Our Analysts' Insights

Business is looking good in the language sector. CSA Research’s business confidence survey of the CEOs of the largest language service providers found 2017 to be a growth year, and respondents optimistically entered 2018. Sector revenue and language output continue to rise as the content and code that power economies are becoming more global. Our annual survey will give a more complete picture of the market as we collect and analyze the data.

Winter sports enthusiasts – and the companies that sponsor them – are focused on the Olympics in, South Korea this month. This global sports event may prompt your organization to review jumping into South Korea for the first time. Or it may offer the chance to review your current investment level to prepare for the future. In either case, here are four actions you can take to support the executive decision-making process and, at the same time, gain more visibility for your team at the strategi...

Five or 10 years ago, most enterprises produced support documents, manuals, marketing, websites, videos, and other types of materials they then pushed out to the world for consumption by their audience. Although they might hear back from people who called in to support lines, this content usually disappeared into the ether where it either served its purpose or did not. CSA Research’s data points to a new trend: Content is becoming conversational. It is moving away from a publish-and-forget mode...

In any given year, web and mobile sites add and drop language support in response to a wide variety of macro-economic and business factors. In a detailed analysis of 2,648 global brand websites, CSA Research found that 26% added one or more languages in 2017. However, not all enterprises increased multilingual support. In fact, one in 10 removed at least one language. About 1% removed more than 10 from their roster.

Interpreters have historically used a variety to tools to prepare themselves for interpreting assignments. However, their technology choices have been limited to an interpreter console, interpreting delivery platform, or glossary. That’s about to change with the emergence of full-fledged computer-aided interpreting (CAI).

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...