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Common Sense Advisory Blogs
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Santa Claus Gives McNeil the Biggest Translation Contract in the World
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Iraq Global Linguistics Solution, a joint venture between McNeil Technologies (listed in our Ranking of Top 20 Translation Companies) and DynCorp, won the contract to provide the Army with translation services in Iraq as of 9 March 2007.
The incumbent was the New York-based L-3 Communications, which counted the Army as its largest customer, accounting for more than 5 percent of the company's revenue. Under that contract, L-3 provided 6,650 linguists in Iraq this year and 1,500 in Afghanistan, earning approximately half a billion U.S. dollars in revenue.
The person who runs the largest language services company on earth is Major General James "Spider" Marks, who was responsible for finding (or should we say, not finding) weapons of mass destruction in Iraq after the U.S. invasion. He is quoted in Bob Woodward's book "State of Denial" (see excerpt) and contributes as a military analyst to news network CNN.
The contract has a duration of 5 years and is worth up to $4.6 billion. Contracts to provide linguists in Afghanistan and at the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were also awarded to California-based Thomas Computer Solutions and Reston-based Calnet, respectively. Thomas's contract in Afghanistan is worth up to $703 million. Calnet's contract is worth up to $66 million. Those were small business set-aside contracts, according to an Army statement. Not surprisingly, L-3 filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) within the mandated 5 days following the award of the US$4.6 billion contract.
Even though this business might seem very attractive from the a revenue perspective, it brings with it very low margins -- compared to commercial language service providers -- and extremely high risks (216 translators and interpreters have been killed on the job). Add to this the fact that the U.S. is losing the war (or not, according to President Bush's recent statement that "we're not winning, we're not losing") so there is also the risk that before the end of the contract, the Army might not need any interpretation services. Financial analysts expect the L-3 protest to the GAO to delay the award for several months.
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