Common Sense Advisory

Common Sense Advisory has been publishing rankings of the top industry providers and market size estimates for the language services sector since 2005. Our most recent study revealed that the global market for outsourced language services will reach US$26.33 billion in 2010. But exactly how much of the market corresponds to translation, interpreting, localization, and other language-related services? In this brief, we provide detailed estimates of the size of each of these market segments as well as for less common offerings, such as transcreation, machine translation post-editing, translation software, multimedia localization, subtitling, remote interpreting, and others.

What are the defining characteristics of the Russian market for translation and interpreting services? What is the typical service mix, rate of growth, and average revenue per employee? How much re-selling takes place in this market? This brief sheds light on the language service provider (LSP) landscape of Russia.

Industry Providers |This report examines LSP approaches and attitudes towards use of technology in translation operations, exploring opportunities for both business process and language process automation. This qualitative research is based on site visits and in-depth interviews with dozens of translation suppliers based in the Americas, Asia, and Europe. We examine the underlying factors that push LSPs to adopt new technology, which operational challenges they seek to resolve, and what business benefits they achieve.

Global Leaders | How many translation vendors does the typical global business have? What percentage of total localization spending goes to each? Where are these providers located, and how happy are clients with their services? This report provides buy-side organizations with the ability to navigate current vendor management practices in order to benchmark and situate their activities within the landscape of localization departments at global businesses throughout the world.

Global Leaders | Several language service providers now offer clients the opportunity to deliver more multilingual products and services in more formats than anyone thought economically feasible just a few years ago. In this brief, we outline the reasons why and how global firms should seriously consider reinventing their globalization models to take advantage of these new developments.

Industry Providers | Language service providers (LSPs) frequently ask us where they can find top sales talent. In addition to requesting names of industry recruiters, they often ask us whether they should hire salespeople with experience in the translation industry or from some other professional background. In this brief, we review the pros and cons of recruitment from within and outside the language services space. We also review the benefits and drawbacks of hiring individuals with a sales background.

Companies that buy language services and agencies that sell these services ask us to help them deal with conflicts about translation memory (TM) ownership. Our standard response has been that translation memories are works performed as hire or constitute a derived work, in both cases belonging to the client. However, in a recent survey, we found that a large percentage of LSPs disagree with us. This brief outlines the issues that concern suppliers – and which affect buyers.

This brief details and analyzes buyer and supplier responses to our quarterly business confidence survey for the language services industry during the second quarter of 2010.

What are the defining characteristics of the German market for translation and interpreting services? What is the typical service mix, rate of growth, and average revenue per employee? How much re-selling takes place in this market? This brief sheds light on the language service provider (LSP) landscape of Germany.

What are the defining characteristics of the Canadian market for translation and interpreting services? What is the typical service mix, rate of growth, and average revenue per employee? How much re-selling takes place in this market? This brief sheds light on the language service provider (LSP) landscape of Canada.

Industry Providers | Many language service providers (LSPs) ask us whether or not to integrate technology into their service offerings and business models. We’ve answered “yes” to this question, but now we have data that convincingly demonstrates why. Our research reveals that supplier growth rates show a striking correlation to “technology attitude.” In this brief, we detail the growth rates of LSPs with differing views on technology’s role – and we explain why companies that fail to incorporate technology do so at the risk of their own company’s demise.

Translation underpins successful business globalization. While technology, business practices, regulatory compliance, and marketing issues support the global or domestic multicultural outreach of any organization, “words” always convey information about who you are, how to use your products or services, and what value you offer to your customers. Thus, the first question that many buyers and suppliers ask is “What does translation cost?” or “What should translation cost?” Dozens of other questions follow. In this report, Common Sense Advisory looks first and foremost at the price of translation for a wide range of languages. We also review the cost of related services, ranging from engineering to machine translation training.

Industry Providers | This report answers the questions that organizations selling language services ask us most frequently about prices and related issues of procurement. It references Common Sense Advisory’s “Translation and Localization Pricing” report. That report contains detailed pricing data for 156 language pairs, plus analysis of market trends and common practices. This survey drew responses from 651 language service providers and freelancers in 73 countries.

Global Leaders | How large organizations buy translation and localization has been evolving over the last few years. The per-project purchasing mode of the past is slowly giving way to corporate procurement practices, characterized by master service agreements, fewer suppliers, and more talk of long-term partnerships. In this report, Common Sense Advisory addresses the major issues involved in this move to mainstream purchasing methods. We also answer many of the questions that organizations buying language services ask us most frequently about prices and related issues of procurement.

Global Leaders | Social media is one of the tools that businesses can use to remain engaged – or become engaged – with their end users in local markets. In this brief, we provide insight into how marketing managers at global firms can prepare to leverage social media in Asia.

Industry Providers | Social media platforms such as Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter are no longer merely “phenomena.” Within the space of just a few years, they’ve become essential components of many firms’ marketing and public relations plans. But, social media is notoriously difficult to monetize. How can language service providers (LSPs) leverage these networks for their companies’ benefit? This brief offers several important guidelines to follow – and some pitfalls to avoid.

Our September 2008 report “Translation Management Systems” contained 24 scorecards (and two more were added in 2009). This publication updates the scorecard for Plunet BusinessManager product based on its version 5.0 release in June 2010. Please note that our scoring matrix has changed for 2010. Readers should take care when comparing any 2010 scorecard with those from earlier years.

In May 2010, Common Sense Advisory surveyed 197 providers of interpreting services throughout North America, 91 of which also offer telephone interpreting services. We asked detailed questions about how these firms establish employment relationships with their interpreters, and we probed for information on their training practices. In this brief, we discuss the findings.

What are the defining characteristics of the Indian market for translation and interpreting services? What is the typical service mix, rate of growth, and average revenue per employee? How much re-selling takes place in this market? This brief sheds light on the language service provider (LSP) landscape of India, based on 995 LSPs we identified in this market, and detailed findings from a survey of 36 Indian translation and interpreting firms.

What are the defining characteristics of the Spanish market for translation and interpreting services? What is the typical service mix, rate of growth, and average revenue per employee? How much re-selling takes place in this market? This brief sheds light on the language service provider (LSP) landscape of Spain, based on 1,520 LSPs we identified in this market, and detailed findings from a survey of 67 Spanish translation and interpreting firms.