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Common Sense Advisory Blogs
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Looking for Language Service Providers in All the Right Places
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With process reproducibility and auditability becoming watchwords in any business, buyers of language services will increasingly demand that their suppliers (and their suppliers' subcontractors) have some kind of industry certification. We expect LSPs themselves to look for some differentiation as they try to overcome commoditization resulting from the tendency of most translation agencies to compete on vaguely-defined issues such as "quality" and more tangible ones like low price.
So where should buyers of language services look for suppliers that have been certified? Earlier this year, we researched certifications such as ISO9000. We also looked at credibility-building outlets that LSPs use to publish information and improve their search engine optimization.
- Self-certification of LSPs with language quality and process standards such as the ASTM and CEN specifications. Not yet available to the general public, it will be a while before translation agencies can qualify their offerings against these recommendations. Verdict: these specifications will be useful, but they balkanize the industry by continent. LSPs will have to use ASTM for the States and CEN for their European operations.
- Free listings in catalogs. Such catalogs are like Personal Ads, but instead of pudgy 44-year old men claiming to be svelte paragons of manliness, you will find tiny translation agencies saying that they can deal with 237 language pairs, work with any content management technology or authoring tool ever created, and guarantee immediate turnaround. Verdict: this is suspect information -- nobody checks the details.
- Pay-for-play catalogs where a company gets included in the catalog -- if and only if they pay the advertising or listing fee. Verdict: the universe of suppliers that a potential buyer sees is limited. And like the free listings, there's usually no validation of the data except to make sure the check cleared the bank.
- Vendor-centric catalogs such as SDL global ecosystem. Verdict: This is a good initiative that is common in other industry sectors, but at its core it is a shopping guide for people committed to SDL technology.
Now for the disclosure -- Common Sense Advisory has a horse in this race with its 24x7 Online Briefing. We take a financial auditor's approach to the question of certification -- such firms check a company's compliance to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). Similarly, our 24x7 program looks for "a" process that is used consistently and constantly throughout an LSP's organization. That process can be ISO, defined by a client, internally developed, or any combination of these.
In short, training and certification are good ideas that we believe every buyer ultimately will demand of their suppliers. Don't expect to find a single standard for language certification or quality systems. Instead, look for independent validation of the application of standards and quality processes to counter vendor-made claims. Finally, buyers should look squarely at the agenda of the listing or certifying agency and determine whether their interests match.
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