Bossard: 600 work hours saved – AI translation for 17 languages in B2B

In Brief

• Starting point: 17 languages, 38 locales, a global marketing team of 30 people, an editorial process built on Word exports, emails, and manual copy-paste.

• Lever: AI Actions in Contentful handle the first translation draft. Field-level localization keeps content consistent across all markets.

• Result: 600 translation hours saved during the replatforming project.

• Key insight: AI translation doesn't deliver miracles — it delivers a reliable first draft. That's exactly what global marketing teams need.

• Context: The new platform unifies website and eShop on a single codebase — Contentful provides the content layer. Localization is one of several levers enabled by the new architecture.

Why Translation Becomes a Business Bottleneck for Global B2B Distributors

As a Swiss specialist in fastening technology, Bossard supplies OEMs around the globe — 3,300 employees, 82 locations, and over one billion Swiss francs in annual revenue. At this scale, a single-language workflow simply isn't enough. What's needed is one that works across 17 languages, 33 locales, while maintaining technical precision.

In practice, this used to look like this: an editor exported the article to a Word document. Sent it by email to a translator. Got it back. Proofread it. Copied it into the CMS. Multiplied by 17 languages, multiplied by dozens of pages per month.

From our project experience, we know: people don't work too slowly — system boundaries are the problem. Every interface between steps costs time and quality. Every system boundary is a breaking point.

The New Foundation: A Content Layer That Scales

Together with Bossard, we built a new digital platform that unifies website and eShop in a single frontend. Contentful handles the marketing text displayed per market on the website. That's the structure B2B distributors truly need.

On this foundation, AI-powered translation presents itself as the natural next step. Because only when content is cleanly structured can AI deliver reliable results.

AI Actions in Practice: What They Deliver — and What They Don't

Contentful's AI Actions translate master content into all target languages with the click of a button, per entry. No integration, no additional tooling. The editorial team reviews the draft, adjusts nuances, and approves it.

Corina Sulzberger, responsible for Online Marketing Projects at Bossard, puts it plainly:

Two configurations are critical for B2B contexts:

Custom translation rules. Bossard has flagged product names and brand terms as "do not translate" for the website. This ensures that article numbers, product names, and technical terms remain identical across all markets — a must when buyers research across national borders.

SEO and alt text as a by-product. The same AI generates meta descriptions and image alt texts. This sounds minor, but it scales enormously. Accessibility and search engine visibility come along essentially for free.

An important note from our experience: For legal and regulatory texts, professional translation remains essential. For all other content, AI delivers a solid draft — freeing up specialist translators to focus on genuine quality review.

Expert Note: Locale Design Is What Makes AI Truly Scalable

The real lever wasn't just translation at the click of a button — it was the question: Which locales actually need to be maintained independently?

We therefore worked with 17 primary languages (without fallback) as the linguistic backbone, and built market locales with fallback on top of that.

The result: AI delivers the first draft where it has the greatest impact — and local teams intervene selectively, rather than having to maintain every market variant from scratch.

Workflows: The End of Microsoft Teams Pings

The second lever is automating handoffs. Clear workflows are essential — otherwise even the best AI stalls, approvals get stuck, and processes slow down.

For global content, the workflow is intentionally triggered manually — so that content is created, translated, and approved reliably and on schedule.

1. Global content is created and reviewed in the master language (EN).

2. AI Actions generate translation drafts for the target locales.

3. Local teams proofread and approve per market (Market Validity).

4. Authorized personnel then publish the content (role- and permission-based).

Each approval triggers the next step. No one needs to remind, follow up, or escalate. On the technical side, we automated the publish process: every time content is published in Contentful, a build is triggered. The new content goes live within minutes — no IT ticket required.

Governance: Two Roles, Clear Responsibilities

Bossard deliberately keeps governance lean — with two clearly defined areas of responsibility: global creation and control (content creation/review/translation) and local content approval (proofreading per market).

From our projects, we know: governance rarely fails due to too little oversight. It almost always fails due to too much complexity. Two roles are sufficient — as long as each role has a clearly defined area of responsibility and the tools reflect the processes.

What the Numbers Show

Locales ≠ markets: 33 covers all actively editable locales in Contentful, including market variants and fallback structures.

The savings figures are taken from the Contentful case study on Bossard: contentful.com/case-studies/bossard

The real value, however, lies not in the one-time savings. It lies in the newfound scalability: entering new markets now means configuring a locale, running content through the pipeline, and reviewing it locally.

What B2B Distribution Companies Can Take Away from This Project

From our work with Bossard, we've distilled five principles we recommend to every B2B distributor before embarking on a content or platform project:

1. Localization is an architecture issue, not a tooling issue. Bolting on a plugin is short-term thinking. Anchoring localization in the data structure — field-level localization being the key concept — is sustainable and creates the foundation for genuine scalability.

2. AI belongs in the workflow, not alongside it. Standalone translation tools offer isolated time savings. AI integrated into the content workflow changes the way teams work.

3. AI needs clear rules. At Bossard, technical terms were configured as "do not translate." That's not magic — it's structure. Without explicit exceptions, AI will translate what it shouldn't.

4. Keep governance lean. Two clearly defined roles work better than five blurry ones — as long as each role has an unambiguous area of responsibility and the tools reflect the processes.

5. Content audit before migration. Carrying outdated, flawed content into a new system is costly. Better: run a content audit in parallel with the migration — it pays off twice over, including in translation costs.

Conclusion: Scalable Content Is a Competitive Advantage

Anyone selling internationally can no longer afford to handle content manually. The Bossard case demonstrates how AI translation, clean content structures, and clear governance work together. The question is no longer whether AI belongs in the translation workflow — but when, and with what architecture.

Considering a CMS Replatforming or a Unified Commerce Platform?

We support B2B distribution companies in the DACH region from evaluation through migration to ongoing operations. Talk to us about your case — we're happy to share what has worked in our projects.

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Contact for your Digital Solution

projektanfragen.ch@unic.com+41 31 560 16 16

Book an appointment

Are you keen to talk about your next project? We will be happy exchange ideas with you.