How the language industry will change in next 12 months

The language industry is changing rapidly and 12 months seems to be an eternity in an industry that actually sees major change every few months.

When I started temping at thebigword 15 years ago, we would receive a typed letter and in some cases it was even hand written. We would then use a clicker to manually count the words before going through a roller index of contacts to identify an adequate linguist, who would retype the letter into the requested language before returning it by snail mail to our client via thebigword office. If we were really lucky our clients would have a fax and we could save money on the postage.

In an industry where technology and service go together like two peas in a pod 15 years is a lifetime. The technology advancements that have been made by thebigword’s research and development team are advancing at such a rate that we could be looking back in 2012 amused about how we had to do things in 2011.

In 2003 I paid $500 for a two hour flight despite booking it four months in advance, today the same flight costs me $200. These cost savings have only been achieved by the airline industries neurotic approach to automating their repetitive processes, and over the last few years we have seen this same process take place across the top 20 companies in the language industry. An average workflow for a bigword client has over 8 necessary processes and in some cases over 55 processes in which to deliver the translated files as requested. These processes range from re-engineering files, tag and html protection, to a simple word count, but all are equally necessary to deliver the work effectively.

In order to make translation more affordable and available thebigword has been developing in conjunction with Gould Tech Solutions an entirely new breed of ‘Language Management System,’ that can replace any Globalization or Translation Management System on the market. In our management system, a user can acquire both interpreting and translation services at a touch of a button - but what makes it so relevant to companies competing in today’s economy is that the thebigword’s system is based on an innovative workflow solution that can automate over 3,600 different workflows without the need for human interference. thebigword will back the system with its team of 300 global operations staff to manage the few exceptions and architect the correct workflow for each individual requirement. What this all equates to is the potential for significant discounts and the ability to turnaround work far quicker whilst reducing the possibility of human error.

During testing of our workflow engine thebigword completed an 800,000 word job in 72 hours for one of the world’s largest investment banks. In this particular example, over 60 people and thebigword workflow system that included machine translation; translated, proofread and delivered work back at unprecedented levels and helped out a client who had been let down by one of the industry’s largest language providers.

Here is my take on the top three most recent and significant changes that we are witnessing at thebigword:

1. XML replacing the need for DTP – Many of our major clients are replacing their DTP needs by implementing XML based templates. This alleviates the need to use time consuming publishing and printing packages. thebigword has dedicated a significant amount of its R&D budget to both the creation of these new templates and the automation of workflows to extract and insert text back into them.
2. Machine translation will be the norm – 12 months ago we said that machine translation will be used for all major contracts within the next 3 to 4 years. Today we have shortened our predictions and are seeing most our major clients start to shift to machine translation technologies. thebigword is in the process of creating its own machine translation software and although we cannot disclose too many details at the moment, we can say that it will be integrated into our TMS: LanguageDirector® 3 and will once again set the precedent for providing innovative, technology-driven solutions. thebigword is currently using machine translation at the request of various clients and is looking to perfect both the workflows it is used in and the technology itself.
3. Increase in demand for post edit reviews – The significant increase in the demand for machine translation will have a great effect on the demand for linguists to carry out post edit reviews. If just 40% of translation is done by machine in the next 24 months this will cause a massive increase of over 38% towards the requirement of linguists to conduct post editing. thebigword is already working very closely with its suppliers to ensure that we are well placed for this surge in demand.