Rasika Gumaste, Secretary CITLoB-ALP Freelance German-English, English-German Translator and Interpreter German Language Trainer Classical Dancer [more about her here] FREELANCE TRANSLATIONS IN INDIA – THE MARKET SHIFT From human translations to TRADOS to DeepL – Where are we headed next? In her 20 years career as a professional German < > English translator, Rasika has […]
Rasika Gumaste, Secretary CITLoB-ALP
Freelance German-English, English-German Translator and Interpreter
FREELANCE TRANSLATIONS IN INDIA – THE MARKET SHIFT
From human translations to TRADOS to DeepL – Where are we headed next?
In her 20 years career as a professional German < > English translator, Rasika has seen – rather been a part of huge changes in the Industry in India. In this article, she has summarised all those changes as she goes down the memory lane and talks to her colleagues as well as new entrants in the profession. Written from the freelance translator’s perspective, this is an interesting read and useful for freelance professionals, agencies and end users. The second article on the subject will be published in the next issue of April 2021.
India has a been a hub of translation activity for several years. Few years ago, globalisation brought an unprecedented boom in the foreign language industry in India. Quality work being available at extremely reasonable rates, a lot of work started flowing into India. The translation market saw a sudden surge.
Today, with CAT-tools such as TRADOS and online Auto Translate tools like DeepL getting more and more efficient, we see a major change taking place in the freelance translation scene. A lot of translation jobs are being replaced with Post-Editing jobs, which may not have the same flavour or may seem ‘not-so-challenging’. For those working part time, this is perhaps a very good option. But, full-time freelancers working into and from foreign languages are sure to be affected or possibly even get demotivated, since they are not utilising their skills completely. To add to it are the diminishing returns.With NMTs (Neural Machine Translations) getting better and better, the die-hard translator is gradually being pushed in the background.
Is then, diversification a viable solution? In a culturally and linguistically rich country like India, there is no end to the varied fields that one can explore and try one’s hand at, especially with language know-how. The demand for work into and from vernacular languages is never-ending. Foreign languages have an element of glamour in them. Of course, the returns are glamorous too! But, with the changing trend, going back to our roots (our mother tongue) is probably a very good alternative.Moreover, agencies are waiting with open doors, willing to give complete support in the form of training, guidelines and of course, a range of translation jobs. With all these factors, does a market shift seem inevitable?
Foreign markets seem to have completely adapted to the new scene. The current change coupled with the COVID situation calls for increased adaptability, because crisis also generates opportunity. Language professionals in India need to navigate these uncertain times. The future of translation technology is changing drastically and this change is here to stay.
Sunil Kulkarni President , Fidel Softech Pvt Ltd Vice President | CITLoB West Zone [More about him here] Business in language industry and New possibilities for SMEs /individuals Many of the CITLoB members are freelancers and SMEs (ranging from companies with 1-2 members to few hundred members). While we are working from various cities in India, […]
Business in language industry and New possibilities for SMEs /individuals
Many of the CITLoB members are freelancers and SMEs (ranging from companies with 1-2 members to few hundred members). While we are working from various cities in India, all of us are competing or working at a global stage with global firms. Here are some thoughts, ideas, jargons as to how many of us can position ourselves at the global stage.
Branding
a. Naming and Title
Though you might be working as a freelancer, it might also work well if you mark yourself as “Self Employed” with a title of MD or CEO (while mentioning in the description about your hands-on project management or translation capabilities). This slightly adds a different flavor and gives a formal appearance together with a formal snap of yours attached to your profile.
b. Updating social media Profile and tagging for better searchability
Linkedin, Twitter, Instagram, FaceBook are some social media and together with sites such as Proz.com are places where companies try to find partners & having it up-to-date with email address/ skype / phone /whatsapp is of help. Further if you tag your profile with keywords like localization, vernacular, digitalmarketing, globalization then this could help the search. On Linkedin many people follow keywords or tags – so if your profile or article hits the search, your article gets shown to the one who has tagged that particular keyword. Lastly having a 1 page website (using WordPress) and a proper formal email address (not a gmail) can also can help and adds to the professional flavor.
c. Highlighting specialisation
Highlight your language, domain or tool specialization so that the reader understands your speciality. Showing yourself as a part of CITLoB is also a differentiator. Here specializing in a single language and going deeper and wider can also be a strategy – so that if it is eg. Kannada, clients know that they can approach you. In that particular language one can go for elearning / transcription/ translation /video editing etc and cover all areas.
