And the key figures?

We have a total of 12 full time staff over three sites. We generated sales in 2001 of US$ 1 m, and should post US$ 1.5 to 2 m in 2002. Average growth throughout the life of the enterprise has been 35%.

How do you position yourself?

As an attractive challenger, offering a competitive alternative to the larger incumbents. As an SME, our overheads will be lower than larger competitors. We are a family firm with no venture capital backing and so have to grow organically. Which means strict budget controls on how much marketing we can do. We have developed a highly personalized approach of relationship building with clients, either during trade shows or via direct marketing efforts

What are your customers looking for?

Our customers are naturally trying to reduce localization costs while maintaining quality. But I believe localization buyer behavior is changing. In many cases, they are moving away from the practice of handing out contracts to a small set of large scale localization suppliers, and playing the field for the best price-quality proposition. If they are IT companies seeking localization services, they now feel they can handle some of the up- and downstream engineering tasks they used to outsource, and are now outsourcing the linguistic services they simply cannot handle well in-house. All this means that the market presence of more modest-sized localization vendors is increasingly appreciated by fairly large localization service buyers.

How do you handle QA?

Resource management is vital to ensuring quality of service. We are ISO 9002 compliant, and can handle the whole chain from file management to testing to re-conversion. We can set up a team of 10 translators on the spot for a given project and can scale where necessary. We've recently handled a project involving 19 languages, and frequently handle up to six language projects for European companies expanding into central and Eastern Europe. We qualify and work mostly with small local bureau of 3 to 4 translators who are experienced in handling TEP (translation, editing and proofreading) tasks for their languages.

Have you got all the tools you need?

Like most vendors, we are well-equipped with computer-aided translation tools (translation memory and terminology) and workflow management applications. However, given the plethora of translation memory tools, we see a strong need for some kind of standardization across all tools. Otherwise SMEs such as ourselves are obliged to develop engineering prowess for a time-consuming yet ultimately trivial task of offering the compete range of file format competencies for customers.

The big irony about purchasing localization tools is that you often have to make a substantial technology investment simply to learn that your quotation to the customer will shrink as your new tool calculates that you will have far fewer 'new words' to translate in a given file.

So what's the message to clients?

Never forget that localization resources and tools run up sometimes substantial overheads in terms of quality control when handling translation memories - precisely determining 100% matches, and checking for corrupt data, for example. You need to evaluate the overall cost of tool usage and ensure that a client fully understands all the steps involved.

What can the localization industry do for you?

The localization industry seems to have acted for the greater benefit of a few very large players and their customers the last decade. For SMEs such as ourselves, industry membership helps boost our visibility as a company, and enables us to take the temperature of current trends and seek out relevant resources in an effective, shared setting.

However, beyond the obvious need for a common debating platform for industry-wide technical issues, there is also a clear need for a localization trade show – a dedicated marketplace where supply and demand can come together in an unambiguously commercial setting to explore business possibilities.

What's the hardest part of your business?

How to get greater market visibility with limited means. And how to grow without losing one's soul.

The best part?

Operating as a small company at the crossroads of truly global contacts, using resources in Scandinavia to translate into Swedish the user manual of a manufacturing company in Tokyo.

Yves Vanneste can be reached at y.vanneste@anthealanguages.com.