If you’re in a business that’s taking exciting steps into new markets with new languages, and the responsibility to guide the ship falls on your shoulders, the question that you’ll inevitably ask yourself is, “Should I hire a Language Service Provider?”
As a Language Service Provider (LSP), all of our clients have asked themselves that same question. They’ve wanted to know what value does partnering with a LSP have? Does bringing in a third party make life easier or more complicated? Will it create more work for me? How will the relationship work?
They’re all valid questions, and it’s easy to see how overwhelming this decision can be. Don’t worry, we’re here to help. Looking at this from over twenty years of getting feedback from clients in a wide range of industries, here are the benefits that they talk about again and again.
The rate at which your business needs help in different linguistic markets probably won’t be consistent.
An LSP has a roster of translators and interpreters that can scale up and down in relation to your needs. They can also adjust quickly to demands that happen suddenly to keep your business agile.
A good LSP will bring linguists to your projects that are industry or subject matter experts. This makes a huge difference in the accuracy of the translation.
All industries have their own terminology, acronyms, and just general ways of speaking and writing. Taking these nuances into account is critical to an accurate translation.
The expertise a LSP brings also drills down to the people you want to talk to. They know how to make sure your communications are not only accurate, but culturally appropriate.
From text to images to audio and video, all representations of your brand must be localized and aligned with your new market.
Getting recruitment right is a complicated and tricky process. Do you really want to take on the task of hiring a team of in-house interpreters and translators? What about all the training they’ll need?
With an LSP you can be flexible, and they’ll manage the relationships while still giving you control over what you want to achieve.
If you have an in-house team of German linguists and you suddenly see an opportunity in Argentina, then you have to start the process of building a team all over again.
This could mean being second to market, or the opportunity dissolving altogether as a competitor acts faster.
With an LSP, you have all of the languages that they offer at your disposal. Time to market is significantly reduced.
Any LSP worth partnering with will have rigorous Quality Assurance (QA) systems in place that will be tried, tested, and independently verified. You don’t want to have to build a linguistic QA process from scratch.
Your LSP should have ISO 17100 (the standard for the translation industry) and ISO 9001 (the standard for quality management) so you know everything is being done in a way that guarantees best-practice.
Tech in the translation industry is evolving all the time, especially as Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to advance.
Staying up to date with the latest trends in Machine Translation (MT), Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT), and other technological solutions is not only time-consuming but costly.
Your LSP will be on the front edge of these advancements, so you can benefit from their knowledge and investment.
Chances are that you’re going to need to keep evolving your communications in a new language. It’s rare that a new market is set up and doesn’t need to adapt over time.
An LSP gives you the ongoing support you need to make sure your localized content is always maintained, updated, and relevant.
Don’t see it as hiring an LSP, but rather bringing on a partner who can help guide your business into new markets and territories. You should feel comfortable enough to lean on them.
They should understand your business direction and goals as much as any of your employees, divisions and other trusted partners.
Hopefully you can see that the benefits of working with a LSP go far beyond translation and interpretation. The right LSP should be there to look out for you.
They can help you see the things you don’t even know you should be looking for and avoid the obstacles they’ve come across with other clients. Simply put, they’re there to make you, and your business, better.
If you’re looking for a LSP to help you, we’d love to talk to see if we’re a good fit. Consultations are free and there’s no obligation. You’re in safe hands with us as we’re ISO 17100 and ISO 9001 compliant, have over twenty years of professional translation experience, and have earned the trust of organizations around the world.