A Checklist for Translation Vendor Management
Main Tasks of a Translation Vendor Manager As an integration to another article, A Data-based Approach to Translation Vendor Management, we’d like to expand here the vendor manager role as centered around three main tasks: Finding and selecting the resources best suited for a project.Vetting and recruiting them.Updating the vendor base on a regular basis. Just as for our other checklists, to get started you need to ask yourself two fundamental questions: Who is going to use the checklist?What is the checklist for? The checklist can be...
read moreA Bundling-Unbundling Strategy for Your Translation Business
Have you flown recently? Have you had the chance to experience and tell the difference between a legacy and a budget airline? Budget airlines have succeeded in cutting their production (overhead) costs, which has made it possible for them to lower prices. Sometimes, being cheap is not enough, though. A cost-cutting strategy might be successful in the short term, but it might also backfire in some cases. On the other hand, legacy airlines are reliable and transparent, and, in most cases, have better customer service. Yes, they too...
read moreA Machine Translation Checklist for New Users
Machine translation is an essential component of translation automation. If used correctly, it leads to increased productivity, faster turnaround times, higher consistency, and improved accuracy. Machine translation can be a useful tool in many domains and with different text typologies: from weather reports to tourism, from technical documentation to user-generated content, from websites to e-commerce. But how would you choose the engine that best suits your projects? We are here to help. How? With a checklist, of course, that we...
read moreHow to Sound Like a Pro when Talking about Translation Quality
Quality assurance, quality control, quality evaluation… Does your head spin when you hear these words? We hear you. Translation quality is always a bit confusing if only for the many standards involved, none of which tell you how to measure it. Think of the international ISO 17100, ASTM F2575 in the US, the Canadian CAN/CGSB-131.10-2008, and all the other specific translation-related standards, like ISO/TS 11669 providing general guidance for all phases of a translation project, to ISO 18587 on...
read moreA Diversification Strategy for Your Translation Business
In business, diversification can apply both to services and products. Choosing to concentrate on a single product or a single service is a good strategy in the beginning. A startup can concentrate its energy on doing one thing to the best of its ability. But when a company starts to grow, there will be many opportunities to add products and/or services, acquire new clients and enter new markets. Diversification can help a company alternate sources of revenue if, for example, the original market dries up, stops growing, or is hit by...
read moreOnboarding in localization: translating onboarding into a long-term collaboration
After many months of research and hundreds of interviews, you’ve finally found the new employee whose skills you need to expand and strengthen your localization team! But if you think all your problems are over… well, think again, because it’s time to start the so-called (technical) on-boarding. Efficient On-boarding Process On-boarding — also known as organizational socialization — refers to the procedure that helps new employees get acquainted with a company’s culture and learn about the day-to-day tasks, specific processes...
read moreHow Does Translation Technology Fit in the Tourism Industry?
According to Deloitte’s Travel and Hospitality Industry Outlook for 2019, the past 10 years have seen an “historic burst in travel demand.” From 2009 to 2017, in the United States only, hotel gross bookings grew from $116 billion to $185 billion, while airline revenues jumped from $155 billion to $222 billion. Even in my relatively small country (the Netherlands), in 2018 tourism registered an increase of 7% compared to 2017 (for a total of 19.1 million tourists). Now, a new historic growth is expected all over the world. Just to...
read moreA Video Localization Strategy For Your Video Content Marketing
The case for video content Content marketing is a form of marketing that makes you listen carefully to what your customers have to say and discover what their needs are. You have to focus on your customers’ challenges and establish a connection by providing information — and a solution — whenever possible. “Markets are conversations”, wrote the authors of the Cluetrain Manifesto in 1999. This still holds true: You have to craft material that informs and engages. But what kind of content do consumers/customers expect nowadays?...
read moreEffective Strategies for Machine Translation Post-Editing
Following the article on three different approaches to post-editing, I received questions on how to set up post-editing projects. Here I’ll try to answer that and provide some strategies. Not All Engines Are Created Equal Not all machine learning is created equal, and this applies to machine translation as well. If you go through the long list of machine translation connectors available in Wordbee, you’ll see that they go from general to vertical to customized. Google Translate, Amazon Translate, Microsoft Translator...
read moreTranslation Automation with a Human Touch
Automation is omnipresent in our daily life, from our thermostats that help us keep indoor temperature comfortable, to programmable coffee makers so that we can wake up to the delicious smell of coffee; from mobile apps to create shopping lists, order pizzas and remember birthdays to voice assistants replying to our commands and to chatbots manning helpdesks. Automation is advancing quickly in the translation industry, too. Translation management systems are becoming comprehensive service platforms with numerous functionalities to...
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