Three years ago we wrote in Beggars at the Globalization Banquet that centralized, formal procurement organizations would play a growing, even defining role in sourcing language services. Other reports have uncovered more details on the evolution of the buying strategies, culminating this July with the Online Sourcing of Translation Services report on how language service buyers and providers can influence the procurement process.

Purchasing magazine’s advisory board sees that procurement staffers have to become more familiar with the history, culture, and presumably the language and business ecosystem of their sourcing partners. This fundamental principle drives localization as it is practiced in marketing, product development, manufacturing, and elsewhere in global businesses.

The key insight in Purchasing magazine’s realization about corporate buyers and in our own research on buying language services is that purchasing professionals — regardless of what they purchase — need lots of information to do their jobs. The more informed and educated the buyer is, the better his or her decisions will be. Our research with buyers has shown that even the dreaded reverse auction can bring value to buyers and language service providers when executed well. In fact, they can even establish or reinforce long-term relationships. But when auctions are conducted poorly, the vendor’s chance of survival drops precipitously — on average an LSP will survive only three projects before being dumped into the dustbin of former suppliers.