Use of Project management or calendar software to keep track of schedule
There is always a possibility of missing out a deadline or forgetting a timeline or missing out. Using something free like Google calendar, Excel is also fine or in case of a big team some project management tool can be used but missing out is amateurish and certainly avoidable.
Using tools and leveraging technologies
Though technologies and tools look like an investment, these provide a better leverage and helps you to be on the top of your game. It could be as simple as synching emails to your mobile allowing you to respond fast. It could further mean to use TMS, MTs, TMs and other tools. RIAN / Prabhandhak / Process9 / Prudle Labs / Vernac are some of the tool / technology providers and can be checked out.
Quality awareness
While quality is a broad topic, a simple QA report with every delivery note is a good professional practice which shows that certain QA steps have been taken. Further asking beforehand a simple question such as “are there any specific quality requirements /checks to be done” again could help avoid friction at a later stage.
Increasing Payment acceptance channels
Some global firms have mandate to pay through certain payment gateways or use certain banks only. In such case, having different mechanism to accept payments offers flexibility and makes task easy for the other firm. Nationalized banks, big private banks with overseas operations are better/faster to receive payments (than some local cooperative bank etc). Besides this, accounts on payment facilitator sites such as Paypal, Payoneer, Transferwise also help to receive payments from overseas.
Blue ocean vs Red Ocean
Long back Kim author wrote a book called Blue ocean and presented this concept. All of us typically provide solution or services which soon get commoditized driving the price down resulting in price war (red ocean -blood war). His point was that the key for SMEs or big firms is to find the new avenues of revenues or new innovative ideas where there is yet no competition resulting in better prices and premium calling it the Blue ocean.
Our industry too is plagued with the per word syndrome and heavily commoditised. While educating the client will take time, some immediate additional services could be –
a. Domain check – if you or some known in your circle is domain proficient (eg. insurance or manufacturing or medical etc), then you can offer a domain check with some additional fees. This can be shared amongst few individuals or few SMEs coming together (eg. I can offer insurance specialization and someone can offer retail and we can tell our respective clients that we can offer both).
b. Sworn translations – Like a gazette officer, one can sign up translations and specialize in contracts, legal and sign the same asking for additional fees. While it has its own issues, this calls for additional fees/charges.
c.
Attaching oneself to a bank or NBFC – Many banks have NRI section where NRIs in
overseas countries apply for loans. In such cases, they have to provide their salary slips or employment documents which are in foreign languages and need translation. In such cases, your services could be of immediate requirement.
There could be many other things that can be experimented and your own small blue ocean can be tried out.
Loans and concept of invoice discounting
As a SME or an individual, it is difficult to approach banks without a collateral. While there are new SME loans (check MITCON / MSME sites), one can try out invoice discounting with immediate clients or banks. For eg. lets say you are expecting 1000 USD of invoice from some reputed firm like say Tata’s and the money is to be deposited by 45 days or 60 days. Now because of some emergency you require say 500 USD in 30 days. In such cases, one can approach a bank, NBFC and use this invoice as a collateral and take a loan upto 60-80% of the invoice amount. Here banks will definitely check the credibility of the paying firm. In some cases, one can ask the client themselves to pay upfront in 30 days offering an “invoice discount” of 3% – 5%. Some clients will deduct 3% and pay the same amount upfront in 30 days. With some such use of mechanisms, one can better cashflow and improvise business predictability.
Writing / Communicating / Presenting / Participation at Global level
GALA / LocWorld /MultiLingual and such organizations /magazines offer a platform to present your knowhow. Over the period, each of us has some accumulated knowledge or idea and can be presented at these forums. All these platforms provide a board to sound your thoughts and there could be global firms to take upon the idea. Some big firms have Social impact or Innovation budget and through that they might want to grant you some funds to try your hypothesis or thoughts. Then there are NGO agencies such as Translators without borders which work on grants & work for refugees / war torn countries or poor. They need some help and if you offer some it can come on your profile/resume too.
