Editor’s Note: You can meet Dr. Adriane Rinsche, Managing Director of Language Technology Centre, during the LISA Forum Europe in Berlin when she presents, LTC Worx – No More Compromises, on Tuesday, October 23.

At the same time, our industry is experiencing constant growth. We know that the amount of information that needs to be translated and localized is increasing year-on-year. Consequently, the need for other language services such as interpretation is growing too, as new markets open up. This has implications for corporate language departments, which must be prepared to deal with an ever-growing volume of work, and LSPs, who need to grab this opportunity with both hands.

There is another reason, of course, and it is perhaps the most important of all. One of the basic rules of business is that the more productive each of your employees is, the more work that can be done and the more your profits will grow.

Considering all of these pressures, it is surprising how many organizations are still not using software to their full advantage. Sure, everyone has implemented linguistic tools such as translation memories and terminology management by now. But, underlying this technology are often the same out-dated, inefficient and fragmented workflow processes. These are usually characterized by a mixture of spreadsheets, basic databases and word processing templates applied to project and business management.

It is surprising, considering how much there is to gain. The calculation is quite simple. Users of our systems, for example, report an increase in productivity of as much as 200%. If software can help you double or even triple the amount of work your Project Managers can handle, you will clearly be more profitable - surely the goal of most companies out there.

A growing, evolving industry – what does it mean for corporate language departments?

A growing, evolving industry means that multinational corporations – and those with multinational aspirations – need to be ever more aware of the challenges to be faced when expanding their business across new cultures and new languages. A lot of money and effort are currently being wasted – and a lot of chances missed – due to the fragmented processes being applied to authoring, terminology management, translation and outsourcing. Software can help to centralize all of these efforts, leading to a clearer global brand identity, while saving time and money at the same time.

And the opportunity for LSPs?

For LSPs, the many opportunities in this growing market are obvious. However, only companies ready for growth can take their share of business in this climate of ever-growing demand. Having the right systems in place for efficient resource management, clear workflow processes and instant financial reporting is the key to successful, managed growth.

Optimizing Multilingual Processes

So you want to optimize your processes? Prepare for the challenges ahead? At LTC, we know a thing or two about business management in the language industry. LTC started life as a consultancy in 1992 and since then has helped clients around the world to optimize their processes. As specialists in multilingual technologies, we were among the first companies to implement translation memory technology for our clients and to train Project Managers and Translators how to use it effectively. We are also pioneers and very proud of being the first to bring to market a business and workflow system developed specifically for the language industry.

Our experience shows that corporate language departments and LSPs usually consider one of three options when considering process optimization.

1) Build your own

The first is to develop your own project management tool or to use an open source solution and arrange for it to be customized. Clearly, many software development and localization companies out there have the expertise for this type of in-house development.

And the benefits are obvious. A ‘homegrown’ tool is built to your exact specifications. It has all the features you require and supports your way of working because it has been designed and built to do specifically this. Also, because all of the development costs are hidden – you are paying in-house staff who are on the payroll anyway, or external contractors who charge by the hour, invoicing you in small amounts – this seems a cheaper option than buying a product and incurring what appear to be higher, up-front costs. Finally, many believe that by developing open source or ‘homegrown’ solutions that they are not dependent on a specific developer.

Of course, there are a number of cons to this approach as well. You need to consider how independent you really are. As software development is probably not your core business, you may not have the experience to project manage such an undertaking properly. First, it can be difficult to judge whether a given group of developers are up to the challenge. Second, if your developer(s) leave, is there someone else who can easily continue development and maintain the product?

If you adopt an open source solution, your consultants may also become unavailable, leaving you with the same problem, i.e., customization and maintenance issues that pose a learning curve for the replacement consultant. This is clearly a waste of money and resources.

Furthermore, development often turns out to be quite expensive in reality. If you add up all the time it took you and your team to develop specifications, to develop your tool and to test it to ensure it was built according to the specifications, you will probably be surprised. Also, when you start actual development, you can never be sure that you will actually produce the product you envision.

Finally, there is the issue of updating and upgrading. Again, this is usually a very costly exercise since you must bear the full cost of development and testing to add functionality or to ensure that your system remains compatible with new technology. This is in contrast to off-the shelf products that usually include updates and upgrades in their pricing.

Although there are still many homegrown systems in use at the moment, the increased availability of generic solutions means that the former option is chosen less often now. It is one that needs to be considered carefully, as we have seen some companies spend vast amounts of money and time in a bid to create a perfect solution for themselves, only to give up and buy a ready-made system.

2) The ‘fully integrated’ approach

The second option is the beguiling promise of the ‘fully integrated solution.’ A single system from a single vendor that does everything: linguistic processing, resource management and allocation, workflow control and management, and financial management. Clearly, there are a lot of pros here. Because the whole system comes from one developer, you can be fairly sure that all components will interact properly and smoothly. And since all of your data is centralized and shared across the system, the problem of data duplication doesn’t exist.

