E-ging Solutions is a world-leading Shanghai translation company with specialties in language translation.
The editors of the Globalization and Localization Association
(GALA) newsletter recently asked me this question: What is translation
technology doing to create new business models in the industry that are finding
new and innovative solutions to current problems?
I would like to share with you
a portion of my response below. Please note that some of my suggestions may be
more relevant to language services providers beyond the size of a single-person
freelance business. Some obvious developments in technology must be taken into
account to respond to the above question. Uppermost in many language
professionals’ minds is the much-writtenabout impact of machine
translation.Increased process automation as well as relatively new processes,
such as large-scale crowdsourcing, also rely heavily on technology. The
increasing availability of bi- and multilingual data can (only) be harnessed
with technology. At the same time, there are new ways to drill down to a much
more granular level in these or any other data resources.
A superficial observer could
easily conclude that these and similar developments would lead to a more
monolithic landscape of larger companies equipped with ever-evolving
state-ofthe art technologies that rely increasingly less on human
contributions, whether on the project management side or on the translation
side.
But here is what I think. In
the 1990s, technology made us into the industry that we are today. In the
2010s, technology will pulverize the very industry it once created into many
fragments.
Let me first digress a little
before picking up this thread again.
An interesting blurb about
Amazon removing from its website public domain titles translated using Google
Translate appeared the week before I wrote this column . Though most GALA
members are not involved in translating literature, the report still seems
emblematic to me. As members of the “translation industry,” we have known for a
long time that translation does not equal translation,and apparently this has
finally and truly penetrated the consciousness of the general public. Sure,
“they”always knew about and delighted in Google Translate blunders, but the
sheer volume of stories in the media—and their popularity—has continued to
reveal a certain infatuation with the presumed up-andcoming babelfish devices
that will essentially put an end to the translation industry.
This new (or maybe it is just a
dawning) revelation in the public awareness of the different kinds of
translation is fantastic news for everyone who provides translation services.
For a long time in the late 1980s and early 1990s, we were able to use
translation technology, in particular translation memory technology, before
clients realized it and insisted on reaping some of its financial and
administrative benefits. This time,however, it is different. Now we are using
technology as a selling point.
Today, we must learn to
communicate with more nuance and sophistication about what kind of product the
technologies that we use are producing. In the past, we made the mistake of
proclaiming that we were not only selling “translation” but also“localization”
services (whose meaning neither we nor our clients really understood). This
time around we need to be wiser in communicating what we do. We must craft
compelling and well-informed stories that describe what we provide.
In fact, these stories are so
important that I think the very survival of each language provider is at stake
here.You see, the product sold by the large multinational technology/language
provider to its clients is by definition different from the product of a small
language services provider run by (former) translators and catering to a
specific market. This in turn is different from the product of a mid-sized
language services provider focused on maintaining and refining
industry-specific machine translation engines. I could go on and on.
Naturally, the differences
between the products are not just determined by the size of the vendor, but
this certainly heralds the demise of the translation-editing-proofreading model
where everyone sells at more or less the same prices based on word count.
In theory, technology can be a
great equalizer. In practice, however, access and expert use of technology is
not equal, so in many cases technology differentiates rather than equalizes.
With that in mind, it is now up to every single vendor who sells translation to
embrace that reality, crafting it into a narrative that explains what is being
sold, how the product is unique due to the vendor’s particular choice of
technologies and processes, and how that justifies the price tag.
Granted, the Amazon story will
not help you much in this process of communicating to clients. No serious
competitor is going to use unvetted Google Translate to compete for your
business. But having a profound and well-reasoned understanding of the
implications of technology choice and how it can impact the quality and success
of your product—and that of your competitors—will help you flesh out what you
are selling
