As I sit here writing this while suffering from Covid, it’s perhaps not the best time to be reflecting on the return to ‘business as usual!’ Although the worst impacts of Covid are hopefully behind us, the changes in consumer behavior and working practices that the pandemic triggered, many of which are positive, are here to stay.
Unfortunately, we are now operating in a world where a war in Europe means that ‘business as usual’ feels like a distant prospect. As inflation squeezes household spending, our industry will need to deliver ever more creative ways to help our clients deliver exceptional experiences for their customers in order to achieve their growth objectives. We will all need to focus on making our clients more successful by providing a unique combination of human expertise and faster adoption of innovative new technologies.
At RWS, we will rise to these new challenges by continuing to focus on our purpose of unlocking global understanding and living by our values. We also remain committed to an investment program consisting of expanding our cultural and technical expertise and developing our unique technologies, along with tools to connect our talented people and enable us to leverage our global reach and scale like never before.

Fastest Growing LSPs Edition

Growth is one of the goals that unites all businesses and, to state the obvious, it requires a focus on customers beyond anything else. Actively listening to customers and using those insights to shape solutions which will meet and exceed their needs must be a priority for any company.

We seek to differentiate ourselves in a number of ways. Our values shape our behaviours with respect to growth as they do all other aspects of our business. We seek to partner with our clients, with each other and with our suppliers to make sure we design localization software and services that truly live up to expectations. We pioneer new technologies and ways of working to shape those offerings. We always aim to progress solutions when, as they inevitably do, changes happen or challenges arise. Finally, and importantly, we always do our best to deliver to our clients by being obsessed with meeting the promises we make to them and to each other.

In line with our values, we also believe in investing in the future. Since RWS’s foundation, we have welcomed businesses into our Group where they bring talent or capabilities that we think our clients will need. Where we can’t acquire capabilities through buying businesses, we build them ourselves. Having recently completed our largest acquisition, that of SDL, we are now embarking upon a record period of organic investment.

All of this is brought to life by our diverse global team who operate with a spirit of “disciplined entrepreneurship”. This means we combine creativity and responsiveness with good governance, reliable processes and sustainability. Anyone can grow quickly if they don’t take care of their margins, their people or the world around them. We are always striving to balance all of these things.

2023 was a year defined by a plethora of challenges and the hyper-acceleration of AI. I recently attended a talk where it was suggested that all human work could be replaced by intelligent robots within 25 years and, who knows, that might be possible. It would be tempting to write about what this could mean for our industry however I have decided not to.

Instead, there’s another thought prominent in my mind as we approach the start of a new year. I travelled a lot in 2023, listening to our clients and our teams across the Americas, Europe and Asia. One thing stood out – amazing people. It is the innovative minds of people that drive our industry forward. It is people who are shaping the global context in which we operate. It is people who create the need to be connected through language that fuels the demand for our industry.

Ultimately, it is people who pioneer the solutions that connect us all, including the technologies that are revolutionising many industries. So, for me, whilst the technology is exciting, it is the human passion for innovation that is most significant.

To start, I will challenge the 'exam question' we have been set for this edition of CEO Insights. Whilst I agree with the themes from CSA’s research on 'Post-Localization,' I am not sure that the label it has been given is the best description. The reality is that AI is disrupting our industry, creating new opportunities and challenges for all participants. Rather than sounding its demise, as may be suggested by the term 'Post-Localization,' AI is changing the nature of localization. We see this as more of an 'evolution' of the industry towards more innovative human and machine collaboration.

Anybody claiming to have perfect insight around the impact of AI is probably unwise to do so. All players in our space face the choice of either running towards the opportunities or hiding from the risks. For many years now, we at RWS have believed the right approach is to grab and shape the opportunities and to help our clients to do the same.

AI is changing, not replacing, the role of humans in our industry, and the pace of innovation is exciting. It also creates hazards which we must help our clients to avoid in order to protect their brands.

Over 25% of our global revenues are now directly linked to AI, so the transition is tangible and will shape our industry for years to come.

It’s a great moment to reflect upon the last few years as this will be my last submission as CEO of RWS. There has certainly been no shortage of global events to navigate. Above all though, the central question has been whether AI would benefit or harm our industry.

Broadly LSPs faced two options – to embrace AI at pace or to go slower and see what might happen. At RWS, we chose the former and we have invested significantly in our most powerful ever range of solutions which combine Human Intelligence and AI in what we term Genuine IntelligenceTM.

It’s important to remember that all our clients must face up to the “AI question” too. We will continue to work to help them understand the opportunities AI creates to enhance the relationships they forge with their customers whilst navigating the risks that poor AI deployment can bring for brands and reputations.

The evidence is that this approach is working. We are seeing accelerating demand for our pioneering set of language, content, and data service solutions. Thanks to AI, our company purpose of Unlocking Global Understanding, has never been more achievable.