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Translation Budget
There is plenty of good information available online on how to maximize translation cost savings while still achieving a high-quality translation within a desired turnaround timeframe. In spite of this, we often encounter new clients who are not doing everything they can to cut translation costs.
You may think you or your translation procurer are getting the most translation bang for your translation dollar, but then again, you may be unwittingly and unnecessarily blowing through your translation budget.
What follows are six sections that may be problem areas for you in terms of optimizing your translation budget.
1. All translation vendor bids are equal--negotiate for bargain basement bids and squeeze every dime you can from your bidding vendor finalists.
This is mostly the cardinal sin of first-time translation buyers—you are probably not squeezing every dime from your current translation vendor, but let's review why this approach is such a bad idea.
We will be the first to admit that, to the buyer of translation services, a lot of translation vendors seem to be about the same—they all have the network of thousands of quality translators, they all have some type of quality metrics in place, they all use similar-sounding tools and processes to ensure terminology accuracy and provide cost savings. So, when you line up four or five vendors that offer similar services and guarantees of quality, you should be able choose the one with the lowest bid, right?
Is this how you purchased the family sedan or selected a real estate agent to sell you your first home? Probably not. You likely had a few expectations for that car or home that were unique to your particular needs, lifestyle and family. More importantly than that, you probably visited a few dealerships and talked to a few agents before you chose one you were most comfortable with to sell you that car or house.
Admittedly, you probably didn't have the same type of pressure from a supervisor to cut cost as much as possible, but your own sense of economy likely kept you from buying the most expensive condo or mansion in town and a Ferrari to go with it. You also have a gut reaction to bargain basement prices on cars and houses: There is probably something wrong with it.
A translation vendor who is giving you a quote that is considerably less than the other vendors might tell you they have special tools, processes or people to get the cost so low, but you would be wise to look under the hood before buying. Examples we've heard from clients who initially went the bargain basement route include:
• We got the old bait-and-switch—we were quoted one rate, and invoiced a much higher rate later with a bunch of add-on services that weren't in the original quote.
• This particular vendor used machine translation to translate our work, and amateurs (translation is a profession!) to clean up the machine translation.
• Our project was translated, that's it—we learned later that the other vendors had a whole process of independent review, proofing and QA that go into their projects to ensure quality, and while we were promised quality, all we got was an inaccurate translation that nobody reviewed—and, our files were all screwed up, to top off the mess.
Are we saying that the priciest quote from your four or five vendors would have given you the best translation? Not necessarily. Just like cars and homes have a going market price, so does translation. The additional margins added to the base translation cost per word are what enable the translation vendor to manage your project across multiple time zones, and ensure that you are receiving the most accurate translation possible.
Unless you are getting one single translation one time from one vendor, and you are certain you will never need translation services again, chances are exceptionally high that you will end up establishing some type of relationship with your translation vendor. Just like the car dealer or realtor you ended up choosing because they were "a good fit," so should your translation vendor be a "good fit" with you and your company's culture. We are, of course, assuming that you like to do ongoing business with partners that you can feel good about. If you like being treated like you are less-than-human every time you pick up the phone to ask about your project, then you should pick that vendor who will give you that kind of service.
2. Keep your translation resources well-scattered and hard to track down (editable files, contextual references, all translatable text, glossary, existing TM)—the more hard drives and networks they are tucked away on, the better.
Your company may have more translation cost-saving assets tucked away than you realize, especially if you are relatively new to translation buying at your company. While you would probably never admit it to your supervisor, if you have to spend two hours on the phone each time your translation vendor needed a source or reference file, that time will add up and add considerably to the cost of the translation project. A little planning to ensure that all of the resources the translation vendor will need can go a long way toward cutting cost and time for a given project.
Has your company used translation services in the past? You may discover that your company or the translation vendor for that project has an existing TM (translation memory) that could cut the cost of the current project considerably. The TM will have stored all of the translated phrases and terms from the last project, and the translated phrases could be re-used to some degree for the current project. (The TM will have to be relevant with similar terminology, same target languages, etc., and the previous translation will have to be of high quality to be re-used.)
If your translation project has a lot of text inside graphics, multimedia or PDFs that will require translation, then think about the difference in time someone (either your DTP team or the translation vendor's DTP team) will spend creating these files entirely from scratch, because the source files are on somebody's hard drive, and that somebody is on vacation for the next two weeks.
3. Translate everything without weeding out what can be machine translated or doesn't require translation, knowing who and what the translation is for, or even why it's needed in the first place.
Your translation vendor is perfectly capable of knowing what your organization will ultimately be using the translation for, correct?