The status quo on the global and business front is changing and volatile. Clients continuously seek cost reduction, better productivity, improvised TAT (turnaround time) and this is true in all fields. Hope few of these ideas will help us all to better ourselves at the global stage by leveraging technologies, sharing of our knowhow and constantly re-imagining ourselves.
Credits for article- The above thoughts are presented by Sunil Kulkarni for CITLoB (with some bouncing of ideas with Sandeep and Asavari over a meeting).
Other contributors –
Pradeesh Joseph ( pradeeshpeter1988@gmail.com ) Godson Infotech Pvt Ltd Services: Translation (TEP included), transcription, Voice overs, subtitling, DTP, OCR, AI data and speech annotation, Quality Assurance. Supports all Indian languages and few foreign languages namely German, Spanish, Arabic and French, serving both domestic and international clients/LSPs.
Vidula Tokekar ( vidula@panaceabpo.co.in ) Panacea BPO Services Private Limited About TranslaitonPanacea – TranslationPanacea is a language service provider engaged in translation, localization, interpretation, AV translation and others. With a creative team of over 120 linguists working in various pairs of 32 languages, we serve publishers, manufacturing companies, IT/ITES and media & entertainment in India, US and Europe. Website www.panaceabpo.co.in
Note:
If you have any thoughts / ideas / concepts/speciality/ rare language that you translate or interpret / some new service that you might have, please share your thoughts in the form of a writeup or article and use this CITLoB platform to present yourself and your firm. Upon editorial permission from the CITLoB team, we plan to circulate the article amongst our members and support it. Our idea is to generate awareness and share knowledge through such articles (once or twice a month) . This is a West zone initiative.
Vidula Tokekar, Director, Panacea BPO Services Private Limited [More about her here] Language profession is one where you have the chance to be a better version of yourself every single day. We translators come across new content, new thoughts, new domain every day, with every assignment and it enriches us in many ways. Language profession is […]
Language profession is one where you have the chance to be a better version of yourself every single day. We translators come across new content, new thoughts, new domain every day, with every assignment and it enriches us in many ways.
Language profession is one where you have the chance to be a better version of yourself every single day. We translators come across new content, new thoughts, new domain every day, with every assignment and it enriches us in many ways.
Though some of the content we come across may be repetitive or technical; there is steady and definite increase in the demand for translation of creative content. Till a couple of years back, creative content was limited to fictions and films- at the most, advertorials. However, with the growing consumption of content in one’s own language, translation of creative content is increasingly in demand.
Now we see creative content used in books (of course!), webpages, social media posts, audio books, talk shows, advertisements, TV episodes, YouTube videos, feature film scripts-subtitles-dubbing and others. All these need to be translated in various desired languages to reach new markets and have better acceptance in new markets.
Translation of creative content needs a different approach due to its usage of language. The language used here may be indirect, referring to imagery and symbolism, full of humour, pun, sarcasm, or different emotions, using keywords from some other domain, even coining new words. It may also have a clever mix of two languages. So necessarily the translator has to go beyond the words – to ground zero – deep dive to the message and then surface in the target language , use the appropriate symbols and in equivalent words.
The whole process is highly creative and it is like re-creation rather than translation.
However, you cannot afford a luxury of leisure when you have made translation your profession or business. The client would still want the translation quickly and well formatted. Plus the client expects the local flavor in the resultant content. The translation of social media posts, news items, TV bytes has to be delivered immediately.
Translation of creative content can be a great joy and stimulus to the grey cells. Excellent command over both the languages, awareness of the purpose of the communication and interest in almost anything under the Sun makes translation of creative content as captivating as the original.
