If your company already manages all of your translation projects in-house, you might wonder why you’d ever need to outsource your translation requirements.
Internal translations can be cost-effective, closely monitored, and issues can often be resolved almost instantaneously.
However, there often comes a point when keeping your translation requirements in-house can become counter-productive; they can damage brand recognition if they fail to achieve their localisation targets, can slow down translation speed due to frequent multi-tasking by in-house translators, and can be limiting in use due to lack of language pairs held by in-house teams.
So, before you commit to only using your in-house translation team, it is worth considering whether outsourcing some, or all, of your translation projects may be more beneficial to your company, and the points below will help you decide if the time to outsource your translations is now.
Why Outsource Translations?
Firstly, let’s consider some of the reasons why you might want to outsource your company’s translation projects:
• Language Pairs – many linguists speak only 2 or 3 languages fluently which can mean you are restricted by your in-house team’s knowledge. Most professional translation companies have the ability to access linguists in almost every conceivable language pair, so reaching out into new markets doesn’t need to involve hiring new staff, checking their credentials, and spending time and money researching languages, cultures and target audiences.
• Localisation – translation alone often isn’t enough to secure your brand in a new market. Instead, many translation professionals offer localisation. Localisation considers certain elements alongside translations that may affect how your brand is viewed by your target audience, For instance, if entering an Arabic market for the first time you must consider religious difference, gender portrayal, image significance, and so on. There can be huge negative implications if you get this wrong.
• Industry Specific Knowledge – if your company deals with a specific industry, this might be law, engineering, or manufacturing for example, then it is possible you will also require translators that are specialists in this field. Professional translation companies often offer a translation service that is linked to certain industries, and they can guarantee linguists who are also specialists in their given fields. Mistranslation mistakes made in medical documents, legal papers, or engineering booklets can be costly to correct in many ways.
The reasons above give you some notion as to why you might want to outsource your company’s translation projects, and, when considered together with the need for high levels of accuracy, speed, and adaptability, it is easy to see why using a professional translation company for your projects can be more cost effective than an in-house team.
Time to Outsource your Translations?
The following points will help you to decide if it is time to outsource your translation projects, and should be considered within your existing, and future, requirements for translations.
• Quality – Do you have a specific team that consider the quality of your translations? Are there employees whose sole task is to proofread, edit, and review new or updated translations? If the answer is ‘No’, then it is possible that outsourcing your translation requirements will improve your quality control, and give you more accuracy, consistency and relevancy.
• Time – as the saying goes, ‘time is money’. If you have had to delay the release of certain projects due to translations not being completed on time, then you should consider outsourcing. Likewise, if you have staff that are inexperienced at localisation, or translation, it is likely to take them longer to complete large translation projects, which can hinder product release, delay website updates, and so on. Tight deadlines can be difficult to negotiate with in-house linguists, who might be juggling one or roles within a smaller company, so outsourcing will often relieve the pressure on them to perform all translations at high speed, and with precision.
• Multilingual Projects – complex translation projects that involve numerous languages, or a variety of content, take time, high attention to detail, and skilled linguists, in order to be consistent and accurate. Machine Translation tools are often used by professional translation companies to speed up specialist, or repeat translations, and can make a huge difference in time, accuracy and consistency. If you are considering a multi-platform translation project, or require multi-lingual translations, it is worth obtaining a quote from a reliable translation provider in order to assess the difference in cost between in-house, or external translations, and checking out their previous clients to see who they work with and which languages they use most frequently.
As you can see, there are a variety of instances when using a specialist translation company can actually save you time, and money, compared to in-house teams.
Small, one-off translation projects are perfectly acceptable where high levels of accuracy are not required, for instance, when replying to a limited number of foreign emails from suppliers, but should you wish to increase the scale, speed and accuracy of your translations, then it is vital you consider an external translation team for your needs.
If you require assistance with a translation project, or would like to discuss outsourcing your translations, please contact us at Creative Word, and we’ll be happy to offer guidance, quotes, and examples of our previous work as required.
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