Boplan® is a Belgian company that has been developing and manufacturing innovative, sustainable safety solutions for over 25 years. Recognised globally as a benchmark in industrial safety, Boplan operates in more than 80 countries, employing 280 people across 10 sales offices in Europe, North America, and Japan, supported by a network of 50 distributors. 

Dedicated to creating the safest industrial workplaces, Boplan specialises in durable fall and impact protection solutions, including safety barriers, bollards, height restrictors, handrails, safety gates, and movable barriers. These solutions set the standard in impact absorption and are widely used in warehouses, production facilities, logistics centres, cold storage units, (petro) chemical sites, parking structures, and airports. 

To understand Boplan's localisation needs, we spoke with Dries Devarrewaere, a content marketer overseeing content creation and localisation at the company. He shared insights into their rebranding challenges, localisation approaches, and the impact of partnering with LanguageWire. 

The Challenge: Large-scale content production and localisation

In 2023, Boplan embarked on a full-scale rebrand, requiring the rewriting and localisation of its entire 200-page website and marketing materials. With a global presence and content spanning over 10 languages, ensuring accuracy, consistency, and efficiency across all translations was critical. 

Dries Devarrewaere led content creation and managed translations, supported by a digital marketer and two graphic designers handling visual elements. 

The initial rebranding phase involved rewriting all content in Dutch and English. To translate content into other languages, the team used tools like DeepL, with native-speaking employees reviewing the translations. However, it soon became clear that this approach did not meet Boplan’s quality standards. Employees, while fluent in their respective languages, were not trained linguists or marketers, leading to inconsistencies in brand voice and translation quality. 

Realising the need for a structured and automated approach, Boplan decided to start over. By early 2024, they sought a partner who could not only translate but also optimise content workflows and ensure linguistic consistency across all materials.  

Consideration: In-house vs. external localisation solutions

Before partnering with LanguageWire, Boplan explored external agency solutions. However, they encountered several challenges:

1. Inconsistencies across languages – Agencies often could not handle all languages in-house, leading to outsourcing, which resulted in variations in quality and style. 

2. Urgency of rebranding – The rebranded content was already live and needed rapid correction, making a structured approach essential.

3. Inefficient workflows – Managing multiple agencies meant different processes, manual copy-pasting into the CMS, and operational inefficiencies.

The Solution: Meeting tight deadlines with a tailored approach

After evaluating their options, Boplan chose LanguageWire to streamline website localisation and marketing content production.

A key factor in their decision was LanguageWire’s seamless integration with Drupal, Boplan’s CMS, enabling direct exports and imports of translated content. This eliminated manual errors, reduced workload, and significantly accelerated the translation process. 

"We would never have met our deadline by copying and pasting texts manually.” 

In just one month, 350,000 words were translated, with 70,000 words per language across five languages. 

Key Benefits: Efficiency, Accuracy, and Scalability

Once the work began, Boplan quickly realised the advantages of working with LanguageWire: 

Higher translation quality and improved consistency – Now, all translations are centralised. LanguageWire’s termbase and translation memory ensures uniformity in style and terminology across all content.

With termbases, teams can add approved terms, phrases, and their translations for faster, consistent translations. Discussions about how to translate a term or phrase need only happen once, decreasing the time spent on translation projects.

Translation memories take this one step further, where Boplan benefitted from an innovative tool that automatically searches and reuses words, sentences, and entire texts that have already been translated.  

Reduced reliance on internal resources – Employees no longer need to review translations, freeing them to focus on core tasks.  

Improved company branding – Boplan now delivers a consistent brand experience in every language—without compromise. A faster, more efficient translation process means no content gets left behind due to resource constraints. Every message, in every market, is clear, cohesive, and aligned with their brand. 

Accelerated content production – Now, Boplan's local marketing teams can create market-specific content in their own language, ensuring stronger customer connections. This content is then translated and refined for other regions. Rather than starting in English or Dutch and translating later, multilingual content can be developed simultaneously - enabling faster, more relevant communication across all markets. 

Streamlined project management – Centralizing translations gives Boplan a clear project overview, eliminating the complexity of managing multiple agencies and translators. With everything in one place, both the marketing and finance teams benefit from a more streamlined, efficient process. 

“All translations now go to LanguageWire. Instead of involving many people to get the work done, I now only communicate with one partner. That makes it a lot easier to keep track of everything.”