Why is the translation industry booming and what does this mean for your business?
The trend towards global business is an open door for ambitious businesses
The world is shrinking. We live in a time when information can travel the world in the blink of an eye, flying between Hong Kong and New York, Sydney and Moscow in a matter of seconds. The biggest companies no longer dominate a single market but the entire world. For any business with global aspirations there is one major barrier to global success: communication. With so many languages being spoken, sometimes within a single company, it’s a top priority for many businesses to find a way to bridge the language gap. Thanks to this increasing need, the global translation services industry is now a multibillion-dollar market, helping businesses and other organisations around the globe communicate clearly and concisely. As long as communication remains a priority for governments, businesses, schools, hospitals, courtrooms and other organisations, the translation industry will continue to thrive. But what can other businesses learn from this huge boom in translation, and how can it benefit you?
Opening borders, broadening horizons
If the growth of the translation industry shows us anything, it’s that global is local nowadays. The traditional barriers that prevented many companies from expanding overseas are collapsing, with lightning-fast international communication, global logistics easier to manage than ever before, and more and more companies spreading their wings. The boom in the translation world merely reflects this growing trend towards increased globalisation in a whole range of industries, which has opened up exciting new possibilities in emerging markets such as China, Brazil or Russia, where huge populations are enjoying increased affluence and the purchasing power this affords, and where many companies are finding an ideal location for outsourcing manufacturing and production.
Increasing affluence has not just boosted demand for products and services. People travel more frequently and further than ever before thanks to cheaper transportation, particularly flights, and the population dispersal of the 21st century, where families are sometimes separated by continents thanks to increasing career mobility. In the last hundred years, long-distance travel has gone from being the preserve of the ultra-rich to an accessible service in many communities. Tourism is a huge industry, with many people choosing to take their holidays abroad, and many people travelling to study or work far from their homes and families. In the transportation sector, engineering, manufacturing and logistics are thriving to cope with the demand. But it’s not only the travel and tourism industry that has benefited from such mobile populations. The oil and gas industry has benefited massively, and green energy solutions are growing in popularity. Dispersed communities now keep in touch online or by phone, benefiting the communications industry and the IT sector. Medical tourism is a big business, with people travelling to other countries to access medical treatment that is unavailable in their home country, or to take advantage of cheaper services. The legal sector had become increasingly complex, with a growth in demand for expertise in international law. All of these industries rely heavily on translation for the daily running of their businesses.
Political trends are also reflecting this increase in global community. With the EU’s open borders policy most Europeans are free to live and work in many member countries, increasing the diversity of many organisations. Indeed, the EU itself, along with other multinational organisations as varied as the World Health Organisation, the United Nations, NATO and plenty of other organisations such as NGOs have huge translation requirements even just among their own staff. Bilateral and multilateral free-trade agreements proliferate, facilitated by organisations such as the World Trade Organisation, meaning cross-cultural business exchanges are now standard.
Finding a partner
It’s clear that companies looking to expand operations overseas will find themselves in good company, and that there are plenty of translation agencies around to help with the details. If your businesses have the drive and imagination to succeed, the world is your oyster.
With this explosion in global business, particularly in the translation sector, companies now have a huge selection of translation agencies and teams to choose from, which means there are plenty of high-quality translation services vendors offering great prices, if you can navigate the pitfalls of finding them. Look for translation teams that offer other services on top of translation, including localisation or globalisation services, which are vital if you want to succeed abroad. Localisation is the process of adapting a text to a specific foreign market, taking into account the cultural, linguistic and social customs of that market, and as the name suggests, globalisation aims to modify texts so that they are appropriate for a global audience. There are lots of other useful bolt-ons offered by translation services companies, from copywriting and trans-creation to web or graphic design, DTP to project management, which means companies can outsource more than just translation to the same vendor.
Faster and faster
Another great change that the 20th century’s technological boom has brought to business is speed. Not only do we now do business worldwide, we do it faster than ever before, mainly thanks to the power of the internet. This means that you can grow your business more quickly than was once possible, using an online model to keep costs low. Websites are replacing print media, e-commerce is replacing brick and mortar shops, and social networking offers the opportunity to connect with clients in a highly personalised way. Many businesses are now based completely online, with negligible overheads meaning greater profits. Online businesses also have the upper hand when it comes to expanding overseas. For some businesses, expanding into foreign markets is as simple as translating your website, which means that there is much less risk to taking your enterprise overseas than there used to be.
Many translation services companies operate online, so you can manage the entire process from sourcing a vendor to receiving completed translations from the comfort of your office. With vast amount of information just a click away, coupled with powerful new translation software and speedy communications, companies can expect a quicker turnaround and exceptional levels of fluency and accuracy. There’s nothing to lose and a whole world to gain when you invest in quality translation, which is why so many other businesses are doing it.
Here at Translators Family we’ve taken advantage of the very best of modern technology to develop a competitive, efficient and successful business model offering English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian and other European languages translation and associated services. All of our translators are native speakers and experts in their chosen field, with a high degree of specialisation in industries as diverse as electronics and health care. We use all the latest translation software (e.g. Trados and Transit), linguistic quality assurance software (e.g. Xbench), and localisation software (e.g. Passolo), and thanks to the increased efficiency these afford we can offer up to 80% discounts for repetitive sentences in your texts, as well as also cutting prices on long-term contracts or bulk orders. We also offer a range of complementary services, including DTP and web design, copywriting and transcreation. Our stringent proofreading, editing and QA processes allow us to offer exceptionally high-quality translations, as our client testimonials can attest. So if you’re looking for a translation agency that can help you expand into foreign markets, why not get in touch with Translators Family and find out how we can help your business go global?
