| There are so many predictions that could affect translation services this year. These range from market consolidation through to cataclysmic events that will result in the end of the world.
Assuming that it is not going to be the end of the world on 21st December 2012, do any of the other predictions really make a competitive difference?
It is not difficult for anyone to search the internet for 2012 translation predictions and it is likely that most people will read similar results. Reports are also available from selected agencies.
It is also highly likely that seasoned professionals will understand how this industry is developing against the backdrop of the relevant economy.
So, if clients and language providers have similar knowledge, how do language providers differentiate?
And in particular, why do our clients choose to remain with eTeams year-after-year?
We certainly implement the 3 success criteria expected for every project, that of delivering on time, to quality and on budget.
Equally important, there are also the policies that underline the direction for our company and how we manage our business.
These policies form the basis of the sustainable differentiators, which explain why eTeams is quite special and why our clients choose eTeams.
Please refer to: http://www.eteams.ie/en/our-approach
With 97% client retention rate combined with year-on-year growth, we believe our clients are telling us that we are fulfilling their requirements.
May we wish you a prosperous 366-day-long 2012!
“eTeams – translations you can trust”
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| Adopting a professional, personal and ‘client-friendly’ approach to invoicing and payment collection is an intrinsic part of a company’s survival. Without it, staff cannot get paid and the costs associated with the day-to-day running of a business cannot be met.
But, I struggle to think of any company that advertises how well it manages this function.
This is not a subject for polite conversation. It is meant to happen quietly in the background and, hopefully, everyone does as is expected and invoices are paid when they should be.
Nicky is our Credit Controller and Accounts Administrator. Her prior career extended to being responsible for Letters of Credit, Production Management, Sales Accounting and Shipping.
Now, she is responsible for liaising with our Linguists regarding their payments as well as keeping our accounting ledgers clean. This is, of course, a euphemism for making sure that our invoices are delivered and paid on-time. And, yes, on occasion, she gently reminds some of our clients to pay their outstanding bills in accordance with our agreed payment terms.
So, what motivates Nicky? I wondered how it is possible to enjoy “accounting”, combined with the added task of sending those reminders.
The reason became clear. Not because she is Dutch, (although she admits that the national trait of “straight-talking” is an asset), but because she takes pride in making sure that what is supposed to happen actually does happen.
For each client, Nicky creates an invoice that is designed to meet his or her business need.
For each linguist, she prepares a job statement which summarises the work performed in any one month. This may seem topsy-turvy, but it has two major advantages. Firstly, linguists are released from the administrative chore of creating an invoice and, secondly, because we have prepared the statement for acceptance by the Linguist, payment can occur promptly.
In summary, Nicky treats each person as an individual and in doing so, strengthens the commitment of clients and linguists alike in retaining eTeams as their preferred language partner.
“eTeams – translations you can trust”
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| Anna is one of our senior Project Managers. She has a Masters in Translation Studies and Project Management combined with fluency in French and significant experience of delivering translation services to large corporate clients with complex requirements.
Her enjoyment of her role stems from her client relationships and from managing the intricacies of her various projects.
If Anna worked for a much larger company, her role would be limited to the pre-determined processes associated with project creation, implementation and delivery.
However, Anna has the ability and desire to offer much more. Rather than perceiving limits to her role, Anna encourages the delegation of greater levels of responsibility and decision making. This is also something that eTeams promotes as part of our team development.
This whole approach forms the basis of the way in which we deliver personalised care, rather than the alternative taken by many of our competitors with the execution of their production environments.
What does this mean in practice?
With a production environment, a client requirement is passed like a baton through a process. For example, to translate source material into 3 languages may result in it being sent to one department for analysis, then to another department to decide the approach to your project, then to sales for pricing and quotation, then to other Project Managers who will handle the relationship with different translation agencies that actually perform the work. The Project Manager becomes detached from your project in order to allow him/her to ready the organisation for the next one.
By comparison, Anna will own and make all the important decisions regarding your project, from analysis, pricing, building your translation team and then delivery. This has 2 significant consequences.
Firstly, Anna knows the state of your project without needing to ‘locate the baton’, because it stays with her.
