Project management Archives - sa��ʴ�ý

6 reasons why you shouldn’t rely on your own employees for translation

Max Naylor — Tue, 11 Aug 2020 08:50:14 +0000

If you’ve never had a need for localisation services before, you might be tempted to lean on your own employees to get a translation done. This option seems appealing at first – no need to hire an external supplier, after all – and you might even save time and money? In fact, using non-professional translators is a false economy, and more often than not creates more work and headaches for you down the line.

Here we look at a handful of reasons why working with a professional translation provider just makes sense. There are plenty more, of course, but let’s start with the ones that matter the most.

1. Translation is a specialist skill

It’s extremely easy to fall into the trap of thinking that someone’s ability to speak more than one language means they’ll make a good translator. In many situations, like ordering a meal at a restaurant abroad or giving a friend the basic gist of a sign, being bilingual is enough. Translation, however, demands more than just being able to understand two languages.

Like any kind of writing, translation is a specialist skill, often requiring a specific degree in the source language, time spent living in the country where the language is spoken and years of on-the-job training and development. Think about content production in your company’s first language – would you trust just any employee to write your marketing copy or product manuals? In these cases, it’s best to get experts involved, and the same goes for translation.

As a rule, professional translators only ever translate into their native language. If you don’t have the right combination of languages amongst your employees, then this means people could be translating into their second or third language – bringing us neatly to our next point.

2. It’s impossible to know the quality of your translation

If you don’t personally speak the languages you need to translate into, how will you assess the quality of your employees’ work? Can you check whether the tone of voice, brand positioning or even spelling and grammar are correct? This is doubly important if you’re asking someone to translate into a language that isn’t their native one.

Let’s take English as an example. The Nordic countries all . After all, children learn the language from a young age at home and at school, and often get excellent grades in the language before going to university. Studies in Norway have shown, however, that lack the English skills required at university level, where much teaching material is in English.

When it comes to using English in the workplace, they also face challenges, such as due to a lack of awareness of cultural differences and the appropriate expressions to use in various contexts.

If you’re a Nordic company exporting to an English-speaking country, relying on your own workforce for English-language content is risky. As we’ll see below, the risks of an inaccurate translation can be severe.

3. It’s not a good use of your time and money

Often employees asked to translate have to fit that work in around their everyday responsibilities. Their core role might not have anything to do with translation or even content production. This means that the translation might not be given the time and focus needed to produce a professional result, and increases the workload and stress on employees who are asked to do the work.

You also need to consider the cost impact for your company. A non-professional translator may take much longer to produce a translation than a professional (time they could spend doing other work) and getting access to linguistic resources like dictionaries and specialist glossaries means more expense on your part. Professional translators who do this on a daily basis will have all the resources at their fingertips.

4. Translators have tools to speed up their work

A translation company has the scale and time to invest in solutions that improve translation quality and consistency and speed up overall production times. Professional translators use specialised CAT (computer-aided translation) tools that allow them to focus on the text without affecting the formatting of the document. These tools also give translators access to two powerful features that help massively with consistency: translation memories and term bases.

A translation memory (TM) stores all previous translations on a particular topic – take finance, for example. If you regularly translate the same type of document – say a quarterly report where only some numbers and a few lines of text change – then a TM will massively cut down on time spent and avoid repeating work as much as possible. Translation companies invest in the infrastructure required to host a TM so you don’t have to.

A term base (TB) serves as a highly specialised glossary. Translation companies might maintain term bases on a specific domain, e.g. finance or medicine, to save the translator time looking up words in the dictionary and maintaining accurate, consistent use of terms. Translation companies can also create a TB that’s specific to one client, which means that your internal terminology and tone of voice will always remain the same.

These resources need maintenance to remain effective – something that translation companies consider a worthwhile investment – but that might be prohibitively costly or complex for you.

5. Internal translation doesn’t scale

If you decide to expand into a new region and none of your employees speaks the language there, how will you deliver a translation? You’re effectively faced with two options: turn to an external supplier or hire an employee who speaks that language. If the work volumes are low, this is unlikely to be a shrewd investment. Translation companies have vetted, trusted internal and external linguists standing by that can provide almost any language you require, removing the headache of recruiting your own translator.

