Access Business Analytics
Two years ago, CSA Research determined that the language sector faced a perfect storm as industry players incrementally improved efficiency, innovated services and processes built on newer technology and streamlined practices, and confronted disruptive intrinsic and external changes that were transforming the market. These factors have converged to drive the sector as:
How have these four forces affected the market for outsourced language services and technology? CSA Research just concluded its 13th consecutive comprehensive primary research of the sector, this year published as “The Language Services Market: 2017,” “Who’s Who in Language Services and Technology: 2017 Rankings,” and “Benchmarks for Language Service Providers.” First, the numbers:
The three reports complement these basic datapoints with 35 tables and 19 figures providing details on projected growth rates, global and regional breakdowns, the shape and size of the language services supply chain, the size of the market for individual language services and software, the impact of foreign exchange rates, and, of course, the rankings. In our analysis of this dataset and primary research from our other projects, we identified serious actions by the most ambitious LSPs to differentiate their offerings. They are branching out beyond language services to address the global content, marketing, and operational functions of enterprises. Their mission is to move higher in the automation chain with support for globalization, marketing communications, customer care, and the customer experience. Given their plan to deal with content in any form, both source and target, we coined the term “global content service providers” – or GCSPs – to describe this next generation of supplier that will help enterprises globalize their digital transformation. Why would enterprises rely on GCSPs to deliver these content management and enhancement functions? LSPs already handle massive volumes of business-critical content in multiple languages, from source to many targets. They manage technical information about how things work, adapt content as products are developed through clinical trials or advanced research, and deal with packaging, inserts, and marketing materials. If LSPs don’t move to this broader content play, they may find themselves outflanked by mainstream business process outsourcers, system integrators, consulting firms, and the professional services teams of large IT players. CSA Research’s quantitative and qualitative research with global enterprises demonstrate an increasing awareness of the competitive advantage of their content – and the daunting complexity of managing it across its life cycle, from source to all its target permutations. They need business process partners to help them identify, manage, and enhance the value of this content. GCSPs will ensure a continuing role for the most innovative LSPs in domains that will deliver much bigger total addressable markets than language per se. The full report describing the role of GCSPs – plus everything else about the market – is available as part of a research membership.
Chief Research Officer
Focuses on market trends, business models, and business strategy
There hasn’t been much discussion of what the Titanium Economy might be able to learn from the loca...
Multimedia, transcribed audio, and AI-generated content in all the world’s digital languages join m...
2020 disrupted nearly every human activity on the planet. The pandemic, lockdowns, and economic cons...
In October 1991, Unicode 1.0 was first released. In the 30 years since that publication an entire ge...
Delivering an integrated customer experience wherever an organization operates means more than trans...
CSA Research recently released our list of the 100 largest LSPs and langtech providers, along with e...
Posts by CSA_Research