Our Analysts' Insights

It is no secret that machine translation (MT) has gone from a relatively niche solution to seeming ubiquity in just a few short years. A forthcoming report from CSA Research on MT use at language services providers shows a 51% increase in adoption since 2019, with over two-thirds of LSPs now using it openly. Similarly, cloud TMS developers reported that 2020 was the year when the majority of segments that they process involved MT. To help develop a comprehensive view of the technology’s role in...

We begin this week’s blog with a call to language services and technology providers to take the survey for our 17th annual Global Market Study – before April 15th. We trimmed the survey so it’s easier and quicker to complete. But you might ask why do we expend so much effort on this survey and ask you to pitch in to provide your company’s data? Read on to find out more about this annual project.

Our current research into continuous localization has revealed more companies adopting the “Spotify Model” to organize their development teams – and in some cases all business functions. Since Spotify has been in the news quite a bit over the last few weeks, we thought localization teams should be on the lookout for the model to be coming their way.

Populations that do not speak the dominant language are often ignored in the United States and elsewhere, with the exception of certain regulated industries, such as insurance and healthcare. Of course, Spanish is the major non-English language in the U.S. If treated independently, it would be the world’s eleventh-most-significant tongue in economic terms, just behind Italian and just ahead of Dutch. An additional 12 languages spoken in the U.S. surpass at least one official EU language in popu...

If you’ve ever heard someone tell you that, “The translation is bad!” and yet nobody is able to articulate why, you’re not alone. You have checked the quality that your linguists deliver – all is good. You and your LSPs set up a localization quality assessment (LQA) process and rigorously measure spelling errors, typos, and other errors: you can confidently state that the translation is, in fact, highly accurate. Yet the in-country teams still report poor-quality translation. This is a comm...

In the first episode of an iconic sci-fi television series, a NASA test pilot was seriously injured in the crash of an experimental aircraft. The emergency medical team replaced three of his four limbs and one eye with nuclear-powered bionic implants, while a voiceover intoned, “We can rebuild him. We have the technology. We can make him better than he was. Better...stronger...faster." The resulting six-million-dollar-man worked as a secret agent, using his now superhuman powers to battle ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged many LSPs’ abilities to grow. In a January 2021 survey, we found that 44% of them experienced a setback in 2020. But that’s not to say the market overall performed that poorly. On average, despite the losses of many, we calculated a 3% growth from 2019 to 2020 for this group of providers, which has traditionally outpaced the industry as a whole. And they are overall optimistic about 2021, as their sales goal amounts to an average planned increase of 18% ove...

To understand the effect of the pandemic on the language industry, CSA Research began quarterly surveys of the CEOs of LSPs in March 2020 and expanded regular primary research to LSPs in China, freelancers, langtech vendors, and enterprises. Here we present datapoints to close out 2020 and identify what to expect in 2021.

During a time of uncertainty, hearing from peers and leaders helps and we have been sharing feedback from multiple constituents to help organizations focus on what really matters as well as find opportunities in the middle of a crisis and get ready for the re-entry phase and growth in the post Covid-19 economy. In this final post of 2020, we share analysts’ thoughts on the toughest year to date, and what to carry with us into 2021.

As we look back at the annus horribilis that was 2020, what are some things we can learn and take forward to improve 2021 and come back stronger than ever? In this post, I summarize some of the lessons CSA Research has learned from our conversations with professionals working in enterprise localization departments, at LSPs, or as freelance linguists.