A Review of Language Service and Technology Predictions for 2011

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Global Watchtower

Common Sense Advisory Blogs

Posted by Donald A. DePalma, Nataly Kelly on December 28, 2011 in the following blogs: Best Practices, Business Globalization, Global Marketing, Interpreting, Market Data, Supplier Business Issues, Technology, Translation and Localization, Web Globalization
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Predictions are a popular pastime for industry analyst and research firms in every sector, and the market for language services and technology is no different. How did we fare with our predictions for 2011?

Marketers of everyday products feature built-in language support. Based on our research on global product localization, we predicted that firms would begin to position language support not just as a product feature, but as a core differentiator in 2011 (Related research: “Global Product Localization,” Jun10). We’d say that this prediction came true to a great extent. In our localization maturity research, we found that a surprising number of CEOs and Managing Directors voice vocal support for language services in their spiels to both internal folks and the outside world (“Accelerating Localization Maturity,” Jan11). However, other research we conducted in 2011 showed that there is still plenty of room for improvement in this regard (“How to Excel as a Globalization Champion,” Aug11).

Translation energizes customer experiences. Our global web research from 2010 led us to believe that more websites would incorporate on-demand language tools (“Gaining Global Web Presence,” Nov10). This definitely came true in 2011 – in fact, demand was so great that that Google began to charge for its originally free on-demand MT (“Google Pulls the Plug on Translation API,” May11).

Fiscal scars trigger spending sobriety. Our 2010 research on how companies buy language services indicated that businesses would need to reevaluate the big picture of procurement (“Strategic Procurement of Translation Services,” Jul10). Indeed, in both our research and consulting practices, we saw a greater number of global firms that wanted to centralize their services. In fact, our latest research on translation metrics shows that, on a per-project basis, companies with centralized translation services spend far less on average than their competitors in similar size ranges and industries (“Translation Performance Metrics,” Dec11).

Project managers at global organizations face an identity crisis. We predicted an increase in outsourcing of project management tasks for 2011, based largely on our research on vendor management tendencies (“How Buyers Manage Translation Suppliers,” Aug10). Indeed, the role of the project manager is changing, based in great part on the fact that translation management system (TMS) tools are automating more and more tasks formerly performed by humans ( “How to Select a Translation Management System,” Nov11).

Nervous tolerance of machine translation (MT) turns into enthusiastic acceptance. This prediction came true, to some degree, as our 2010 research seemed to indicate (“Developers Work to Broaden Use of Machine Translation,” Mar10). However, “enthusiastic acceptance” might have been a stretch. We did also predict that the tools themselves would improve in quality. This has certainly happened, to the point that even many formerly skeptical freelancers and small language service providers (LSPs) have begun to accept machine translation as a market reality, as our 2011 research has shown (“Trends in Machine Translation,” Oct11).

Crowdsourced and user-generated content displaces internal documentation and technical support. Most of the community translation happening has been taking place very quietly, but our review of more than 100 crowdsourced translation platforms clearly showed that the main driver for the growth is the increase in user-generated content (“Crowdsourced Translation,” Jan11). This prediction was spot-on, as evidenced to us throughout the year in engagements with our buy-side clients.

Global and multilingual social media become areas of domain expertise. We truly expected to see more activity on this front in 2011 than we actually did, based on research we conducted in 2010 (“How Global Businesses Can Leverage Social Media in Asia,” Jul10). Call it wishful thinking on our part, but we would say that this prediction did not really come true. While the social media companies such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter have continued to add languages throughout the year, we did not see many companies rise to the occasion on the vendor side to offer products enabling companies to easily manage their multilingual social media presence.

Marketers grab the language opportunity by the “long tail.” There was no denying the results of our 2010 web globalization research (“Top-Scoring Global Websites,” Mar11). The growth in non-Latin scripts in computing, international domain names on the web, and increased visibility of small linguistic communities all pointed toward this prediction coming true. And in 2011, it did (“World Online Wallet Shifts Toward Asia in 2010,” Sep10). All our research has shown that companies are adding more languages all the time.

Video and audio skills create localization stars. Our 2010 research indicated that LSPs should anticipate spikes in demand for multilingual video and audio adaptation services. (“The Market for Multimedia Localization,” Sep10). We give ourselves a “so-so” with regard to this prediction. On the one hand, we definitely saw more buy-side companies investing in multilingual video content (“How to Convey a Global Brand Using Online Video,” Aug11). However, we did not necessarily see this reflected in the revenue of the supply side of the market as much as we expected (“The Language Services Market: 2011,” May11).

Hybrid “buyer/supplier” organizations make waves in the industry. We noted that many of the largest consumers of translation in the world – such as Google, HP, Manpower, and Xerox – are also large providers of the accompanying services and technology (“The Top 35 Language Service Providers,” May10). Indeed, many of these companies continued to grow due to their language services work (“The Language Services Market: 2011,” May11). And, we became aware of other large “hybrid” companies in 2011, such as Bosch’s Language Services division.

In summary, out of 10 predictions that we issued for 2011, we would say that eight of them were right on the money. For the remainder, we might have gotten a bit ahead of ourselves, but we’d still say they came true in part.

What’s in store for 2012? The world is constantly changing, and as a result, so do our methods of researching and reporting the latest trends. This year, we’re breaking free of the traditional predictions mold. Instead of issuing our well-informed assessments of what lies in store, we’ll be doing something different. What exactly? Watch this space to find out.

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