The Translation Company Talk

S02E10: Evolution of Localization

In this episode of the Translation Company Talk podcast, we look at the evolution of localization. We go back and see the foundation of this industry and what gave rise to the demand for translation at the start. Soren Eberhardt from Microsoft discusses how localization has has evolved and which direction it is headed to, in particular focusing on where we are in the course of the great localization evolution.

Among the subjects covered, we discuss the disconnect between academia and industry, the role of computing power in broad adoption of localization, the impact of computational linguistics and machine learning beyond translation output, the evolving notion of end-client to supplier relationship, value of emerging technologies from machine learning to blockchain, the role of engineers in demand for automation in this industry and why language service providers must use trust as a currency to justify their existence and much more.

Soren Eberhardt is a Global Site Manager for Microsoft 365 web direct sales. He has been working in the field of internationalization and localization for 25 years, both on the vendor and client side and in different roles, from translator to localization engineer and program manager. Products that he has worked on include Windows, Skype, and Microsoft Teams. He has taught localization classes at the University of Washington and classes on computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools at NYU and Montclair State University; and he also helped release the first MOOC on localization at EdX.

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S02E09: Future of Events for the Language Industry

Last year we saw an unprecedented chaos due to the pandemic which continues to impact many industries. In person events, which was one of the main drivers of business for our colleagues in the on-site interpreting sector, disappeared almost overnight. Companies that depend on this line of business had no choice but to either evolve right away into digital platforms for interpreting or give up.

In this episode of the Translation Company Talk, we talk to Alex Chernenko from Translit to understand the current state of events and what the future looks like. This conversation builds upon what we discussed earlier with Kevin McQuire on this subject. Among many topics we discuss gamification of events, impact of isolation on interpreters, hybrid model of events, new opportunities presented by digital events, interpreter market places, the lag behind AI enabled interpreting, new industries driving multilingual voice in realtime and many others.

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S02E08: Successful Acquisition of Translation Companies

Mergers and acquisitions are common in all industries and the translation and localization sectors have seen their fair share of activity in the M&A area in the past decade or so. In this episode of the Translation Company Talk, Christophe Djouani talks about his experiences with M&A, and in particular the ingredients of a successful acquisition which is the objective in every M&A deal. Christophe is a veteran in this area as he has been involved and overseen multiple acquisitions and mergers throughout his career in the language industry.

We tackle questions such as how to set expectations, how to establish the value of an acquisition target and much more in this thought provoking discussion that should not be missed by industry leaders.

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S02E07: Scaling Up a Translation Company

One of the challenges that most of us face is to push our companies to grow beyond what has naturally been their growth rate or threshold. In this episode, I spoke with Cody Broderick from InWhatLanguage to discuss just that. Cody discusses in depth areas that language companies should be focusing on in order expand and scale up. He addresses key issues that are often overlooked by entrepreneurs in this space. 

Cody is the founder and CEO of InWhatLanguage. He is passionate about translation and technology, and stays ahead of the curve as he is very deeply involved in the industry. Besides that he is an advisory board member at the World Trade Center Utah, a member of the Board of Trustees at the Utah Technology Council and and advisory board member at the Utah-Qinghai Ecopartnership. 

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S02E06: Alignment of Sales and Vendor Management in Language Companies

We are often confronted with a difficult situation of resource imbalance in language companies. Some of us are more proactive in resource estimation, but there is no perfect formula. Anu Carnegie-Brown, Managing Director of Sandberg Translation Partners, Ltd. spoke with me about best ways to mitigate resource availability situations. Among other things we took a look at in-house and outsourced models and their pros and cons, as well as the potential of emerging technologies in improving the resource imbalance for language services.

Anu also talks about alignment of demand between sales and production teams that impact the output of vendor management organization. Many organizations do not have proper communication in place and end up in a reactive situation where vendor management is constantly responding to urgent inquiries for resources which affects the quality of work and in some cases in loss of revenue due to cancelled projects. As service companies very rarely we spend enough time in the area of service or product development in order to package our resource output for our sales team, and Anu talks about the importance of this area of business.

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S02E05: Understanding Marketing Localization in the Enterprise Context

In this episode of the Translation Company Talk podcast, I had the pleasure of interviewing Rafaela Rescolino, a Localization Program Manager at Uber - the ride hailing giant out of Silicon Valley. Rafaela candidly talks about how she got involved in the localization industry and reflects on her experiences navigating different roles until she ended up at her current role at Uber.

