Our Analysts' Insights

The language services industry is in disarray. Engrained ways of providing interpreting services became obsolete in a matter of days due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Organizations that use interpreting services, language service providers, technology vendors, and interpreters are struggling to comprehend the new reality and adapt to it.

After taking temporary measures and expedients to continue operating during the pandemic, companies must now develop plans for what happens after COVID-19. They will do so against the backdrop of the two biggest concerns that CEOs of language service providers expressed in CSA Research’s mid-March survey: the existential threat of decreasing demand and uncertainty about how long the pandemic will last. While CEOs wrestle with those two issues, they have an immediate business challenge – how ca...

Loyalty will rise to the fore after the COVID-19 pandemic runs its course. People will remember the brands that reached out in meaningful ways during the crisis. Start planning now to take advantage of loyalty to retain premium customers through the crisis and beyond as you strive to support them during the ensuing ramp-up or recession.

The COVID-19 crisis has hit interpreting-focused language service providers particularly hard. Those with a mostly in-person offering are experiencing significant drops in bookings. Many are trying to offset this loss by transitioning customers to remote interpreting technologies or promoting translation services. Even LSPs with a focus on remote services are facing some losses due to the cancellation of nonessential engagements in healthcare, emergency services, and courts.

In a separate blog post ("AB5, COVID-19, and the Plight of Freelance Linguists"), we examined some of the challenges that freelance linguists face right now on two fronts: COVID-19 and changes to labor law – focusing on the situation in California – that have created difficulties for individuals who work as contractors for many LSPs or clients. In this post, we turn to some of the concrete actions that LSPs, end buyers, and linguists themselves can take to improve the situation of th...

Following online group meetings with Leadership Councils and CEOs representing LSPs of various sizes, CSA Research has been speaking with directors of enterprise localization groups over the last few days to hear their perspective on the impact of COVID-19. They identified two changes in their business requirements – their internal and outward-facing content is evolving to become remote-friendly, and they would like their language service partners to respond to quick-turnaround requests without...

The COVID-19 pandemic and uncertainty about California Bill 5 (AB5) and similar laws have created turbulence for freelance linguists. Together, they show both the strengths and challenges that the translators and interpreters who power the industry face. COVID-19 has shown how precarious a position many of them are in, including highly successful professionals. Regardless of whether linguists are employees or freelancers, the current situation demonstrates how interconnected all parties are and ...

Over the last 10 days CSA Research conducted several online group meetings with its various Leadership Councils and LSP research members, mainly CEOs of LSPs of all sizes. This executive brief summarizes and reports the themes, topics, and questions shared by members during these sessions. We arranged their input in four groups: Uncertainty, Business Planning, Operations, and The View Ahead.

With so much fear and uncertainty driven by the COVID-19 global crisis, there’s not enough information or solid data to make any reliable forecast about a global industry that serves many geographies, verticals, and applications. What we can say is that some companies will see more business, others no changes, and still others will lose clients or business. In the absence of primary data at this stage, what is certain is that leadership during the COVID-19 crisis is more critically important th...

Wouldn’t it be great if we could eliminate the Rashomon effect from the language services and technology industry? If somehow, we didn’t have to rely on guesses, estimations, or conjectures? That’s exactly what CSA Research does.