While your translation vendor may initially love the fact that you have blindly sent them EVERYTHING to be translated without giving it a second thought, this will actually present headaches for everyone who touches the project. Without clearly specifying what does and doesn't need to be translated, you may find that you are repeatedly asked "so what here needs translating" once the project is underway. Review what you are about to send your translation vendor. Do you have folders that are almost entirely duplicates of other folders? Do you want to cross your fingers and hope that your translation vendor ignores these? Is there a lot of dated material that would be of little or no use to anyone other than investors and business intelligence companies?
It just makes sense that if you have a million words inside press releases, investor news items, and other dated material, you will want to leave those out of a translation project that is specifically communicating to engineers who use your products in China. From there, you can drill down further into your content and ask if there are certain products that are used only in certain locales.
For whom are you translating? Take the time upfront to understand your end users’ needs. You may discover that they prefer spec sheets in English, can get by with machine translation for huge chunks of the catalog, and really only will benefit from a small percentage of support and marketing information in their native language.
We recommend that you combine this approach with your company's overall global marketing strategy. There may be other advantages to translating large sections of the corporate marketing content, like Search Engine Optimization, brand equity, global lead generation, etc. The key take away here is that you know exactly what business goal(s) the translation is going to accomplish before you request it.
Your translation vendor should be poised to help you achieve success in business with your translation, and not simply provide you with words in other languages. The more information you can provide your vendor about the purpose of the translation, the better equipped the vendor will be to translate only the information needed to accomplish your business goals.
4. Make sure your source copy is full of idiomatic expressions and jargon that only a hip, cool American audience can understand.
Whether it's crafting a marketing message, creating a powerful advertisement, writing technical documentation, or designing a web site, "audience is everything." You know when you see a presentation, hear a joke, or watch a commercial and you are definitely NOT the target audience, but somebody older or younger than you is. You don't communicate the same way to your boss as you do your spouse or your children. In like fashion, a message or copy written specifically for an English-speaking audience in the U.S. will never translate easily and effortlessly into another language.
Just think of the variations and dialects of English spoken by people in different parts of the U.S., the U.K., Australia, India, and other parts of the world. When you travel to one of these areas, and you see local commercials that are heavy with the flavor of that region, you probably find yourself unable to follow everything that's being said, in spite of the fact that it is in English. The deciding factor in how English varies in these regions is, of course, that often loosely-applied word "culture." There are endless ongoing scholarly debates about how culture and language are or aren't affected by one another, but it should be readily apparent by the wide variations in English that culture and language are inseparable pieces to the puzzle of communication. The message you are communicating in English is inevitably affected by your culture, and the message your audiences will be receiving in other languages will inevitably be filtered and affected by their cultures.
If you are unsure whether or not your message will translate accurately, you may wish to have it either reviewed or re-written in "International English." There are guidelines for authoring content in a way that will be as business neutral and free from phrases and sentence structure that will impede a successful translation.
• Basic English sentence structure—subject-verb-object, no passive voice, confusing compound sentences.
• Avoid: idiomatic expressions, jargon, synonyms, words that can be nouns or verbs or adjectives, negative statements.
• All acronyms spelled out, with a glossary of proprietary terms.
• Use words with their primary dictionary meaning.
• Repeat a noun instead of using a backward-pointing pronoun.
Optionally, if you have prepared copy that is highly marketing-oriented, and you want to deliver the same impact in other languages, you should probably consider letting the translators on the project have significant leeway to re-write the message in their native languages. If you are embarking upon a significant marketing campaign in a new locale, and plan on having several media outputs to establish heavy brand identity in that locale, you should partner with a reputable advertising or marketing agency that has solid experience marketing to that locale.
5. Send out little bits and pieces of text for translation over the course of months or even years, and keep your vendor guessing as to how big the project really is or what is coming next.
Inevitably, every project is going to have updates, additions and revisions. With a little planning, you, your development team and your vendor can build contingencies for new and modified text into the translation process.
What changes do you or your team know will likely take place? Are portions of the help content and documentation still being reviewed and rewritten? Is the UI still being tested, and will it be redesigned, thereby impacting how much space can be allocated for text expansion? Depending on the size and nature of the translation project, some of these suggestions may or may not be applicable.
• Remember that your translation project manager is not the opponent, but a big part of your team. Keeping them in the know regarding changes—even those that may never materialize—is key to helping them stage the optimal project schedule and resource lineup and is a major component of the risk management process, which ultimately benefits you.
• If, at the outset of a project, you know that revisions or major changes may be in the project's future, discuss frankly with your translation project manager. They will usually be able to advise you when it makes more sense in terms of cost and time to wait a few days until more finalized material is in hand.
• Make an effort, when feasible, to batch your revisions and change orders; as mentioned elsewhere in this discussion, the average translation project involves a team of a dozen (often many more) vendor-side, and the effort/time/cost involved in processing each change can be formidable. Think "hurry up and wait."
