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INTRODUCTION

An executive perspective

As the American CEO of one of the fastest growing localization companies in Eastern Europe, and having lived in the region for more than 13 years, you might expect a unique perspective.

However, my observations will probably seem quite standard and actually apply to translation/localization companies all over the world. The arguments I present here are typical of discussions related to off shoring and basing production operations in low cost versus high cost countries.

This article aims to address the state of the translation industry in Eastern Europe, so from here on in by high cost countries I mean those in Western Europe and the by low cost countries I mean those in Eastern Europe.

One disclaimer before I get rolling: There is a big market out there. Even if I suggest that some companies need to change if they are to survive, every well run company, no matter where they are based, can not just survive, but thrive.

OLD EUROPE IS CHANGING

Before we look at “New Europe” we need to see what’s been going on in the so called “Old Europe”. I often hear complaints from Western European companies like, “Prices are coming down…”, “Our clients are squeezing us all the time…”, or “Turnaround times are dropping…it’s tougher than it used to be…”.

Most good Western European translation companies are comfortable businesses. They are excellent translation companies providing very high quality services into a growing market. They have had a good 10-15 years of relatively high margins in high cost countries doing predominantly French, Italian, German, Spanish, as well as a handful of other languages.

I think a change that is occurring though is that the market has become more competitive, there are more companies out there and many West translation companies are not geared toward more aggressive sales and marketing. Added to this, due to the phenomena of offshoring translation work, prices are coming down and it’s harder to offer competitive pricing in high cost countries. Here, the issue of sales becomes important.

It must be rocket science

Sales is relatively simple in theory, but doing it is hard work. It’s not (and never was) just about putting an advertisement in a trade magazine or setting up a stand at an industry event and waiting for things to happen. It’s grunt work, it’s cold calling people systematically by the thousand, it’s doing niche market trade shows (well and thoroughly), it’s making lots of personal visits and tracking everything meticulously. It’s educating the market about why localization matters and not just selling to the converted.

There has been a tendency in the translation industry for companies to rely too heavily on fat cats (big, rich localizers). Many companies get one or two such clients, lock them in by deeply understanding their business and documentation processes and over time come to expect that they can live happily ever after off of such stable high price clients.

Well folks, times have changed. The “New Europe” has arrived (and not only the New Europe, but the New China, the New and Improved Argentina, and developing countries everywhere). A more mature market with more competition is developing. The big localizers are the most mature purchasers of translation services, and often have global sales and need to localize into developing countries’ languages. They are among the first to move their business to low cost countries (it’s already happening) when they realize they can get the same quality as in more developed countries.

Often the sales/marketing angle among translation/localization companies is about how hard our job is, how very complicated and difficult it is. As much as everyone in our industry wants to make what we do look like rocket science, unfortunately it’s not. Sure it’s hard, but every business is hard these days. We need (like everyone else) to have the right processes in place and to ADD VALUE. This is where the real problem lies with Old Europe.

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