Dear language professionals, The first month of the calendar year 2021 is already over. A hope of better time is shining bright in some regions, and still cloudy in some others. What is visible all through is the determination, hard work and immense innovation throughout the industry. With technology and ideation, we can see small […]
Vidula Tokekar Editor | IndoVox
Dear language professionals,
The first month of the calendar year 2021 is already over. A hope of better time is shining bright in some regions, and still cloudy in some others. What is visible all through is the determination, hard work and immense innovation throughout the industry. With technology and ideation, we can see small firms grow like never before, as the geographical limits have wiped out. The reports of mergers and their numbers in other parts of the World are awe-inspiring for Indian language businesses.
CITLoB has fast becoming a go-to platform for freelancers, small firms, growing businesses, language technology companies in India. With a combination of online platforms and offline meet-ups, it will certainly gather more momentum.
West Zone Members’ Meet was so refreshing! Exchanging success stories with a collaborative approach marked the gathering. Sure, the other three regions will follow similar activities soon.
Thank you readers for receiving our new audio-visual column ‘Meet the Member’ started with January 2021 issue. In this issue, you will watch the journey of one more successful language entrepreneur. This month Biraj Rath, Founder director of Braahmam Technologies shares his journey, success mantra and future plans with us. Sunil Kulkarni, VP CILoB, west zone has contributed a thought-provoking article which will be useful for all language businesses. I have attempted to pen my thoughts and experiences of translation of creative content.
Hope you like this issue. Please do write to us at editor@citlob.in to share your feedback and suggestions and appreciation of IndoVox.
Dear friends, Time flies, doesn’t it? It seems only now that we were wishing each other a great year, only to realise that it is February already! I hope all of you have started working towards the personal and professional objectives you had set for yourself for this year. For me, this is already turning […]
Sandeep Nulkar President| CITLoB
Dear friends,
Time flies, doesn’t it? It seems only now that we were wishing each other a great year, only to realise that it is February already! I hope all of you have started working towards the personal and professional objectives you had set for yourself for this year. For me, this is already turning out to be one hell of a year on the work front, personally and even as far as CITLoB is concerned.
Of all the objectives we had set for the association, we have started working on a couple of those right away. For one, I have started reaching out to Universities. The objective is to ensure we have an MoU in place with every university in India with a language department. This will not only help language students gain more exposure but will also allow us to contribute to the academic fraternity and help them to create the kind of resources we would love to hire.
Then, under the able guidance of Shri Rakesh Kapoor we have taken our first steps in terms of creating better market access for our members. Efforts are also being taken to size the market. Knowing the size of the market we operate in is extremely critical for companies when they look at the funding or even the M&A route. I am hopeful that very soon we will be able to give more tangible updates on the efforts we are taking.
On a completely different note, I must also mention how amazing it felt to meet some of you in person during the West Zone meet-up. My sincere thanks to our Zonal Vice President (West), Shri Sunil Kulkarni, for his enthusiasm and initiative. Hopefully, this will encourage the other zones to organise meetups too. I am a firm believer in face-to-face meetings and in their power to make things happen.
I would like to take this opportunity to appeal to all of you to help us bring more members into our fold. It is only with numbers that our voice would be heard loud and clear. I am counting on you for your support.
Take care and stay safe. Happy reading and happy CITLoBing.
IndoVox – Read ahead in 2021 The first meeting of CITLoB members was held in May 2020, in the thick of lockdown. A week after I got a call from Sandeep Nulkar asking me to take up editorial responsibility for the newsletter of CITLoB. Having worked on our own newsletter Wordict and on those of […]
Vidula Tokekar Editor | IndoVox
IndoVox – Read ahead in 2021
The first meeting of CITLoB members was held in May 2020, in the thick of lockdown. A week after I got a call from Sandeep Nulkar asking me to take up editorial responsibility for the newsletter of CITLoB. Having worked on our own newsletter Wordict and on those of the clients, I had seen the power of a consistent newsletter and was confident to give my inputs for the work. Things rolled out quickly and the first issue of IndoVox arrived in the mailboxes of CITLoB members and well-wishers on July 01, 2020.
The newsletter instantly became an interesting one, right from the naming exercise. The leadership of CITLoB fed it continuously with exciting news of tie-ups and partnerships. Equally exciting was the increasing number and range of new members. I can’t thank Sandeep enough for inviting international guests to IndoVox. We could also offer good reads by experts and members about quality certification, copyright and some insight about the training activities in Indian LSPs through the survey. All the four Vice Presidents could reach each and every member of CITLoB and its associates by sharing their vision for the next two years
In this issue, you will also read the President’s vision about the next two years for CITLoB. With the inclusive and dynamic approach, I am sure the members will get the right support from the Confederation.