The other consideration is growth in volume of content. If you experience a sudden upswing in the volume of content requiring translation, for example manuals, support articles and marketing collateral for a new project launch, translation could turn into a full-time job for the employee you’ve delegated it to. If after the launch volumes fall, your employee will return to their daily duties which have been neglected in the meantime.

As well as being a financially unwise decision, this fluctuation in workloads and responsibilities can create work-related stress and anxiety and negatively impact other employees who have to cover for your translator when they’re away from their day-to-day.

6. Mistakes can cost you customers and damage your reputation

We’ve all experienced poor translation – the menu at the foreign restaurant promising delicacies consisting of testicles and bits of old tyre, for example. Think about how this was for you as a customer. You probably laughed at first, but were you able to actually decipher what was meant? Did you order that item in the end that the menu claimed to be made from fish slime?

In other situations, the . Inappropriate tone, for example using profanity or informal language in the wrong context, could offend your customers and drive down sales. On social media, being too formal could actually lead to disengagement amongst your audience.

By neglecting to use a professional translator, you’re giving users outside of your home market a second-class experience.

Mistranslations of terminology can confuse users (we’ve probably all tried to follow a poorly translated electronics manual at some point) and increase support requests as customers aren’t given the tools they need to help themselves.

Fuzzy or poorly worded contract clauses can lead to differing interpretations of terms and conditions, potentially increasing costs for you and straining relations with your clients or suppliers.

In the worst-case scenario, poor translations can lead to serious safety risks if dangers associated with your product aren’t clearly explained. These errors may lead to injury or damage to property and may expose you to significant legal risks.

Professional translators know the right terms to use to match your customers’ expectations and ensure legal compliance. If customer experience is a core value at your company, by neglecting to use a professional translator, you’re giving users outside of your home market a second-class experience.

Translation is a sometimes overlooked step in the process of creating a great experience no matter where your customers are based. To avoid the pitfalls mentioned above, think about localisation early and consider enlisting a trusted supplier to take care of the translation work for you. As well as protecting your brand and keeping your customers happy, you’ll end up saving time and money in the long run.

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Be prepared! All about translation project management at STP

The Sandberg team — Fri, 22 Jun 2018 10:22:03 +0000

“Expect the best, plan for the worst, and prepare to be surprised at all times.” This famous quote from the American motivational speaker Denis Waitley describes translation project management very succinctly.��At STP, 26 project managers, working with 400 clients based all over the world, form the cornerstone of the production and service delivery in our organisation.��

We spoke to Kathy Walters, who leads one of our project management (PM) teams, and she shared with us her views on five key aspects of project management.

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1. Smaller translation jobs mean shorter delivery times

In the translation industry, project management is often transactional. The projects we handle are completed within days, whereas in other fields, like IT or change management, a project is usually understood in terms of months, or even years. There is a clear trend in localisation of job sizes decreasing and orders being placed in a continuous flow of small drops.

Translation service providers are responding to this development by automating their ordering and delivery processes. But the humans managing these processes in client-facing roles are impacted too. Kathy explains: “You want to keep getting faster at almost everything you do: typing, keyboard shortcuts, selecting the most suitable translator and even thinking. The custom-made project management technology at STP helps, but the people who operate the system must also remain sharp and quick-witted.”

Automation and PM talent are vital for coping with quick turnaround times, but so is organisational structure. STP has established an agile workflow that helps PMs to deal with fast turnaround jobs: “At the moment, we have a rota of at least one in-house linguist per language handling ‘small jobs’ only. This allows us to have capacity for urgent requests. We are also analysing new strategies to meet clients’ demands efficiently,” Kathy says.

2. Planning ahead maximises capacity

Daily project management tasks at a translation company include quoting for new work, preparing texts for computer-assisted translation, putting together project teams, scheduling tasks, writing project instructions, organising reference material, liaising with clients and translators throughout the translation phase, and carrying out quality control checks before delivery.

Many content owners underestimate the time and effort required to achieve quality results when preparing their material for global distribution.