We discuss what marketing localization is and in particular in the context of an enterprise setup, what does it mean to implement localization of creative content for different channels. She talks about what makes a good marketing localization team and what is important to ensure the content reflects the organization's vision, ideals and its voice across all markets and all channels. If you are a localization manager, you will find this interview very interesting as we discuss what it takes to do your work successfully. For the supply side, this conversation offers insights on how value can be generated by understanding the inner workings of a marketing localization team.

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S02E04: Defining Specialization for Translation Companies

Steve Kahaner is the VP & General Counsel of Marste & Co., Inc. and the Executive Director of Juriscribe®, and he spoke to me about the importance of specialization for a translation company on this episode of the Translation Company Talk. Steve has been around in the industry for a long time and has a firm understanding of legal translation sector as his organization only works with lawyer linguists and offers its services to legal and financial organizations.

Among the topics we were able to cover, we discussed why would organizations want to be specialists verus generalists, the impact of specialization on sales, creating focus and clarity through defining what the company does best which is reflected in its business makeup, the roles of linguists and internal staff and many other interesting topics.

I highly suggest this conversation for leaders of small to mid size language companies that are in the process of carving a niche for themselves or trying to scale up their niche expertise. Steve is also a lawyer, seasoned entrepreneur and one of the founding members of the Association of Language Companies, where he serves as a general counsel these days. He is also a long time Board member and currently the Secretary of the Spain-U.S. Chamber of Commerce. His contributions to our industry are many, and he is tirelessly supporting efforts to improve conditions for our colleagues in this exciting place.

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S02E03 - Evangelizing the Importance of Localization in the Enterprise

In this episode of the Translation Company Talk podcast, I had the pleasure of interviewing Aïssé Gryga, Product Content and Localization Manager at UKG. We cover the topic of evangelizing the importance of localization in the enterprise. Educating our business partners in the enterprise about localization has been an ongoing challenge for many localization managers and it continues to remain in one form or another.

Aïssé addresses issues such as lack of awareness about localization which has resulted in localization taking a back seat at the C level decision making processes. She also talks about how it seems to be a trend not just with localization but also affecting other knowledge based services such as content development. We also discuss how localization is misunderstood and often confused with translation which is a major part of localization.

I found this conversation particularly interesting and engaging because we talk about a real world issue and I believe that as an industry we can do better to raise awareness about what we do. I have often heard that our conferences and events are great venues to communicate, but we end up talking  each other instead of the people that must know about what we and that must change. Do not miss this episode if you are a localization manager and you have run into problem of lack of awareness about your work.

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S02E02: Dynamics of German Translation Market

The German translation market is not just big, but it is also very unique and different from the North American translation markets. Christina Jagdman, CEO of wordinc, joins me on this episode of the Translation Company Talk, discusses how the translation business works in the German market. She discusses how she started in this industry as well as how things have changed in the past year or so.

She also talks about about the German localization market in general, state of innovation in this market, the sectors driving the German market, language combinations commonly involved in localization, work volumes, demand for translation vs the emerging field of transcreation, inter-dependencies and integration of German localization market with other markets in the DACH region, adoption of technology and investment in this area, fragmentation of the market, segmentation of the localization industry, M&A and investments from outside the industry, profit margins and what drives them, finding the right partner to expand into the German market, the impact of Brexit and the EU regulations affecting the translation and localization market.

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S02E01: Strategic Leadership in the Translation & Localization Industry

This is the first episode of the second season of the Translation Company Podcast. It is a special episode because Sultan Ghaznawi, the President of YYZ Translations, who hosts this podcast reverses roles with his past guests to talk about his involvement in the language industry, his views on technology and NLP in particular, as well as his vision for the future of this industry. He discusses how he found himself in the language industry, his motivations to support communities and associations, sales and business development as well as what end clients should know about the language company issues and opportunities.

Sultan  also talks about the art of leadership, skill building, community development and the evolution of our industry through an entrepreneurial lens. He also discusses the role and importance of social media in building communities and maximizing their potential for sales. Sultan also provides his vision for the future of this industry as well as advice for colleagues who sell language services. He acknowledges Craig Buckstein, Jan Henrich, Lelani Craig, Anna Schlegel for their work, support, and contributions to the industry.

Special thanks to Carrie Fischer from Subway, Iti Sahai from Procor Technology and Javier Carvajal from Acclaro for hosting this episode and asking thought-provoking questions.

