Language: the growth bottleneck that no one is talking about

In today’s economic climate, global businesses are under pressure to deliver more with less. Whether the goal is driving growth, improving profitability, or simply staying resilient, leadership teams are rethinking how they operate, invest, and scale.

That often means turning to international markets: launching in new regions, streamlining global operations, or centralising services. But scaling globally brings its own challenges and one of the most persistent is language.

Multilingual communication isn’t a “nice-to-have” when your teams, customers, and stakeholders span continents. It’s critical to success. Yet for many businesses, language remains an invisible blocker. 

Put simply, language is slowing businesses down at the very moment they need to move faster.

That’s where technology is changing the game. Self-service machine translation tools, such as Pronto, enable teams to move faster, stay aligned, and unlock real value across the business — without sacrificing quality or control. And when used alongside expert human input, they form part of a flexible localisation strategy that can scale with your business.

Let’s take a closer look at the bigger business case.

Typically, our clients are producing more content now than ever before. It’s common for us to hear of teams rolling out a Europe-wide or global restructure, launching new sustainability policies, or opening up five new markets, all within 12 months.

After that initial launch phase, you move into a “new normal”, settling into new processes and demands in terms of content production. And what does that look like in practice? 

It means that you’re producing more content than ever, from HR policies and compliance training to product guides, knowledge bases, and campaign copy. It’s manic and often messy because your localisation workflows haven’t caught up with the new demands on your business.

To address this, many companies may improvise on the fly; some teams use off-the-shelf tools like Google Translate, or work in English only. A few rely on overworked internal reviewers or agency workflows that weren’t designed for high-volume, everyday content. These models still have a valuable role to play, but they work best when supported by the right tools and processes that bring added speed and scale.

Most forward-looking leadership teams, after 6–12 months of struggle, recognise the need to invest, not just to solve a problem, but to unlock growth and maximise the value of the investments they’ve already made.

Self-service MT platforms, such as Pronto, enable teams to translate content themselves — securely, instantly, and with brand consistency built in. They’re designed for business use, with the features global teams need:

✅ Custom glossaries and style guides to keep messaging on-brand

✅ Built-in AI post-editing for clearer, more natural translations

✅ Optional human review when quality truly matters

✅ User-level permissions and data privacy controls

✅ Scalable pricing with unlimited users and generous word counts

These tools aren’t a replacement for expert translation, they’re a complement. For high-value, nuanced, or brand-critical content, human linguists remain essential. But for everyday content that needs to move quickly and stay consistent, self-service MT provides a secure, scalable solution.

For many organisations, the result isn’t just faster turnaround; it’s a more consistent, more secure, and more cost-effective way to manage multilingual content across the board, bringing a halo of other benefits in areas you might not initially think of.

In a world where speed-to-market can define success, providing your teams with instant access to high-quality translation enables you to respond faster to opportunities, adapt to change, and stay ahead of the competition. Self-service MT tools like Pronto don’t just cut costs, they increase agility across the business.

As we’ve said, it’s not just your localisation team that benefits. Here’s how different departments are also clients (and benefactors) of an investment in your translation workflows.

HR & Internal Comms

• Translate policies, onboarding materials, and wellbeing comms more quickly and with fewer overheads.
• Keep remote and international teams aligned to boost overall productivity and employee engagement.
• Reduce delays from agency handoffs or internal bottlenecks, realising the benefits of investment in people sooner.

Learning & Development Teams

• Localise training content at pace and scale, upskilling international teams more quickly.
• Support non-English-speaking teams, removing time-consuming bottlenecks.
• Increase engagement and training completion rates.

Product & Technical Teams

• Update documentation and support content in real-time, eliminating delays caused by language differences.
• Maintain consistency across global releases.
• Avoid contractor and 3rd party backlogs by handling straightforward content in-house.

Marketing & Sales

• Translate campaign content, landing pages, and product updates in-house and to a standard you’re happy with.
• Respond faster to regional market needs, capitalising on revenue-generating opportunities before your competitors.
• Free up budget for higher-impact localisation work, such as branding and awareness-building.
• Launch across markets at the same time (rather than phasing due to language availability) so that you reap a bigger ROI on marcomms spending.
• Get to market faster than your competition, due to a more automated workflow.

IT & Engineering

• Keep translations secure and centralised, and easy to update quickly.
• Replace public tools with a compliant, auditable solution.
• Integrate translation into existing digital workflows such as CMS tools, project management tools, etc.
• Reduce reliance on valuable engineering resources by giving localisation clients a self-service solution.

If you’re exploring self-service MT for your business, here are five key things to consider:

1. Security. Is it compliant with GDPR and your company’s data policies?
2. Language quality. Can it be tailored to your tone of voice, terminology, and language variants?
3. Scalability. Will it support an unlimited number of users across multiple departments and regions?
4. Control. Does it offer optional human review for high-stakes content?
5. Support. Is onboarding included? Can you get help refining prompts and settings?

Of course, not all content is created equal. That’s why a good self-service platform should offer optional human-in-the-loop workflows. When accuracy, nuance, and cultural sensitivity really matter, for example in legal, brand, or customer-facing content, expert linguists should be involved to ensure quality and impact. The best results come when technology and human expertise work hand-in-hand. 

At Comtec, we’ve developed Pronto to address these challenges specifically. It’s not a replacement for professional translation, but complements it, providing teams with a faster and cost-effective option for everyday content, while reserving human expertise for high-impact projects. With Pronto, you can slash translation costs by as much as 60-80%, accelerate delivery times, and streamline your day-to-day operations across the business.

In a nutshell, here are some of the most significant benefits of Pronto:

• Automate your entire translation workflow
• Reduce translation costs by as much as 80%
• Get translations in 30+ languages in minutes
• Ensure every translation reflects your brand voice automatically
• Bring localisation under one roof across all your teams

If you’d like to explore how a tool like Pronto could work for you, we’d be happy to share what we’ve learned, including benchmarks and setup guides. 

Alternatively, you can download the brochure to get a top-level understanding of how it works. 

And if you’re looking for more than just a tool, we’re here to help. At Comtec, we combine technology with expert linguists, cultural insight, and strategic consultancy to help you scale globally with confidence, whatever your localisation challenge.