Our Analysts' Insights

While often complex and costly, localization is a well-established practice at many companies. CSA Research's interviews and surveys with both Global 3000 companies and language service providers show that the best of these organizations have tamed the rhythm of localization – processes and schedules are understood and under control. Many plan to throttle back their localization budgets as they work to optimize their current processes and tools for the 10 or 20 languages they support before...

Successful globalization requires commitment across the enterprise. Even high-performing localization teams must lobby other corporate functions to support international markets. They don't have the power to mandate fully localized e-commerce infrastructure, local data security compliance, or appropriate in-country hiring practices without buy-in from marketing, IT, and human resources. Yet, without these functions in place at the right time, your local audiences will do business with your c...

Situations where individuals don’t speak the same language abound. Settings for interpreting range from courts, to health care, immigration, public safety, tourism, and trade. CSA Research tracks interpreting technologies that support the coordination and delivery of interpreting services. Changes are happening rapidly in this growing market sector, with new offerings constantly modifying the technology landscape. Let’s look at four developments that are paving the way.

Language services today stand on the cusp of a disruptive transformation that will redefine how professional linguists work. This shift will come from the availability of ubiquitous artificial intelligence (AI) that extends their reach and capability and makes them far more efficient than they could otherwise be.

Recent advances in neural machine translation (NMT) represent a significant step forward in machine translation capabilities. Although most media coverage has significantly oversold the technology, one of Google’s announcements may actually be the most important one in the long run – the first successful deployment of zero-shot translation (ZST).

Increasingly, B2B and B2C companies alike provide an app-like experience for their brand websites. Today, more than 50% of searches, globally, take place on mobile devices. Sure, people that carry handhelds still download apps for handling frequently repeated tasks, like checking the weather, but otherwise expect to perform app functions via their mobile web browser. How did we get to this point?

By now, most language professionals have seen that claims that neural machine translation (NMT) is delivering results as good – or almost as good – as human translation. If these claims – which have been repeated in the mainstream tech press without much examination – are accurate, it is only a matter of time before human translators will be out of work.

The "yes" vote on Brexit and the election of Donald Trump surprised many media outlets, pollsters, analysts, and political experts. Those that predicted a different result emerged as the biggest losers of public confidence in their forecasting ability. Meanwhile, the U.S. election added the memes of fake news, fauxtos, and foreign interference to the discourse. Commentators across the political spectrum now debate a "post-fact" or "post-truth" world that would be fa...

Users of interpreting services don’t like gambling with unproven talent. It’s a lot easier – and a lot less risky – to rely on resources that you already trust rather than try out new ones. This aversion to risk makes it really hard for recent graduates of interpreting programs to break into the profession. Recognizing its own challenges with newbies, one language service provider is trying a new approach with it “Cadence Cares Fellowship.”

To address even half the online opportunity, it already takes four languages. To capture 98% of the online audience – and 99% of the entire world online wallet – requires 64 languages. However, in 2017, building multilingual websites to serve those markets will take a company only so far. Why? Visitors and customers expect more than a simple website. What they want is what they’re getting from the most innovative brands in the world – immersive experiences and ongoing interactions both with ...