1st of 3 articles: How to buy language translation services
We live in a world that’s increasingly becoming globalised according to a United Nations report, which describes our world as, “more interconnected than ever before”. In a Business-to-Business context, English is often the preferred language when communicating across borders. But that’s not always the case, and when it comes to communicating with consumers in other countries, the conversation needs to be in their own respective languages. Not only is that expected, it’s also a legal requirement in many contexts.
How your brand communicates matters – a lot! Anyone who has tried to learn a foreign language knows how easy it is to be misunderstood, how certain things just don’t directly translate, and how culture is intertwined with the way we speak. That makes the role of the translator critical.
“It is the task of the translator to release in his own language that pure language that is under the spell of another, to liberate the language imprisoned in a work in his re-creation of that work.”
German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and essayist, Walter Benjamin
Don’t let translation services be an after-thought
Despite the risk of communication being “lost in translation”, many companies don’t give much thought to the translation part until very late in the process of entering a new market, or expanding in existing ones. To many project teams, translation is simply an after-thought. Pressure is on towards the end of the project. The stuff needs translating, preferably yesterday. Which agency can do it quickly, at a decent quality and without charging an arm and a leg?
Nobody makes great sourcing decisions under that kind of pressure. Particularly not for a service which is regarded as peripheral. As a result, many large companies do business with as many as several hundred translation suppliers. That in itself introduces hidden costs of managing an excessive number of suppliers. It’s not exactly great in terms of ensuring consistent quality either. It is, in fact, a very risky approach, given the potential for brand damage, lost revenue or worse.
A strategic approach to translation services
To reduce those risks, companies need to take a more proactive and strategic approach to sourcing the right translation solutions. So, where does one start?
First consider your corporate strategy. What are your big international markets now and where is expansion likely to happen in future? Are you going after new target markets or industries? What about current and future market positioning? All that matters when selecting the translation solution providers most appropriate for your current and future needs.
Second, find out who the main users of translation services in your organisation are. Analysing spend data will give a clue. However, unless your organisation has excellent spend data quality, this may be more challenging than it sounds. Translation spend can “hide” within project spend or be subject to inconsistent coding, providing poor visibility. If you suspect inconsistent coding makes your initial spend report inaccurate, try to run spend reports against a list of, say, the top 30 translation agencies and see if that throws up new spend.
Also, as you start speaking to stakeholders find out if they are aware of other stakeholders using translation services. Stakeholders may also know about suppliers you weren’t aware of. This process should enable you to create a picture that’s approximately 80% accurate.
Third, now you know what the approximate spend is and who spends it, it’s time to explore how translation fits into the core activities of these key stakeholders. What makes a good translator for them? What has worked well and not so well in the past? What does “quality” mean for them? What hidden costs does a sub-optimal service introduce? What does the ideal translation solution look like from their points of view? The answers to these questions are likely to vary across large organisations.
Keep it real
Once you have a good understanding of what the organisation and its stakeholders require and desire, I would always recommend informally consulting the supply market as a next step. This is to discover what the art of the possible is. What insights, innovations and technologies exist that could potentially create value for your stakeholders and the organisation as a whole.
Key stakeholders typically think they know the answers to these questions, but most of the time their “knowledge” is outdated. That’s because supply markets change too fast for anyone to keep up, unless you are actually a supplier in that market. Speaking to a small handful of key translation agencies at this stage will help you shape your formal requirements into something that’s most appropriate for your organisation, and something the supply market can actually deliver. It puts realism into the sourcing process.
Convincing the leadership team
The combination of insights into stakeholder requirements and supply market capabilities is what’s needed to build a credible business case for the translation solution sourcing project. It provides the basis for articulating the corporate benefits in much more convincing and tangible terms.
By going through this process, you will also likely have obtained an appreciation for hidden, internal and external costs associated with the translation process. This, in turn, will allow you to build a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) model for the translation process within your business environment. This TCO model is an important part of the business case, as it helps highlight areas where value can be created. If done correctly, the business case will get you the green light from senior management to move forward with an impactful sourcing project for translation solutions.
Next article in this 3-part mini-series talks about putting together a sourcing team, asking suppliers the right questions and assessing quality.
Armand Brevig is the Managing Director of Procurement Cube. He speaks four languages and his diverse experience includes leading the procurement transformation of translation solutions for a global blue-chip organisation. Key benefits included total cost reduction through vendor consolidation and deployment of innovative technology, as well as risk reduction through consistent best practice processes.
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