• Even when you think code is frozen, plan for one update in the schedule and have a little extra money in the budget. There will invariably be one.
• If there will be a large number of changes, batch updates at an agreed-upon cycle with your vendor (weekly, biweekly, etc.).
• Assume that most changes will happen at the end of a project, so plan resources accordingly.
• Agree on a cut-off date for changes with your vendor. You can always incorporate small changes in a point release. The content has to be frozen at some point to make the ship date.
• Limit changes to only those that truly affect the content and understanding of the user.
• Communicate the change management plan to all relevant parties.
While updates are inevitable, don’t make the entire translation project an ongoing archaeological dig. The time invested in an inventory or audit of your project assets with an eye for localization will reap huge cost savings in the form of hours spent during the course of the project tracking down files across different networks and hard drives. What's more, in all likelihood, if you can provide for your vendor a complete package of everything that will require translation, your vendor will be able to provide you a volume discount, and you can avoid having those pesky minimal charges piled on to your invoice.
Before the translation project begins, be sure to:
• Specify your required services, tasks and deliverables
• Provide relevant background information related to the project
• Indicate projected milestones and product release date
• Include any existing glossaries and existing translation memories you have
• Verify that no files are missing and where multiple versions of source files exist, send only the version to be localized
• Provide contact information for all key project team members (developers, programmers, designers, project managers)
• Specify required output formats
• Include layered editable graphics files if graphics with translatable text exist, and source files used to create the documentation
• Indicate the authoring, multimedia and validation tools that were used to create the source files
You may have been asked, for instance, to translate a brochure into Japanese for an immediate, rapidly-developing opportunity that corporate has—but is this part of a more comprehensive, long-term strategy to establish business relationships in Japan and other countries? While you may not be able to have access to this information at first, it certainly doesn't hurt to ask, with your goal being to save your company money. If you learn that the translation brochure is going to be part of an entire expansion campaign into Asia, and communicate this with your translation vendor, you will likely receive a discounted quote, because your vendor is most naturally interested in having your repeat business, especially if there is to be a lot of it.
6. Avoid communicating with your translation vendor any translation project assessment details, project changes—heck, communicate with your translation vendor as little as possible!
Rather than viewing your translation vendor as an individual translator on steroids, you should view your translation vendor as a resource allocation and project command center—an extension of YOU rather than an extension of a translator. If you fail to communicate key project changes that greatly impact the overall scope and timeline of the project, your vendor will have difficulty finding and providing the optimal translator resources to match the needs these changes present. Think of your frustration when you are kept in the dark about key project details that could've saved you hours of time on the phone, legwork to different offices and departments, and general exasperation when discovering corporate had something else in mind.
While your translation vendor is generally capable of stopping on a dime to switch gears and meet your team's refocused priorities, the translators chosen for your project may have already allocated X amount of time to work on your project, and Y amount of time to work on another project, and the best translators are always in demand for competing projects. In other words, if you need more or different content translated sooner, you may find that pieces of your project need to be re-bundled and sent to other translators in order to meet your project objectives. The use of translation memory will ensure the accuracy of the terminology within the overall project, but it can't save your vendor the time that will be spent rebuilding a quality translation team and rerouting the project to new hands who will need coaching to ensure the consistency of your deliverables.
There will always be translation projects, no matter how big or small, that will offer both you and your translation vendor surprises. Budgeting changes, content updates, changes in regional marketing focus and unexpected additional material and products are all examples of surprises that you obviously can't tell your translation vendor about at the start of a project. Communication gaps regarding these types of changes will cost you big time in both time and money, particularly when you are faced with inflexible publishing deadlines. The important thing is to have an ongoing dialogue with your vendor’s Project Manager, who will assist you in communicating any changes in scope quickly and accurately to the translation team and keeping your project’s schedule a high priority.
While it is critical to keep your vendor “in the loop” regarding such changes—even if they are just being discussed or barely on the horizon—it is equally important to make an attempt to “batch” revisions and change orders rather than sending every change as it rolls in. The effort and rework involved in processing each change order on a multilingual project involving just seven languages could involve communications among more than fourteen people, most of whom are in various stages of translation completion. Bottom line: remember than your translation vendor is on your team, so the more information you can provide about what is "in the wind" at your location, the better they can advise you regarding staging of change orders.
Summary
We know that for you and your company, translation and localization are not an insignificant part of your project budget. What's more, we've met too many clients and prospects who have blown through their translation budgets, while seeking out the cheapest vendor bids possible. For those who haven't, there is often a horror story of discovering that the target audience was confused, shocked or offended by the resulting translation. We can't stress enough the importance of organization, planning and communication during the process of a translation project.