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One of the most common questions asked by localization vendors when assisting clients with their translation needs is “how much do you spend on translation?” and the most common answer is “I have no idea”. More companies are using translation tests as part of their procurement cycle. Testing translation can be beneficial, but it is essential that you understand “what” you are trying to gain from the test. For a test to be successful, you must match your test translation requirements to the most appropriate vendor strategy for your organization. The [...] Back Translation is the process of translating a document that has already been translated into a foreign language back to the original language – preferably by an independent translator. This process is most common in organizations were product testing and research are a core aspect of the business, i.e Survey organizations, pharmaceutical and biotech companies. The Fortune Global 500 is a list of the worlds largest companies by revenue. The list was formed in 1995 – before which US and non-US companies had their own lists. What can we see from the 2009 list – and in particular is there anything we can we see that effects the localization business? I found an interestng blog entry today by Ivete Camargo López. It was part of her series on Sacred Cows of translation – this one was “translators research“. Ivete did a great job of describing how challenging it can be for a generalist translator to translate specialist materials if the localization company doesn’t support them [...] In the July/August edition, the Harvard Business Review had an interesting article entitled Just How Healthy Is Your Global Business Partner which highlighted how corporations were changing the way they assessed outsourcing relationships. Although the article profiled manufacturing I thought it was particularly relevant in the localization business which traditionally relies so heavily on outsourcing and subcontracting as [...] SDL is kicking off a series of webinars on Tuesday (the 7th July) that tackle a set of best-practices around improving the total cost of ownership of localization – the first being increasing the Return on Investment for localization budget. The others tackle localization testing, machine translation, multimedia, validation and review processes, localization in Agile environments and culminating in Business Process Outsourcing on the 18th of August. Most of these webinars and many others put on by SDL as well as other vendors are aimed at improving the Total Cost of Ownership when it comes to localization – but what really is the Total Cost of Ownership when it comes to localization, and how do you go about quanitifying it, and how do you then understand what you can do once you know the number. In the past few years we have seen a shift in the way some organizations view their customers – with a growing emphasis on involving customers. An emerging trend that capitalizes on this shift is crowdsourcing – relying on a largely volunteer force to solve business problems in a distributed manner. In areas such as [...] SDL hosted a localization networking event on June 16th in Portland, OR. The panelists were Francoise Hovivian, Steve Kemper and Yvan Hennecart. With around 20 attendees, it turned out to be a fantastic knowledge exchange on localization best practices and solutions. Kicking off the upcoming webinar season is a session around how to maximize total translation spend. The session (the first of six) is on the 7th July at noon EST. |
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