You will continue enjoying all these and more in 2021. We are aware of the various sizes and growth stages of members’ businesses, and it can be challenging to find topics of interest for all of us. We will attempt to include articles on the subjects useful for most of the members and the issues would be a reference material for your next growth step
From this issue onwards, we are also trying to bring out the audio-visual potential of IndoVox. We will be featuring one member every month in audio-visual format, which will be available on CITLoB YouTube channel. Lalita Marathe and Sushrut Kulkarni have kindly agreed to carry out the interviews. It will be a great opportunity to know your fellow members, project yourself and to explore win-win associations.
I appeal to all the members to make IndoVox more effective by
Writing articles.
Suggesting topics for articles
Sending questions on issues in your business, the answers of which can help many.
Sending your success stories and business anniversaries
Sharing a gist of learning of a training program of CITLoB or its associates that you attended.
Wish you all a very happy and happening new year 2021!
A lot of camaraderie and a friendly little nudge were what lead to CITLoB being founded in the winter of 2018. Between 2016 and 2018, Biraj Rath of Braahmam, ML Sudheen of Crystal Hues, Sunil Kulkarni of Fideltech, Madhuri Hegde of Mayflower, Ashok Bagri of Transinfopreneur, my colleague Rushikesh Atre and I met very frequently […]
A lot of camaraderie and a friendly little nudge were what lead to CITLoB being founded in the winter of 2018.
Between 2016 and 2018, Biraj Rath of Braahmam, ML Sudheen of Crystal Hues, Sunil Kulkarni of Fideltech, Madhuri Hegde of Mayflower, Ashok Bagri of Transinfopreneur, my colleague Rushikesh Atre and I met very frequently at industry events. The chemistry was great, and we hit it off instantly. Fun times were almost always accompanied by professional talk and that is where the idea of forming an association first took shape.
Then in the summer of 2018, I was invited by the EUATC to talk about India as the next frontier for European LSPs at their annual conference in Madrid. My talk was very well received and there was a lot of interest in India and the opportunities she offered. That is when my dear friend Geoffrey Bowden, the Secretary of the EUATC, suggested we seriously consider starting an Indian LSP association. Such as association, he thought, would greatly help EUATC’s members talk to credible partners in a market that had generated a lot of interest. Back from Madrid, CITLoB was formed within months.
Since the year 2018 was also a time when my active participation in the activities of FICCI-ILIA and MeitY had begun, I thought it would be prudent to spend time backing FICCI-ILIA in its initial days than diluting the effort by working on CITLoB in parallel. So, it was only in early 2020 that we started working actively on CITLoB.The initial plan was simple, get more members onboard, start organising activities gradually and work to create better visibility for the association and its members.
So, I decided to take care of our monthly webinars as one of the activities, while the ever-so-enthusiastic Vidula Tokekar of Panacea BPO came forward to take charge of our newsletter ‘IndoVox’ as the second activity. To create better visibility, we worked on putting in place a partnership agreement with the EUATC and a strategic arrangement with GALA. That was followed by a market survey we conducted in association with our industry’s leading news, analysis and research company, Slator and arrangements with all major industry publications to cover our events. Recently, we also launched a chapter for freelance translation, interpreting and localisation professionals.
CITLoB now enjoys great national and international visibility. Some mutually beneficial partnerships are in place and some useful activities have started too. With most of the groundwork being done, I am now looking at the remaining two years of my term to work on areas that will have a lasting impact on the association and benefit each of its members, irrespective of their size and area of interest.
As I set out to achieve these goals, I am backed as much by a competent and democratically elected team, an experienced team of founding members, industry veterans and two association secretaries as I am by the belief that getting to do interesting work, being respected for the work we do, knowing that it made a difference and ending up with a little more money than we need is what it takes to make people happy. It is this team and this belief that will thus guide all the work I plan to do over the next two years.
