Is Your Translation Business Model Obsolete

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2014By Sudheen M, Crystal Hues Limited

In my earlier article (Are We Staring at End-Of-Days for LSPs?) I had delved on the two reasons

that may be the leading causes for the sudden dip in the business of Language Service Providers,

especially those offering translation, editing and proof reading services. The two reasons included

online integrators which provided the platform for client-translator interaction and technological

innovations that helped reuse and automate translation.

An article written by Michael Fitzpatrick in NYT News Service and reproduced in Times of India on

January 5, 2014 specifically highlighted the technological advancement in translation and speech

recognition. He pointed out the steeply climbing corporate investments in technology, surmising that

there is a noticeable shift from “manpower to silicon power” in areas like translation.

Interpretation services with integration of technology, are now available at the click of button with

largely automated backend operations and delivering it through telephone, Internet and other means.

Naturally, this removed the premium prices demanded by the scarce resources since large pool of

resources are now made available killing the monopoly of resources in a specific geographic location.

Though this article sounds a bit ominous, it highlights the urgent need to reinvent the traditional

business model of vast majority of the LSPs, which is based on just managing the project and the

resources.

I thank all those who contacted me with their feedback and anxieties. In my next blog, I will be

sharing our experiences in an effort to look at possible way forward.