As I considered what great technologies might be deployed to help advance the state of our industry over the coming decade, I was struck by what small progress we’ve made so far. Granted, our projects are increasingly more complex, we deliver larger volumes of work in shorter time periods, and quality has improved. And we do a lot more with fewer people and tighter budgets. But the contrasts to the way in which other industries have deployed technology are quite large. For example, consider what happens every 18 months in terms of microprocessor capability. Or perhaps more relevant, consider how companies have utilized Web technologies to transform fundamental business processes such as order entry and tracking (known today as customer relationship management), distribution, logistics and support.

Why is this? If you believe that our core service is translation, then we may be reaching the zenith. The translator’s technology toolkit, today comprised of translation memory, terminology management systems, and even the use of the Internet to form virtual translation teams may be best uses of technology for this function. Are translators more productive today than they were a decade ago? Probably. But do we foresee technology leveraging an order of magnitude increase in translator productivity moving forward? Probably not. (Yes, there are applications where MT can be highly beneficial. Yet we do not perceive Machine Translation systems as having a material impact on human translation for quite a while. But this is a discussion for another forum.)

Translation in and of itself is a component (yes, a very important part) of our service. Ultimately, our service is to transform technology products to be useful by users around the world. And I know I’m preaching to the choir when I tell you that what we do is fairly complex. The complexity results because we must work with the interdependencies and totality of the elements that form a functioning product. As the majority of the products we work with are software or the software embedded into a product, it’s worth spending a moment considering how software is developed.

Herein lies the problem. Software development today is still more akin to art than science. As the complexity of software grows with each revision, the process of designing, developing, testing and debugging software has not kept pace. For all the theoretical benefits of CASE and other tools, look at how most software is really developed today—overworked teams under tremendous time pressure cranking out lines of code as fast as they can type. Much has been written on this already, so I won’t go further. Thinking about it, there is quite a parallel between the translation process and software development—both are human endeavors with little automation deployed. Perhaps the biggest change in current software development is OOP (object oriented programming) that allows for the reuse of code elements. Which is much like the advent of Translation Memory, or the reuse of language elements. Recently, someone who knows a lot more about software development than I said that OOP helps good programmers become great programmers, while for bad programmers, it exposes them. But I digress.

The other day I was reading an exchange between a very happy customer and their project manager. It seems that our team identified a number of small structural errors and missing strings in a message file. We corrected them to the delight of our customer. Three thoughts came to mind: 1) As an advocate for our company, I could not have been more proud; 2) As business-person, I’m not sure we are able to be adequately compensated (or even recognized) for this service; and 3) The level of detail that must be routinely addressed almost completely obviates the potential for technology to make the process more efficient. Faster, yes. More efficient, no.

Perhaps some of you recall the mid 1980’s and early efforts using microcomputers to automate accounting systems at mid-size companies. The very first axiom every consultant learned was not to deploy computers to automate bad or non-existent processes. Putting a computerized accounting system into a company that did not have good manual processes only increased the speed and volume of errors.

So pragmatically, when I consider how technology can help to improve the state of our industry, it seems to me we are simply not looking at the entire picture. Until we are able to better control and improve the uniformity of the inputs we receive, the benefits from spending capital on automation tools is extremely limited.

Let me expand upon this. Bowne Global Solutions has made large investments in everything from financial systems, technology infrastructure, centralized project management systems, global process control to linguistic tools and systems. And we have received a direct and correlated benefit that has shown up in our financial performance. But these have all been fundamental needs and have not resulted in quantum improvements in what we do. And to be direct, we need quantum improvements in efficiency to deliver the financial returns that long-term investors demand. After all, at the end of the day this is a business like all others, and the goal of the business is to generate profits in excess of what can be earned elsewhere.

Unfortunately, it is going to get worse before it gets better. For all of the truly wonderful benefits of the Internet, it has created an insatiable demand for information. This has created a corresponding demand for systems to deliver information. So programmers are working harder and faster at churning out the code to set up the latest wireless information portal, etc. Without the time to adequately test the system, much less even consider that it needs to deliver this information in multiple languages—because it must be online and in the market by tomorrow morning or the company does not get the next round of funding. So the code we are provided to transform into products useful around the world is actually deteriorating. This is today’s reality.

Are there leverage points available today? Absolutely. For example, we believe that a truly robust automated global workflow system will help our production staff concentrate their skills on tasks that benefit the customer rather than those that benefit the movement of data. We are deploying linguistic systems that improve translator productivity and quality. For example, online terminology management systems reduce time spent searching for terms while improving consistency. These investments improve what we do today. But again, they do not provide a fundamental change in how we deliver our service since we started over a decade ago. Certainly we are more efficient, more productive and deliver better quality. But when compared to the progress made by manufacturing companies, we don’t even register on their process maturity model. That is why it is worth looking outside of our industry for benchmark examples to emulate.

Forgive me for not painting a simple utopian view of technology and the globalization services industry. So let’s close on a more upbeat note. Previously I discussed the unstructured nature of software development and the downstream impacts upon the globalization services provider. Looking at a three to five year horizon we are optimistic that by working more closely with our clients, we will be able to provide the data and the expertise to assist them to align internal development processes with the imperatives of global product development. Consistent inputs into our production environment will allow us to deploy systems that will deliver significant efficiencies in terms of resource alignment and utilization. To be effective, we need to engage the right resources (subject matter experts) on the right projects while maximizing production staff utilization and knowledge sharing. This is not unlike the task faced by global consulting firms that each week must quickly locate, deploy and then re-deploy their teams and specialists in the face of rapidly changing client projects. Professional Services Automation (PSA) systems are just now being utilized by leading consulting and other services firms. This is a technology solution to the challenge of managing knowledge workers and projects on a global scale.

Perhaps the combination of more consistent inputs, global workflow automation, advanced linguistic tools and the PSA system is the cocktail that will enable the globalization services industry to deliver the financial returns enjoyed by other professional services firms. Bottom line, technology in a vacuum is just interesting. Our objective is to intelligently deploy technology to enable a new standard of performance, in both our service and our profits. This is a worthwhile mission and one we are proud to lead.

About the author

Donald J. Plumley (don.plumley@bowneglobal.com) is the Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President for Bowne Global Solutions, a division of Bowne & Co. He has over 15 years of professional sales and marketing management experience in both manufacturing and service companies in the high technology field. He has been with Bowne Global Solutions for over four years and currently is responsible for corporate strategy and marketing. Previously, Don was the Director of International Sales and Marketing for a Honeywell division and was Founder and President of SaleSolutions, a Sales and Marketing consulting firm. Heis the author of Global eCommerce: The Market, Challenges and Opportunities and a frequent public speaker on global eCommerce and international business. Don holds an MBA from the Anderson School at UCLA and a BS from the University of California, Davis. He is a guest lecturer on global marketing at UCLA.