For freelancer language service professionals and language service companies to have access to interesting work, we plan to work on creating market access. Central and state governments can be great sources of revenue. We will work towards unlocking their potential. We will also work towards raising the entry barrier to our profession so that our customers can easily distinguish between credible language service providers and fly-by-night or self-proclaimed operators. We will partner with every university across India that offers a specialisation in translation, irrespective of the language, so that we can create a better pool of talent.
To ensure that the profession gets the respect it deserves, we have to first ensure that our members are skilled enough to deliver a quality output and conform to the highest standard of professional conduct and ethics. To that end, we plan to back members who wish to roll out association-approved training programs relating to every aspect of our profession. We will closely monitor our members’ adherence to the association’s professional code of conduct and continue to fine tune it as we cruise along. We also plan to partner with the industry and the government on initiatives of public interest to showcase our profession’s ability to make a difference. This will help us boost our professional image and credibility.
Better tax regimes, payment practices, indemnity insurance and collection agency services are also areas we aim to work on. This will ensure our members earn and save more money. We will also offer design and website support to members so that they can professionalise their online presence.There is simply so much to do and trust me when I say that we are only getting started. A large part of how successful we will be in our endeavours would depend on how our members come forward to help and how much money we are able to collect through memberships and sponsorships.
There is no magic wand and helping hands and money would be critical at every stage. Be that as it may, our intent is honest and resolve strong. The future is indeed exciting, and we will continue to work as a team in the interest of our members and our industry to make CITLoB a platform that allows members to learn, network and grow, both personally as well as professionally. Moreover, I would like every member to know that no matter what problem they have, the association will always have their back. That would truly be in keeping with our motto – united we stand, together we will progress.
I wish all of you a very happy, healthy and prosperous new year.
Dear friends, As we come to the end of an extremely eventful year, I cannot help but notice how eventful this year has also been for CITLoB. Growing from a mere idea at the beginning of the year to a fully functional association by the end of it, we have come a long way. Along […]
Sandeep Nulkar President| CITLoB
Dear friends,
As we come to the end of an extremely eventful year, I cannot help but notice how eventful this year has also been for CITLoB. Growing from a mere idea at the beginning of the year to a fully functional association by the end of it, we have come a long way. Along the way, we have been able to increase our visibility both nationally and internationally, broaden our LSP member base, add a chapter for freelance translation, interpreting and localisation professionals and, most importantly, create a platform that has started conversations between members.
I love how the association has become a fertile ground for thought-provoking and productive conversations. Pricing, payment terms, taxation, collaborations, M&As, market access, MT, training and lobbying are just some of the topics that members have brought up publicly or privately. This is an extremely reassuring development from where I see it, because I firmly believe that conversations are precursors to action. When members actively participate in discussions and begin raising issues that concern them, there is a greater impetus to act.
And act we will, now that manpower and money will not hold us back. The past few months have seen an increasing number of members come forward to volunteer to take up responsibilities. This, coupled with a Governing Body comprising democratically elected Vice Presidents and Association and Chapter Secretaries, will provide us with adequate manpower to do justice to every initiative. From January 2021, we will also start earning some revenue via memberships and sponsorships. That would eliminate a critical roadblock and make it easier for us to work towards our goals.
I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of you a very happy, healthy and prosperous new year. Take care and stay safe. Happy reading and happy CITLoBing.
Dear friends, I hope all of you are in good spirits and the welcome nip in the air in some parts of the country and the beginning of the festive season has cheered you up even further. This is usually a good time to sit back, relax and reflect on the year that went by […]
Sandeep Nulkar President| CITLoB
Dear friends,
I hope all of you are in good spirits and the welcome nip in the air in some parts of the country and the beginning of the festive season has cheered you up even further. This is usually a good time to sit back, relax and reflect on the year that went by and plan ahead for an exciting new year.
The pandemic and the resulting lockdown might have moved the proverbial cheese for a number of us, and on that backdrop, it makes even more sense for us to take the time to ponder over the direction we want our businesses to take in 2021. In that sense, I think that the bonhomie and camaraderie on CITLoB’s private group can surely help. We have managed to create a very healthy atmosphere of trust and I would urge all of you to reach out to fellow CITLoB Members to explore if you can use this momentum that we have created to build meaningful partnerships.
