 The Association of Language Companies (ALC) held its annual conference last week in Las Vegas. What seemed particularly striking about the event was the international composition of its attendees. Of more than 200 language service provider (LSP) owners and managers, about 30 companies came from outside of North America, from places as diverse as Guatemala, Hong Kong, New Zealand, and Turkey.The conference focused primarily on business issues for language companies:
- Sales and marketing. More than 25 individuals attended the full-day translation sales strategy workshop delivered by Common Sense Advisory and Doug Lawrence of Selling Translations. On the first day of the conference, presenters such as Richard Brooks from K International and Rina Ne’eman from Hebrew Language Services shared their advice on issues that included translation sales pipelines and social media strategy.
- Growth and strategy. Deidre Doyle from ICA Language Services discussed growth and profitability in her presentation on strategic planning and budgeting, which was followed by an entire session devoted to the topic of growth, delivered by William Almas from B3Solutions. Michael Sank from TransPerfect discussed considerations for mergers and acquisitions.
- Benchmarking and differentiation. In the keynote address, Common Sense Advisory discussed maximizing LSP value, with a focus on the importance of differentiation. Shamus Sayed from Interpreters Unlimited presented the results of the ALC’s internal survey of its members to allow companies to compare their own numbers to its findings.
- Quality and legal concerns. Various speakers discussed issues around quality, including Luciana Ramos from Ocean Translations and Kristen Quinlan from Certified Languages International. Several panelists discussed the issue of contractors versus employees, a hot topic right now in the industry. Another session covered intellectual property issues.
- Technology. The tool vendors were out in force in the exhibitor area, meeting with their customers and talking with their LSP prospects. Doug Strock from Global Language Translations and Consulting delivered a session devoted to machine translation. Jost Zetzsche from International Writers Group delivered a very energetic and well-attended presentation that discussed what is missing in translation technology. The short answer? A whole lot. He highlighted the fact that translation tools have evolved very little over the course of the last three decades. Instead of taking the easy road and blaming the technology vendors for the lack of progress, Zetzsche argued that consumers of the tools, including those sitting in the audience, have become complacent. He pointed out that instead of using their purchasing power to demand that tech vendors rise to the occasion and develop the features they actually need, translation tech consumers tend to simply accept the status quo.
Attendees displayed impressive camaraderie and collaboration – something that is not always common among competitors. The large concentration of LSPs from other countries is a sure sign that international cooperation and relationship-building will continue in what is already a highly globalized industry. Language company associations like the ALC will be wise to harness their members’ willingness to work together to rally members around one of the most important issues for the industry at large – technology – in the same way it has begun to do for more domestic-centered topics, like contractors versus employees. |
No comments:
Post a Comment