NAVEX is a global compliance, risk, and governance provider whose unique superpower is data. With the world's largest database of whistleblower hotline reports, they help small and large companies across the globe get a better understanding of what exactly goes on inside their companies. Last year alone, 2.37 million reports came through their hotline.
Headquartered in Oregon, USA, NAVEX operates globally with offices around the world, including England, Japan, and India. For the marketing team at NAVEX, communicating risk and compliance topics across so many different contexts and languages presents its own challenges. Especially when dealing with design files that must match the formatting, style, and branding of the original. Until recently, translating design files involved tedious manual labour, copying translated text into InDesign files, adjusting layouts, and repeating the process for every language.
To understand those challenges and how NAVEX solved them, we spoke to Associate Director of Content Marketing Linda Meikle.
Linda Meikle does not have a background in localisation. It was an aspect of marketing that she inherited. She reflects on taking ownership of the process, what she learned, and how her team solved their InDesign localisation challenges.
“Before we moved to the InDesign workflow with LanguageWire, what we were operating with was very manual and all done internally.“
The challenge: A design time sink
NAVEX had already experienced success building a multilingual resource centre in eight languages with LanguageWire.
But as is often the case, business needs evolved. The team was experiencing a growing need to create more and more design content, in more and more languages.
They struggled to keep up with content volumes, with an internal workflow that was time-consuming and manual.
The process looked like this:
The design was first created in English.
The English text was then copied to a Word document, to be translated through LanguageWire.
Once the translations came back, designers would manually fit them into the original design file.
Designers had to do this by manually copy-pasting, often without understanding the language they were working in.
As with any copy-and-paste workflow, mistakes happened. Those mistakes led to revisions, additional quality checks, and repeated back-and-forth between designers and native-speaking reviewers.
It was NAVEX's account manager, Filip Hedblom, who recognised that the team was doing more manual work than necessary.
“Filip brought the idea to us because he took the time to really understand our challenges.”
He suggested trying LanguageWire's Desktop Publishing (DTP) workflow, which manages the design process alongside translation. Linda Meikle and her team agreed to try it.
Instead of manually copying translated text into every InDesign file, adjusting layouts, and repeating the process for every language, they could outsource the whole thing to LanguageWire.
The solution: A customised workflow that does all the heavy lifting
The InDesign workflow was added to NAVEX's existing localisation setup. It built on their existing AI set-up and linguistic assets. The only difference was that LanguageWire's design specialists now handled the layout work as well.
From NAVEX's perspective, the process became much simpler.
Now all they have to do is:
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Upload the InDesign package to LanguageWire’s Translation Management System
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Choose the required languages
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Submit the project
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Receive the final result complete with fonts, InDesign files, and PDFs
"In effect, we just have to create the request once, send it to LanguageWire and not so long later, we end up with a final package."
Behind the scenes, the content is translated using AI before being reviewed by NAVEX's own native-speaking reviewers. The LanguageWire's design team applies the translations to the InDesign files, making sure the layout matches the original, and delivers the finished package complete with fonts, packaged InDesign files, and print-ready PDFs.
Even post-publication edits became easier. If changes are needed, NAVEX simply reopens the project, contacts the design team, and updates are completed quickly.
"With this process, LanguageWire really does all the heavy lifting for us. It has been a huge time saver for all of us."
The result: Time saved. Quality maintained
NAVEX already had an effective localisation setup, but localisation isn't static. Businesses grow, content volumes increase, and new markets create new demands. As NAVEX’s marketing activities grew, they found themselves in need of a more efficient process.
Because LanguageWire's solutions are modular, it was easy to add the DTP workflow to NAVEX's existing process.
The result was the same high-quality designs, delivered consistently across markets in a fraction of the time.
“Using the InDesign workflow has been the biggest time saver”
Importantly, quality has kept pace. For NAVEX, speed without consistent quality was never an option.
The team has been impressed with the final quality. Linda Meikle emphasises just how difficult a task it is to make sure a design file looks great in every language. Factors such as language expansion from English to German, or the character changes from English to Japanese, can impact the visual effect of a final design.
“Major praise to your DTP team. Everything we’ve gotten looks fantastic. We are really proud of the things we produce and when we get them back from LanguageWire, we are just as proud.”
A workflow designed to scale with NAVEX
NAVEX's localisation needs will continue to evolve. Their workflow is built to evolve with them. New languages, new workflows, or new technologies can be added as requirements change.
A true partnership
We ended our conversation by asking Linda Meikle to reflect on the relationship between NAVEX and LanguageWire.
She explains that, despite having little previous experience with localisation, she has always felt supported as NAVEX's needs have evolved.
"We've tried new things. We've tried new processes. We have shared our concerns and struggles, and we have gotten back really good answers and recommendations."
She particularly values working with people who take the time to understand NAVEX's business, challenges, and goals. She explains that her account executive Filip invested time in understanding the company's workflows, resources, and objectives. As a result, the relationship has become a genuine partnership rather than a relationship an organisation might normally have with their provider.
“LanguageWire has really been able to keep up step by step as our needs have grown and as we've expanded.”
"A true partnership, I think, is probably the best way to summarise it."
Need to simplify your multilingual content production?
If your teams are managing growing content volumes across multiple languages, markets and systems, we can help you make the process simpler, faster and more consistent. Talk to LanguageWire to explore how we can support your multilingual content production.
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