We now also seem to have gotten into a comfortable routine of bringing useful and actionable information to all of you through our monthly webinars and, of course, through IndoVox. For the latter, I cannot thank Ms Vidula Tokekar of Panacea BPO Services enough for her selfless service to the cause of our Association. She has almost single-handedly ensured that quality content keeps coming out month after month. Again, I would like to urge all of you to benefit from these webinars and newsletter articles and use the knowledge, information and ideas you get to give your businesses a new direction.
Take care and stay safe. Happy reading and happy CITLoBing.
Vidula Tokekar, Director, Panacea BPO Services Private Limited [More about her here] Training is crucial to the development of any industry. Training ranges from the entry level executives to the heads of organization. What is the trainings scenario when it comes to Language Business in India? CITLoB tried to find answers to some key questions […]
Training is crucial to the development of any industry. Training ranges from the entry level executives to the heads of organization. What is the trainings scenario when it comes to Language Business in India?
CITLoB tried to find answers to some key questions directly from Indian LSPs. One of the objectives was also to understand the training needs of the industry and the responsiveness to training initiatives by the association. However, we really wanted to know what this vibrant industry is doing to keep in line with the changing times. How is it training its entrants and flag-bearers? What do they feel are important issues for training? Is there any correlation between the age, size and training activity of LSPs?
The dip-stick survey brought out interesting insights, as expected. Let me share the analysis with you briefly.
Out of 21 respondents, 11 were directors, 6 were proprietors, 3 were functional heads and 1 was a project head in their respective organizations.
As for the age in business, 2 LSPs are yet to complete their first year, 13 have completed 1 year and going towards 5 years. 3 LSPs have completed the crucial milestone of 5 years and 13 have completed 10 solid years in business.
The team size of 71% of the LSPs is less than 50 members. 9% are in the range of 51-100 members; and only 18% have crossed the bar of 100 members. Even within that group, only 1 respondent LSP is bigger than 250 members.
The average age of 67% respondent LSPs’ team members is in the bracket of 26-35 years. There is one LSP made of young translators with the average age between 20-25 years and 6 have matured team members of 36-50 years of age.
We asked the LSPs if they have organized training activity in their organizations. 16 out of 21 answered in affirmative. As expected, out of 13 LSPs who have completed 10 years in business, 11 have an organized training activity for their teams. All the respondents with a ‘no’ to this question have team size below 50. Not sure if it is a cause, or the effect.
The respondents have shared very interesting ways how they make the trainings more effective. Some of the ways are:
Structure and agenda of training
Interactive methods and excellent content
Feedback and post-training assessment
In spite of the varied sizes and ages of the respondent LSPs, 4 training objectives or focus areas have been highlighted through their responses. They are:
Related to quality
Related to skill development
Related to team and employee development
Related to process and workflow improvement
There is visible awareness among the heads of LSPs about their own training as business leaders. CITLoB leadership, are you listening?
The areas identified for self-training are:
Collaboration with foreign LSPs
Entry in international market
Industry best practices and trends
Internal communication
Negotiation and conflict management
Operational excellence
Pricing
Productivity improvement
Profitability Management and Resource Allocation
Project management
Quality of translation, VO
Technology implementation, integration and upgrade
14 out of 21 respondent LSP heads have shown willingness to share their expertise with the fellow professionals. The areas of expertise that they have come forward with are:
Business operations, financial management and marketing
Effective communication with our European counterparts
Language
Product development
Small business project management
Subtitles
Translation of creative content
VO, translation
Though most of the respondents value the importance of regular training, when we asked them if they would nominate their team members for paid training from CITLoB, interestingly, 8 came forward with a definite ‘Yes’, one respondent answered in negative and 12 responded with ‘maybe’.
The survey was a small step towards self-assessment of Indian LSPs against various parameters. CITLoB members are trying to make themselves competitive in the global markets. Self-assessment, cooperation and improvement in the marked areas will pave the way towards scale and success.
