Access Business Analytics
(BOSTON, MA) – January 7, 2010 – As the Obama administration turns its focus to counter-terrorism activities in places like Nigeria and Yemen, who will translate the intelligence-related intercepts, including audio recordings and transcripts from languages such as Igbo, Yoruba, and Yemeni Arabic? In addition to direct employees, the U.S. government depends on thousands of small businesses for critical translation and interpreting services related to defense and intelligence activities, resulting in lucrative business opportunities.
A new report from market research firm Common Sense Advisory providers a detailed review of federal government expenditures on language services from 1990 through 2009. “Language Services and the U.S. Federal Government” shows which agencies spend the most on linguistic support, both yearly and overall, and lists the top-ranked government suppliers.
The report finds that the federal government has spent US$4.5 billion on outsourced language services since 1990. “Thirty companies earned more than US$17 million each by providing language services to the federal government over the past two decades,” explained Nataly Kelly, senior analyst at Common Sense Advisory, who led the research initiative. “Fueled by both foreign policy initiatives and language policy actions for domestic multilingual populations, U.S. government spending on translation and interpreting services is at an all-time high.”
The 89-page report includes:
The report also shows correlations between political parties of U.S. presidents, budgetary priorities, and spending habits. “In spite of the economic downturn, 47 percent of the total expenditure over the past two decades – US$2.1 billion – was paid out to translation and interpreting companies in the past two years alone,” comments Kelly. “The increased spending on language services serves to highlight an important fact - effective communication across multiple languages is vital to the U.S. government both for its interactions with other nations and to serve the diverse base of constituents within its borders.”
"Language Services and the U.S. Federal Government" is the first comprehensive report on federal third-party translation and interpreting spending produced by Common Sense Advisory, and is available as part of a subscription to clients. For more information about this report and others, visit www.commonsenseadvisory.com.
About Common Sense Advisory
Common Sense Advisory, Inc. is an independent research and analysis firm specializing in the on- and offline operations driving business globalization, internationalization, translation, interpretation, and localization. Its research, consulting, and training help organizations improve the quality of global business. For more information about Common Sense Advisory's research, reports, and globalization and localization consulting services visit: http://www.commonsenseadvisory.com or http://www.twitter.com/CSA_Research.
Companies that adapt their products to local languages and market needs have a significantly greater...
(BOSTON, MA) – Large global companies like Coca-Cola, Samsung, and Toyota have brands that are reco...
(BOSTON) - Producing localized content has always required teams of people. Crowdsourced translation...
Third global study by CSA Research provides reliable data to make the ROI case for delivering locali...
(BOSTON) – The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a massive shift for companies offering simultaneous...
(BOSTON) – Translation management systems (TMS) tools facilitate the rapid development, day-to-day ...