then the return on investment was just as we had hoped.”

    By consolidating fragmented processes into one system, optimizing machine translation usage, and eliminating unnecessary external vendor fees, Shure achieved a 50% reduction in translation costs.

    At the same time, improved planning and visibility meant projects were completed under budget in the first year, giving the business far greater predictability and control over spend.

    That combination of cost reduction, budget discipline, and improved delivery times gave Shure the confidence that the move to XTM was the right investment and secured strong buy-in for the long term.

    Real-time insights with XTM BI 

    Another huge pain point was reporting. Data had to be pulled manually, often by connecting to Tableau through an API, and even then, the process was slow, resource-heavy, and out of date by the time it was complete.

    With only one developer on Sam’s team and competing priorities, reporting on translation efficiency rarely made it to the top of the list.

    “The big frustration was when we onboarded with Intento and tried to look at the quality since going to machine translation, it took me weeks to pull data from just 20 projects. I don’t have that time to dedicate to it.”

    That changed with the release of XTM BI. Instead of wrestling with spreadsheets and manual updates, Sam’s team can now access accurate, real-time reporting with a few clicks.

    “Now having access to that BI tool, it's there in front of me, immediately. Massive.”

    With BI, Shure can finally track key metrics on cost savings, turnaround times, and translation quality in real time. It gives leadership the transparency they need to see clear ROI and allows Sam’s team to focus on higher-priority projects rather than manual reporting.

    Looking ahead 

    Shure shows no signs of slowing down. As customer expectations grow, so does the need for accurate, localized content delivered at speed.

    Sam sees XTM as an important partner in that future:

    "We are going to need to continue on the path that we're on today but also look at what advances are being made in the technology and how we can leverage those advances, whether it be through machine translation and AI or other things that might come up in the future.”

    For Shure, centralizing with XTM was the first step. With visibility, control, and measurable ROI now in place, the company is well positioned to keep delivering content that matches the quality of its world-class audio products.

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