Language Service Providers Solidify Their Place on the Inc. 5000

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Posted by Vijayalaxmi Hegde on September 18, 2012 in the following blogs: Best Practices, Global Marketing, Market Data, Translation and Localization
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Language service providers (LSPs) continue to maintain their place in the yearly Inc. 5000 ranking. This year, 20 translation and interpreting companies made it to the list, up from just 15 in 2010 and 18 in 2011. As we saw last year, the three-year growth rate of LSPs listed by Inc. exceeds the overall pace of the language services sector This year, most language service providers on the list (see table below) are growing at more than 20%, while the industry itself will climb at a rate of 12.17% (see “The Language Services Market: 2012,” May12).

Inc. Rank	Language Service Provider	3-Year Growth Rate	Revenue in US$ millions
311	InDemand Interpreting	1198%	2.3
1822	Elanex	154%	9.2
1951	Universal Language Service	138%	6.8
2095	Language Training Center	125%	2.7
2100	Global Language Solutions	124%	9.5
2179	CyraCom International	118%	43.7
2727	U.S. Translation Company	85%	2.4
2958	Geneva Worldwide	74%	7.7
3243	WeLocalize	62%	81.2
3580	CETRA Language Solutions	51%	4.1
3632	Language Services Associates	49%	26.0
3636	adaQuest	49%	6.2
3687	TransPerfect	47%	300.3
3772	1-Stop Translation USA	44%	2.2
3850	Para-Plus Translations	41%	2.3
3974	Dynamic Language	37%	8.3
4492	LinguaLinx	22%	5.0
4741	SignTalk	13%	4.2
4840	West	11%	2500.0
4972	Fluent Language Solutions	6%	5.6

Seven of the companies above made it to Common Sense Advisory’s 2012 ranking of the top 100 LSPs in the world. TransPerfect is #4 on our list; WeLocalize #10; CyraCom International #18; Language Services Associates #29; Elanex #73; Global Language Solutions #75; and Geneva Worldwide is #76.

While both Common Sense Advisory’s and Inc.’s rankings are voluntary, they differ in their approach. We rank LSPs by their annual revenue, while Inc. complies its ranking based on the three-year growth rate of companies.

The fact that LSPs like Geneva Worldwide or Global Language Solutions are way above TransPerfect in Inc.’s rankings shows the potential for growth in the language services industry. What drives the growth of these LSPs? Every business that wants to market, sell, or manufacture internationally needs translation, localization, or interpreting. Every government agency that serves a multicultural population needs those services – not to mention language for commerce, diplomacy, and defense.

Many of Inc.’s other fastest-growing companies, including #1-ranked Unified Payments, already do business in countries other than the U.S. However, they limit their global revenue by requiring European, Canadian, and non-Anglophone U.S. customers to speak English (see “Can’t Read, Won’t Buy: Why Language Matters on Global Websites,” Sep06). Even if they wish to reach more domestic consumers, they’ll still need language services (see “How to Craft a Multicultural Web Strategy,” Sep12). They’ll find that their growth is constrained by English-only websites, marketing materials, and product manuals.

Our finding that websites now need to support a dozen languages to reach 80% of the world’s online population should be good news for LSPs that are stretching for the Inc.-like 20 to 40 to 100% growth rate. At the same time, companies new to buying translation need not be alarmed at the cost of scaling up to so many languages. For the first wave of translation, they can always pick the languages that matter most to their markets and take it from there. Finally, translation really doesn’t cost that much when compared to the revenue it enables (see “Translation Performance Metrics,” Dec11).

Note: This post was updated on September 18, 2012 at 11:45 am EST to add Elanex to both the table and the list of companies included in both the Inc 5000 list and the 2012 Common Sense Advisory revenue-based ranking of the Top 100 LSPs in the world.

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