Our Analysts' Insights

In "The Language Services Market: 2017," CSA Research estimated that the language services and technology sector would turn over US$43 billion for the year, growing 6.97% over 2016. We also forecast that the market would continue its growth over the next four years, driven by increasing demands for multilingual information in written and spoken form, app and product localization, and emerging content services.

The Japanese market is an attractive prospect for foreign companies that can succeed in it. In 2017, Japan accounted for 7.7% of the world's online economic potential, despite having just 3.2% of the global Internet-connected population ("Digital Opportunity: Top 100 Online Languages for 2017").

How do you decide whether potential employees need to understand, speak, read, and write the same language that’s used at company headquarters? Which criteria should human resources (HR) and hiring managers apply when evaluating potential hires who will work out of regional offices?

In the evolving world of digital marketing, there is a shift happening that can benefit the careers of localization professionals with content backgrounds—and content experts with localization experience. The shift comes about as companies gather the strands of digital marketing, such as e-mail, landing pages, SEO, apps, blogging, click advertising, social, and paid social, into coordinated or integrated campaigns. Coordinated content deployment maximizes both stickiness and virality; creates a...

Automation has come a long way, leading now to its most advanced and buzzworthy state, artificial intelligence. AI refers to technologies that learn from training data and experience to perform tasks that would otherwise require human intelligence. When applied to a PM’s job, AI enables “lights-out” project management, in which software handles the project from quoting to invoicing without the need for human interaction. Over the last few years, CSA Research has observed a growing number of L...

From their earliest stages, LSPs face the question of whether to build or buy the software on which they run their business. Triggers can include the need for differentiation, the need to tailor work processes for different customers and job types, or the requirement to stitch together disparate systems for monitoring and reporting. The question of when to begin proprietary development is important because if they wait too long, they may miss growth opportunities. But jumping too soon can result...

A strong website that delivers a clear and compelling message, tailored to your specific audience can help drive sales. It must succeed in both its content and its technical structure. In June 2017, CSA Research examined 305 websites from language service providers in depth.

The recent CSA Research survey on gender and family in the language services industry reveals a mixed picture. Translation, localization, and related services are a female-dominated field, with about two-thirds of the workers being women. At the same time, the upper echelons of many companies reverse this polarity, with men taking a disproportionate share of seats in the executive suites.

New technology developments are stirring up the language industry, but the buzz mostly centers around neural machine translation (NMT) and artificial intelligence (AI). Something else is afoot that most observers are not discussing: the shift from monolithic to distributed systems. Microservices addressed via REST APIs promise to increase agility by allowing swappable engines. During a recent CSA Research Colloquium at LocWorld, we put this new solution architecture in the context of enterprise ...

As companies come to terms with the central role that content plays in the customer journey – from building awareness through purchase and onto customer care – their digital marketing teams and localization groups are tasked with content creation, adaptation, and rollout at the global level.