20 lessons learned in 20 years of business
As EVS Translations UK approaches the celebration of its 20th anniversary in February, its founder and CEO, Edward Vick, joins us on the blog each week to speak about the business and life lessons learned from the UK chapter of his international business.
Thirty years ago, I did my first translation on a typewriter. You have to be at least 40 to know what one is.
Then came the computer and then the relief of moving from DOS to Windows!
Then came e-mails, Skype, Instagram, LinkedIn.
Do you remember the fears about jobs – typists would have nothing to do, card readers would have nothing to do? This is true to an extent but as a result there are NEW jobs. Many new jobs.
This progress has not resulted in unemployment.
It is the same over in our niche area of translations. Computers created an ability to make fewer mistakes. The whole page did not need to be rewritten after one error. With the internet, research became much easier. Then came computer assisted translation tools.
The word went around – translators would be out of a job. It sounds feasible, but the work translators had to do actually expanded far more than the expected efficiency gains.
Now, once again, I am hearing that a revolution has already arrived – the Googles and Alibabas and machine translations – less than 1% of translations now are paid for.
However, everyday there is still USD 200 million of translations which ARE paid for – with the market going forward at a rapid pace.
Disruptive innovation is everywhere
Last year, I presented at a legal conference. Part of the discussion surrounded clients rejecting the traditional by-the-hour method of billing and looking elsewhere – to more tech-savvy firms for solutions that deliver greater value.
It was great to hear. Uncovering and delivering value is the key in every industry.
At the same time, fintech is helping the banking industry solve the problems of legacy software and technology acquisition is seen as the no. 1 driver of M&A pursuits in 2017, according to Deloitte.
Innovation has always been the life-blood of business, and technology is providing solutions for productivity gains, scale, speed and big data. The pace of change can be hard, so how do you keep up?
At an early stage in EVS Translations, trying to manage all the different technologies became so complex and time-consuming, we decided to build a team.
This was our own IT team which would be responsible for managing our network, as well as providing an internal ‘helpdesk’ to our expanding global team and our translators using industry software. Later this team developed into the area of research and development for our company. To stay ahead, it looks five years ahead of where we are now and helps the company to set strategy for meeting upcoming technology trends.
The technology of translation
Today, this technology forms the backbone of any credible translation service – ERM systems, memory systems, plus the normal standard software and then of course network and security. New start-ups using the traditional model of ‘coordinator-contacts-freelancers’ are finding it much tougher to compete without an IT infrastructure in place.
And, translation buyers are demanding a much more sophisticated suite of translation services – clients want quicker turnaround times, a larger number of languages per order, a set of solutions for digital platforms, system integrations, and cheaper alternatives as their volumes for translation grow. Technology plays an essential part; and that’s even before we’ve started talking about neural machine translation.
But clients still need the kind of quality that 1) facilitates effortless communication and information exchange and 2) represents the company reliably to international stakeholders. Humans are still at the centre of it all.
Lesson learned: Technology offers opportunity for productivity gains and a chance to gain competitive edge. Looking forwards, the future for us is very much about ensuring data security for our clients. This is where we have focused a lot of our energy more recently. Not only through technology, but again through developing our own team of experts as well as developing and setting stringent internal policies so that we adhering to best practice.
We always have it in mind that technology is useless without trusted experts who can maximise use of it. When it comes to staying ahead of innovation, strangely enough, our staff are still at the centre of that particular strategy.