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S01E28: Expanding Your Language Business During Pandemic

In this episode of the Translation Company Talk, we discuss how you can have a growth mindset to expand your language business while the world is going through a pandemic. I have invited Jordan Evans, President and CEO of Language Network, to discuss his experience for growing his business in the past year while dealing with adversity on a personal and business level. Among other things we talk about Jordan's journey in this industry, his growth and expansion strategy, his use of technology, how the customer and consumer behavior dictates how language services are delivered and scaling up your services. 

Jordan specifically talks about how he changed his mindset from a crisis mode in the middle of the pandemic to that of a growth and expansion, and how he developed a strategy to acquire another language provider. We discuss how this acquisition experience has shaped Jordan's opinion about expansion and growth and what it takes to successfully acquire another company. We also spend a few minutes to discuss technology, efficiency gains through process improvement, identifying and pivoting towards niches that are most relevant and Jordan's predictions for the coming year.

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S01E27: Resilient Interpreting Companies and Innovation

Kevin McQuire is the president of Atlas Language Service. On this episde of the Translation Company Talk podcast, he explains how he found himself in this industry by accident and to this day he credits his mentor, Luis Echeverri for helping him navigate his way in the interpreting world. He has been leading his organization to provide interpreting services to 14 world leaders as well as the Pope.

COVID-19 has been devastating for almost all industries, but the onsite interpreting industry has suffered more than a lot others. Kevin talks about the challenges that his company has been enduring the past few months because the work dried out from the onsite events. He discusses how the largest revenue stream for his company changed overnight, and despite a diversified portfolio of services, the impact was significant. We talk about how Kevin lead a self-reinvention initiative by introducing Remote Simultaneous Interpreting as an alternative despite investing heavily in onsite interpreting equipment. Among other topics, Kevin discusses what the customers and interpreters are going through, what leading as an entrepreneur means during these tough times and how he manages stress.

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S01E26: Impact of Localization on Large Scale Philanthropic Missions

In this episode of Translation Company Talk podcast, I had a candid discussion with Patrick Nunes from Rotary International. Patrick is a seasoned industry veteran who is not only leading the localization efforts at Rotary but also a member of Board of Directors at the Globalization and Localization Association. He provides his deep insights about the industry and in particular how localization plays an important role in disseminating information across a global audience in the context of philanthropic and humanitarian efforts.

We discuss how Patrick got involved in the industry, his current role and how he lead a full transition of his current tea m from a translation and interpreting type environment to a robust and disciplined global communication unit that develop both centralized and decentralized local content. He also talks about the importance of strategic alignment between localization and overall corporate communications. Among other topics we discuss the design and model of a corporate localization team, partnership with LSCs,  metrics and KPIs, using machine translation, the main challenges facing his team and many other important and valuable subjects.

Don't forget to subscribe to the Translation Company Talk podcast on iTunes, Apply Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or your favorite platform. Your comments and feedback are very important, please share them with us and don't forget to give us a 5 star rating on wherever you are listening to this podcast.

S01E25: The Nuts and Bolts of Corporate Globalization

In our latest episode of the Translation Company Talk, I had the pleasure of speaking with Anna N Schlegel, from NetApp. She is a veteran of this industry and a pioneer in so many areas. We discuss many topics that revolve around corporate globalization and define the key concepts related to strategy, building teams and establishing value through a consistent and well-formulated thought process.

Anna has published a book titled 'Truly Global: The Theory and Practice of Bringing Your Company to International Markets'. She has first hand experience in building globalization teams and explores why this area is not so well understood. We also take a deeper dive into the executive mindset and how that affects the corporate globalization efforts of large organizations that want to venture beyond their traditional markets.

Anna N Schlegel is Vice President of the Global Portfolio-to-Market Lifecycle organization at NetApp. In her role, she oversees a variety of teams, including: Enterprise Globalization, Information Engineering, and Product Portfolio Solutions. Anna has worked in the tech industry in the Silicon Valley for over 20 years, leading teams at Cisco, VMWare, Xerox, and Verisign. Anna serves as the Global Executive Sponsor of NetApp’s Women in Technology organization, where she focuses on developing female leaders in the tech industry. She is also the co-founder of Women in Localization, the leading professional organization for women in the Localization industry with over 5000 members worldwide. 

Anna speaks 6 languages, is a native of Catalunya, and lives with her family in Santa Clara, California. 