Secondly, Anna understands the details of your project, thereby placing her in the best position to offer a close working relationship and to recommending future service improvements.
The exploration and agreement to new concepts and ideas can be arranged quickly because Anna, like her colleagues, reports to director-level within our organisation, rather than having to wade through middle-management.
Of course, it can be argued that the eTeams personalised approach can be achieved because of our smaller organisation.
The directors of eTeams respond by saying that this is much preferred to having innovations diluted and decisions delayed because of organisational constraints.
Anna simply restates the value to her clients, who benefit from the breadth of her role and experience and from her increased job satisfaction.
“eTeams – translations you can trust”
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| Caroline and Catherine are responsible for identifying and securing the talents of linguists on behalf of our clients. Together, they form the eTeams’ Linguist Care Team, reporting to Director-level within our company.
In creating a Linguistic Care Team, the eTeams’ approach to selecting talented linguists is fundamentally different from the many language providers that focus on creating a “Production Process”.
Our Linguistic Care Team see their role as creating effective translation teams through support and nurturing, rather than by creating a cost-driven “Production Environment” that can alienate the very people we wish to work with.
There are 5 distinct phases to identifying and selecting the right team, which are: In-depth Consultation with Client; In-depth Research; Sourcing of Specialised Linguists; Internal Training and Provision of Technical Support; and then Ongoing Teamwork. Throughout the process, Caroline and Catherine are guided by the choices we have made as part of our company-wide and externally audited ISO 9001:2008 and EN 15038:2006 certifications.
A recent request for translation and proofreading skills in MRI Imaging, Oncology and Low Voltage Switch Gear Systems is a typical starting point for Caroline and Catherine. The search criteria used by them to identify and select a language team is based on 12 areas of classification. This includes, for example, Subject Matter Specialism, which is important when translating highly technical and complex medical topics.
The relationship between our linguists and eTeams is built on a good understanding of what is required by our client and underpinned by agreements detailing how linguists and eTeams will work together. These include our Code of Ethics, Confidentiality Agreement and Terms and Conditions.
There are circumstances when we believe that linguists are not yet ready to perform translations. Rather than ignore their future potential, we will propose areas for development and then keep in contact as they become ready for their first commercial assignment.
Our success in identifying linguists in over 120 less-common and minority languages is achieved through the investigative skills of our Linguist Care Team. Substantial effort can be required to track down a handful of professional linguists for languages where there may be less than a million speakers worldwide.
Finally, we realise that each linguist can respond differently to management styles based upon their culture and experience. Therefore, our Linguist Care Team provides guidance to our HR Director and Project Managers to ensure that team structure and communication channels are clearly defined.
In summary, as an intrinsic function of the personalised service we offer our clients, this is part of our investment in you, no matter how long it takes to find the correct team.
“eTeams – translations you can trust”
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| In this month’s Harvard Business Review there is an article on transparency and, by this, they mean letting someone see and understand the process of doing something.
Examples of a Starbucks barista now steaming milk for each drink individually and screens being installed at the U.S. Postal Service allow customers to see each step being taken to fulfil their requirements.
The logic is that customers will find waiting more tolerable when they see the work that is being done for them and they tend to value the service more.
With respect to our market, I imagine that some will say, “I don’t want to know and don’t need to know, just return the translation back tomorrow”. Others will want to make sure that each step is being performed to an agreed standard.
Typically, a client’s interest in knowing how translations are being performed increases with the value of the translation. By selecting eTeams over our competitors, our clients are assessing that our competitive differentiators include delivering to these standards or higher.
The above introduction sets the scene for the next 3 or 4 Blogs.
With each, I propose to take an aspect of how eTeams performs our translation service, while avoiding the trap of resorting to lists of processes and procedures.
Rather, my approach will be closer to my experiences of reading the book, “Evenings with Horowitz”.
For my last birthday, I was asked which book I wanted to receive about Horowitz (probably the greatest pianist ever). My choice came down to a biography or a book called “Evenings with Horowitz” by David Dubal. I chose the latter because the book recorded conversations with the Maestro, rather than offering a dry record of what he did and when. For me, the result was a far greater understanding of the man and the artiste.
