The Challenges of Translation in 2017 - Creative Word

SDL Trados, one of the market leaders in translation software for translation memory, terminology management, and software localization has released the findings to its latest translation industry survey, ‘Corporate Translation Technology Research 2017’.

The findings of the survey are based on the responses of  554 translation professionals working in companies around the world that have a translation requirement.

The report [which you can download here for free] identifies how the industry approaches the challenges of translation and offers insight on how to solve some of the more pressing issues.

As illustrated in the image above, the survey found the top concerns and challenges of translation professionals to be:

  • Maintaining quality & consistency
  • Shortened project deadlines
  • Increased demand internally for translators
  • Lack of qualified translators
  • Educating stakeholders on the translation process
  • Translation budgets not increasing in line with demand
  • Increase in the number of language pairs being translated
  • Getting sign off on new technology investment
  • Managing 3rd party translation suppliers (LSPs)

The illustration also shows how the last 3 challenges are seen as becoming more important over the coming 5 years.

So what does this tell us?

  • Essentially that the demand for translation services is growing very fast. Although efforts are being made to speed up the process via software, AI and translation memory, the sacrifice to quality is still perhaps a concern for many.
  • The lack of qualified translators and the increasing number of language pairs signals the growing need for translation between and across many continents and countries and the breakdown of the traditional language pairs of trade and commerce.
  • With the translator sector set to surpass $40 billion in revenue this year, all the signs are that the future is very healthy for translation, however constant innovation is needed in order to meet not only the demand, but the increasing type of demands.
  • Above all, what the data tells us is that what people still value the most is….quality.