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S01E24: Selling Languages Services to Millennial Buyer

We are witnessing a generational shift in the localization and translation industry both on the supply side and on the client side. In this episode of the Translation Company Talk, we discuss the opportunities and challenges for selling language services to the millennial buyer. I invited Javier Carvajal from Acclaro to join me in this discussion and provide his take on how to successfully connect with buyers representing the millennial generation.

Javi, as he is known amongst his friends, talks about the importance of empathy, building communities, maintaining cordial relationships and the unique attributes of this type of language services buyer. If you are a marketer and you are actively using social media to reach out to potential buyers, you do not want to miss this episode as it includes very practical advice on how to make meaningful and useful connections.

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S01E23: What is Product Localization?

Product localization is a relatively less understood and discussed subject within the larger localization and globalization picture. In this episode of the Translation Company Talk, Iti Sahai from Procore, takes a deep dive into what this concept is and how it affects the end user. Imagine the position of the steering wheel on a vehicle in North America versus in the UK, automotive manufacturers have to localize their products to meet the local traffic and regulatory requirements in order to sell their products there.

Among other things, Iti discusses what a product localization team looks like, the people working there and their experiences, as well as the role of vendors and suppliers within this group. We also discuss strategy, relationships, value creation and how to measure it among many other interesting topics.

Iti is a well rounded and very experienced localization manager who has seen everything from localizing for Bollywood, working on the vendor side to leading and managing a cutting-edge localization team at her current role.

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S01E22:The Language Company Merger Protocol

Paul Doherty is a seasoned entrepreneur and has spent most of his life in the localization and translation industry. In this episode of the Translation Company Talk, he talks about what makes successful mergers and the causes for failures. In particular he talks about the importance of setting expectations, not rushing into conclusions,  having the right people and the role of leadership in successful mergers.

Paul has been involved in the mergers of MTL and Berlitz, which was later acquired by Bowne International and he was part of the merger team. When Bowne was acquired by Lionbridge, Paul was the managing director in Germany and then in the UK and he was involved in all the merger activities. He was also involved in SDL in this area. Recently he has been involved in the M&A space as a consultant.

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S01E21: Women Led Language Services Companies

The language translation and localization is a diverse industry and has evolved over the years. Molly Naughton, president of aia Translations speaks with me about what it means to be a woman leader in this industry. We discuss topics such as challenges and obstacles for women in this industry, mentorship opportunities, biases within and outside this industry and Molly's personal experiences in this industry.

Molly also talks about how our companies can define ways to be more inclusive and supportive of women, enabling and empowering them to take leadership roles. She also elaborates on how women-led organizations perform better. This conversation was particularly interesting as we talk in the depth on issues and concerns that women experience on a day to day basis and how to find ways to mitigate and prevent such problems.

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S01E20: The Small Language Service Company Perspective

In episode 20 of the Translation Company Talk, I got to speak with with Carmen Hiers from Transforma Translation Services. She talks about the issues and challenges as well as opportunities that small language companies in the United States encounter. This is a very interesting conversation as Carmen shares her story, how she started in this industry and how it has evolved over the years.

We discuss how small LSC executives face very unique challenges and problems and how Carmen has overcome some of these concerns overtime. She also talks about managing stress, improving her work and life balance as well as the role of peers in staying successful.

If you are an owner or manager at a small sized LSC, this episode is a must for you. Make sure to listen to the end as there are some great tips and suggestions that you can apply to your work and life right away.

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S01E19: The Nordic Perspective of Language Industry

In this episode of the Translation Company Talk, I got to speak with Cecilia Enbäck from Translator Scandinavia AB. She started her career in the language industry by accident at a camp fire. This is a fascinating story. She talks about how the industry has evolved, how technology has guided their decisions and direction. She believe technology has helped their company deliver better quality to their clients.

Cecilia discusses the Nordic language industry and market in depth. She expresses her opinions as a language company entrepreneur, in particular the industry players, acquisition landscape, and how it has attracted a lot of investors in this industry within this highly competitive market. Given that the Nordics is a small but highly developed region, there is always need for translation and language. Sweden and the Nordic region as a whole has seen an influx of refugees and asylum seekers, which has driven the need for interpreting and document translation from foreign languages into local languages. We take a closer look at the makeup and structure of the government requirements and how that has affected language services in the context of immigration.

Among other subjects we talk about exports, M&A activities, emerging new sub-segments within the language industry, multimedia localization demand, work culture, lifestyle and cost of living impact on localization budget, evolution and growth within market, COVID and industry events in the Nordic region.  

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