To be able to respond quickly to clients even when handling ad hoc requests, Kathy plans translator workloads in advance and proactively manages their capacity, especially in preparation for the main holiday seasons. “We have our project management database where everything is stored so we can easily track ongoing projects, deliveries, but also days off and holidays.”

To many, “planning” is just another buzzword, but research from Common Sense Advisory shows that, due to the unpredictability of translation companies’ sales pipeline, only 4 out of 10 such companies have the capacity to actually plan for the peaks and valleys in their operations, and to forecast the production capacity they need at any given time.

Localisation is usually the last step in the process when a company rolls out a new service or product globally. Many content owners underestimate the time and effort required to achieve quality results when preparing their material for global distribution. Involving the translation service provider earlier in the planning and scheduling process enables the project managers to serve their clients well, and to offer valuable advice about when the client’s preferred linguists are available.

3. Automation boosts productivity

The past two decades have seen a number of good translation management systems enter the market to complement the many custom-made platforms that translation companies have developed themselves. These solutions automate file transfers and invoicing, but they also empower project managers in their decision-making.

Resource allocation is one of the areas where automation brings significant time and cost savings. “At STP, we have a central dashboard that displays the availability of all of our translators in real time. It shows the projects they are currently working on for STP, their daily capacity and average working speed, their local public holidays wherever they are in the world, and their days off – all in one view. But it doesn’t end there, translators also have access to their own dashboard and can manually adjust the grid when their work is progressing slower or faster than anticipated.”

A recent market analysis by the UK Association of Translation Companies (ATC) reported that, in a typical language service provider company in the UK, a project manager completed around 300 projects per year. At STP, the number of completed projects per PM at the time was 1,880 – which is 600% more. The numbers can’t, of course, speak of the size and complexity of the projects reported, but even after making an allowance for some diversity, the report demonstrated the potential of a well-oiled, smart-working project management machine.

4. Assertive communication instils confidence

STP’s project management team is the hub that connects our clients to our translators, and a large part of their work is to ensure that the right people receive the right information at the right time.��

There’s a distinct difference between assertiveness and aggression in communication.

Project management consists of constant communication; in chat tools, on the phone, by email or in person. Kathy states: “So much of my job is about people; half of my time is spent talking to clients, translators and my team. When it comes to clients, I always try to see things from their point of view and be empathic and understanding when they are busy or when cultural barriers distort communication. However, it is also important to be assertive. At the end of the day, we are both striving towards the same goal.”

When it comes to communication, quality matters just as much as quantity. To organise projects successfully, STP’s project managers provide guidance and advice, use an empathy-based approach, criticise constructively when necessary, recognise work well done, and maintain professionalism above all. “If you want to motivate your team to achieve great results, you must know them well enough as people to be able to choose the approach that works best for them,” says Kathy.��

There’s a distinct difference between assertiveness and aggression in communication. A good project manager is able to identify issues early on to prevent frustrations building up either in the team or on the client’s side. According to Kathy, the best way to avoid such issues “is to explain myself as much as possible. Often situations are made clearer by just laying down the facts, as the client might not be aware of everything.”

5. Support from peers saves the day

It’s often easier to work out problems by discussing them with peers; they’re always keen to offer support and share ideas.

Peer-to-peer support comes naturally to project managers working at STP as it develops right from the onboarding phase. As Kathy describes, “each team has a leader who trains newcomers and is there to support them along their journey. When someone joins my team, I shadow them for a couple of weeks and help them figure out how to best use their time and resources.” But teamwork and cooperation do not end there.

The role of a project manager may involve constant daily communication, yet at times it can feel like a lonely job. The buck needs to stop somewhere, and the project manager is the first one to face critical feedback from clients, or complaints from the project team when something goes wrong. Even the most skilled, customer-focused, team-spirited multitaskers need to recharge.

The most heartfelt encouragement tends to come from colleagues who understand the daily pressure, or from clients who appreciate the work. As Kathy puts it, “we’re always helping each other out. I have been with STP for four years and I am now a team leader, but I still find myself asking questions or second opinions on a daily basis. It’s often easier to work out problems by discussing them with peers; they are always keen to offer support and share ideas.”

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