Similarly, these blogs will disclose how eTeams operates, based on our many years experience of delivering language services, underpinned by our ISO 9001 and EN15038 certification.
It would be vain of me to suggest that they will convey anything close to my new appreciation of Horowitz.
However, with each, I hope to reveal our desire to meet and to surpass our clients’ needs.
“eTeams - translations you can trust”
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| I read recently that a prominent nose can mean “determination”, while a thin nose is evidence of “uncertainty”.
Not normally someone who would look into a mirror, I checked this out and realised that my belief in this statement was going to be based on whether I could see “determination” from the shape of my nose. If yes, then the statement had to have some validity and if no, then it had to be an old-wives tale.
I remember being surveyed about the state of a technology sector five years into the future. I was one of a number of interviewees being questioned. When the report was finally released I was delighted to see that some of the report agreed with my opinion.
What then occurred to me was that some of the report actually was my opinion and this 5-year forecast was being recycled back to me.
I then wondered how often people read into a statement what they wish, without further investigation.
Last year, 96.4% of respondents to our client survey confirmed that they would recommend eTeams to another company.
This is certainly the kind of response we had hoped for and we were delighted to read.
In the context of our complete survey, this percentage was indicative of the overall level of positive response we received from our clients.
As a management team, we spend time with our clients discussing their immediate and longer term needs. We are determined to enhance their experiences of eTeams and to improve the quality of our conclusions and the effectiveness of our subsequent actions.
Thankfully, this approach means that I can avoid the need to display my resolve through a suitably angled portrait on our website.
And no, this does not mean that I have a thin nose, at least not from this direction.
“eTeams - translations you can trust”
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| I have to list, in no particular order, “Vision”, ”Mission”, ”Goals”, ”Objectives” and “Strategy”.
You typically find one or more of the above words are used to give credibility to management consultants and also comfort to executives.
This is in no way an attempt to disparage the people or institutions that use these words. But I am going to avoid using them.
I have a simple question.
Is competitive advantage achieved by companies translating their products or services material into other languages?
For many companies the answer is “no”.
Why?
There is no positional advantage achieved from translation. This is because their competitors are also offering their products and services in the desired languages.
However, they would be disadvantaged if they did not translate. This begins to explain why there is an unreasonable focus on the cost of translation.
So what is to be done?
A company has to have a distinctive competence to elevate itself above its competitors. This is not something that a translation company can invent for its clients.
A translation provider must also develop its own distinctive competence and communicate this to its clients, thereby staying ahead of its own competitors.
When both client and translation provider innovate in this way, there is the opportunity for this partnership to achieve a collective competitive advantage.
For eTeams, this means our team of Company Directors are involved with every one of our corporate clients. This allows us to listen, understand and make fast company-wide decisions about how we can support their innovation through our own.
‘eTeams – translations you can trust’
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| I read that banks were now the third, least-trusted industry worldwide. This is a drop from being the third, most-trusted.
The least trusted industries were media companies and the insurance sector. The most-trusted sectors were the technology, biotech and automotive sectors.
Interestingly, financial results ranked last in the factors being considered in a company's trustworthiness. More important than financial results were the transparency of operations, the treatment of employees and fair pricing.
In 1993, a Dr. Tway defined trust as being "the state of readiness for unguarded interaction with someone or something", from which he developed a model comprising three constructs: "the capacity for trusting, the perception of competence, and the perception of intentions."
The capacity for trusting relates to how your total life experiences have developed your current capacity and willingness to risk trusting others.
The perception of competence is made up of your perception of your ability and the ability of others with whom you work to perform competently at whatever is needed in your current situation.
The perception of intentions, is your perception that the actions, words, direction, mission or decisions are motivated by mutually-serving rather than self-serving motives.
eTeams understands that for trust to exist between ourselves and our clients and also within our own organisation, the integrity of our leadership team is critical. Unlike many other companies, our team is actively involved with every one of our corporate relationships.
We know the importance of understanding and fulfilling the needs of our clients time and time again. In turn, we will provide information about the rationale, background, and thought processes behind our decisions.
This is why Trust is one of the 5 key measures that eTeams uses when we ask our clients to assess the quality of our relationship with them.
‘eTeams – translations you can trust’
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