Our Analysts' Insights

The start of the new year is synonymous with a review and update of business plans. Successful companies conduct a yearly strategic planning session. Strategic planning is a process for defining a business strategy to shape and guide your operation. It focuses on a vision of the future and what you must do to achieve it. Executives use the technique to make decisions on what the company does, where it is going, which actions are required to make progress, what level budgets and which resources a...

Intel founder and former CEO Andy Grove wrote that, “Measurement against a standard makes you think through WHY the results were what they were.” Business-savvy organizations live by this dictum. They monitor various datapoints and develop key performance indicators (KPIs) – assessable values that show whether a company is meeting its strategic business objectives.

The question – since the earliest days of the computerized language industry – has been whether translation companies are so different than other service business that they can’t use generalized software. The argument was that generalized applications, such as FileMaker or Microsoft Word, with vastly more engineers, features, and user communities, would prove more useful in the end than would industry-specific applications and business platforms with small R&D teams and limited feature sets. ...

Despite the reluctance of some executives to hire and train more salespeople, growth for language service providers is closely tied to developing a high performing sales function.

From their earliest stages, LSPs face the question of whether to build or buy the software on which they run their business. Triggers can include the need for differentiation, the need to tailor work processes for different customers and job types, or the requirement to stitch together disparate systems for monitoring and reporting. The question of when to begin proprietary development is important because if they wait too long, they may miss growth opportunities. But jumping too soon can result...

Note: This blog post is not intended to provide legal advice. For clarification of your legal obligations and rights, please consult with qualified legal counsel.

Technology is crucial for language service providers (LSPs), not just for growth but even for survival in a rapidly changing market landscape. Earlier this year, we reviewed technology survey answers for 728 providers and interviewed a cross-section of 30 translation and interpreting companies in 12 countries. Using this combination of quantitative and qualitative data, CSA Research wanted to see how aligning the LSP Metrix™ maturity model and the Tech-Savvy typology – originally published in ...

Like a leaky faucet, a process that creates losses here and there can amount to a big bill at the end. Yet, most language service providers pay very little attention to subtle waste, even when they abide by quality management systems such as ISO 9001. To achieve operational excellence, LSPs must systematically identify waste and strive to eliminate or reduce it.

In our recent research on quoting practices at LSPs, we found two recurring themes: 1) the increasing price pressure caused by clients driving the race to the bottom (see our recent blog post on that topic); and 2) the drastic reduction in timelines to conduct projects. In this post, we’ll explore this second issue.

Selecting the right translation management technology can mean the difference between growth and stagnation for language service providers. But choosing a TMS to manage their myriad business, process, and linguistic functions requires a lot of work. LSPs have to evaluate both the features and functionality of shortlisted products and assess the software developers’ ability to sustain and improve their position in the market.