Our Analysts' Insights

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.

When was the last time your strategic planners or management team reviewed what you’re doing in China − and why? If it hasn’t been within the last 12 months, here are three reasons why it’s time for an assessment, along with recommended actions to take.

In languages worldwide, the word “recession” is being used with increasing frequency on financial news websites and Twitter. Google searches for “recession” peaked in mid-August and remain higher than at any point in the past five years. Economists have their indicators for the broad economy and CSA Research has ours for the language services and technology market. The data from our mid-year business confidence survey shows that LSPs should prepare for a potential slowdown.

Reliable market research and industry sizing is a science. CSA Research’s annual market sizing project benefits language service and technology providers by producing reliable and actionable data they can use in their planning. Buyers of these services, whether enterprises or governmental agencies, use this data to educate themselves on the market. Investors and the media rely on it to frame and evaluate the potential of the sector.

With M&A a more frequent occurrence in the language sector, the type of ownership is changing. Traditionally four types have dominated the language services market: 1) privately-held agencies, many of them owner-operator; 2) firms owned by private equity groups (PEG); 3) publicly-traded LSPs; and 4) divisions of larger corporations, all of them with the majority of their revenue originating outside the language sector. With acquisitions in the language sector a regular occurrence, we can expect ...

In January 2018, CSA Research reported on the business outlook on 2017 and early 2018 based on a survey of 85 CEOs of the language service providers in our list of top 100 providers. In August and September 2018, we surveyed respondents on their mid-year results and their predictions for the rest of the year.

In addition to weighty issues related to privacy, data security, and transparency, global content is what brought Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg face-to-face with 44 members of the U.S. Senate this week. At the heart of the discussion was how the company plans to police harmful material while at the same time avoiding censorship.

Big changes are afoot in cyberspace. In recent years, populations in Africa, Asia, and Oceania surged online with the aid of cheap data plans and government investments. In Myanmar, for example, the mobile grid went up in 2014 and a total population of 53 million now shows 33 million subscriptions, with 80% smartphone penetration and over 50% with active data plans. China initiatives, such as Belt and Road, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, are bring...

Imagine yourself in a café in Paris or on a beach in Cancún, running into some gorgeous human specimen you just can’t help but approach. You walk up to the person, offer them a hearing device, and point for them to put it in their ear while you pop one in yourself. Then you launch an app on your smartphone and start communicating via the help of machine interpreting, hoping the app will accurately translate your best pick-up line.