But there are also pitfalls with this model. By adopting an ‘integrated system,’ you are buying into one vendor’s vision of management and automation. Great – if you are willing to fully subscribe to it – not so great if you have unique processes that you want or must preserve. And really not so great when you are suddenly faced with a project that cannot be fully handled by the tools offered by your integrated system.

The second problem with this approach is that many developers excel in one field. Many integrated systems are created around a linguistic tool set, for example. Although the translation management component of the system may be excellent, the resource and finance management components may be rudimentary, if they are included at all.

Clearly, these solutions may be appropriate for operations that offer well-defined services that have well-defined processes. Obviously, you need to decide how important your existing processes are to you and where you need to be in the future. Maybe you will need more specialized tools with functionality not covered by your solution. Or, you may find that your ‘1-size-fits-all’ solution requires your people to adapt to the solution, rather than the solution adapting to their needs.

As the name implies, the goal of ‘integrated solutions’ is to manager your entire process. If any aspect of the solution does not fit your environment and cannot be adapted appropriately, you may find yourself needing to find another solution further down the road – at additional cost and more lost time.

3) The ‘toolbox’ approach

There are around 30 translation memory applications, along with a similar number of terminology management tools, various machine translation applications specialized for certain language pairs, and various project management and business management systems on the market today. Each has its own approach, strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, it would seem likely that every operation should be able to find the right combination of tools to suit their needs.

Choosing a combination of tools gives you maximum flexibility and peace of mind. You can choose your core toolset and establish standard processes based upon them. It is easier to then replace or add a tool when new technology comes onto the market, for example, or to implement a certain tool specified by a client. It also means that you can leverage the best of everything. Choose the business system that best suits your needs, then add your favorite translation memories and the terminology management system with the features you need.

This approach does entail more research than the others. You need to know the market, evaluate all the tools, and find out whether they will work together and how. The solution may be more expensive initially, since you are buying from different providers. APIs are becoming standard for most software applications, so surely interfaces will follow. But until these are developed, you may have to enter some information multiple times into different systems. There is also no guarantee that the interface will work in the exact way you require, unless you develop or commission it yourself.

On the other hand, you buy yourself increased flexibility. You have the best tools for your operations, making no compromises, and you can easily exchange components as new technology becomes available.

LTC in Your ‘Toolbox’

So, how does LTC fit into all of this?

LTC Business Systems – LTC Worx and LTC Organiser – are used by corporate language departments and LSPs around the world today. We continue to be innovators in the field of business and workflow systems for the language industry. Thanks to our collaboration in research projects with large corporations and renowned research institutions, along with our commitment to work with and to listen to our customers, we continue to introduce features to the market that are then adopted as standard.

Before implementing a business management system such as LTC Worx

After implementing a business management system such as LTC Worx

At LTC, we are committed to an open dialog with all players in our industry. We believe that our business systems can benefit any operation with multilingual requirements. The emphasis of most developers has been on the linguistic side, while developers of business systems have not taken the special needs of our industry into consideration. Whether you use a fragmented, homegrown or integrated system to handle your business requirements, we truly believe that we can further improve your productivity.

Thanks to over fifteen years of experience in consultancy and ten in software development, we understand that each corporate and each LSP is unique. Each organization’s processes are unique because they are designed to support the services and languages they offer optimally with the tools required to do so. So we create software that adapts to our users and supports their existing workflows, rather than forcing them to adapt to our solution. We believe that there is no longer any need for an organization to consider developing a ‘homegrown’ system.

Creating a business system for the language industry requires entirely different skills and knowledge than developing linguistic tools. We have evaluated the integrated systems on the market today. Although many may look as if they cover some of the functionality that business systems offer, we believe that most users will benefit from using our technology in conjunction with one of these systems.

Finally, our technology obviously works perfectly as part of any ‘toolbox’ of software tools. Thanks to their flexibility and open APIs, our products are designed to meet any workflow requirement. Our business systems act as a foundation to protect all of your crucial business and project data, while allowing you to choose any other tools you may need.

We hope to see some of you during the LISA Forum Europe from October 22-24 to discuss your needs and thoughts on process optimization for the language industry. If you can’t make it to Berlin, we would like to hear from you anyway. Please email me directly at tobias.rinsche@langtech.co.uk, or visit us at www.langtech.co.uk.

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Tobias Rinsche is Vice President of The Language Technology Centre Inc. (LTC) in Washington, D.C. He has over 7 years experience in consulting on business process automation and optimization, and on IT infrastructure. Rinsche has successfully managed some of the largest and most complex implementations of LTC’s business systems. You can reach him at tobias.rinsche@langtech.co.uk .