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The market for language services is experiencing an especially fortunate moment. Like all sectors, at first it felt the effects of the pandemic.
However, LSPs (Language Services Providers), thanks in part to their agile nature, have managed to reorganize their activity based on the "remote" model and restart without too much difficulty.
In addition, the rapid growth of e-commerce, e-learning, and in general the increase in the consumption of online content continues to generate a lot of work for translation and localization companies: between 2020 and 2021, the sum of the earnings of the 100 largest companies in the industry has increased by nearly 23 percent and the trend does not seem likely to decline, at least for now.
According to the consulting firm Nimdzi, translation and localization are the most offered services, followed by machine translation review (called machine translation post-editing), subtitling and original content creation (copywriting, transcreation and content creation).
If you are looking for a translation service, this is great news: there are many solutions to choose from based on your company’s profile.
The five segments
The translation market has always been very fragmented and even today can be divided into 5 major segments:
- Multinationals
- National agencies
- Local agencies
- "Mom & pop" agencies
- Freelance translators
Multinationals
As a number, the multinational segment occupies the smallest slice, but it is the one that generates the most revenue: major companies in the field, such as TransPerfect, Keywords Studios, Lionbridge, have offices around the world and are structured like any international company.
Among translation providers, multinationals offer the widest range of services, covering all areas of specialization in hundreds of language combinations.
They normally have enormous resources, human and technological, always on the cutting edge. Often they have developed their own translation systems and offer "connectors" that link the client’s content generation system with the translation workflow, automating the many steps that make up a translation project.
However, since these are giants, the human relationship is often more aseptic. Project managers or account managers rotate frequently. Each project is managed according to standardized processes, efficient yes, but often inflexible, especially in emergencies. Communication can be slow and complicated, almost bureaucratic.
On many occasions these multinationals rely on other smaller agencies, which in turn give the assignments to their own network of collaborators. Because of this, the price of the service rises, but this increase is not matched by any perceivable added value for the customer.
Ultimately, a multinational company should be entrusted with those who generate huge volumes of specialized content, which must be translated in a short time, in as many languages and through as automated a process as possible, generally those who have sophisticated technical needs.
National agencies
The second category is large agencies with a strong national presence. They usually specialize in certain areas and offer the services to and from the local language.
Not infrequently, they are able to offer respectable technology solutions, such as dedicated project management systems, client portals, and online translation tools.
The relationship between clients and project managers is more direct than in multinational companies. Again, service costs can be uncompetitive, because--like multinational corporations--large national agencies tend to use a long supply chain with various intermediaries, so that the final price ends up being higher for the same service.
Specialized national agencies are ideal for those who need to translate large amounts of very specific subject matter texts to a single language or a limited number of languages.
Local agencies
A third category is what we call "local agencies." are those medium to large ones with a more limited territorial scope, often formed by a group of entrepreneurial-minded freelancers who have set up partnerships.
They usually are not the best technologically, work with fewer languages and in fewer areas of specialization. Economically, since they translate in-house, they are quite competitive.
Having fewer projects to manage, local agencies are able to follow up with clients more carefully and with tailored service.
"Mom & pop" agencies
We use the phrase "mom & pop" (from english "mom and pop") to define small and micro, often family-owned agencies (hence the name), that turnover less than 1 million euros.
They represent the vast majority of companies that make up the language services market, as many as 80 percent by some estimates.
Although they are small and have limited resources compared to the types of agencies already seen, usually the service they offer the client is unparalleled: working with a "mom & pop" agency you usually deal directly with the owners and not with an account manager or project manager. This is an advantage not to be underestimated: no one knows the possibilities of the company better than its owners. They will be able to offer you a tailored solution and select the right human resources and technologies for your project.
Freelance translators
The last category is the cauldron of independent workers, who operate alone in the market and perform all tasks ancillary to translation on their own, such as technical tasks (document conversion, extraction of translatable content) or layout, for example.
Since we are talking about individuals, they are able to handle limited amounts of work, and they usually offer one or a few language combinations. In contrast, the prices offered are competitive.
Who should use a freelancer? If you only need occasional translation in one language and the format of the file to be translated is common and does not involve complex conversions or layout, it may be more cost-effective to hire a freelancer.
The criteria by which to choose a supplier
Choosing the right vendor for you and your business is a decision that depends on many factors:
- volume and frequency of content to be translated;
- how many and what language combinations are needed;
- budget available;
- type of text (general, specialized, niche);
- format of the content to be translated;
- need to extract translatable content from a CMS;
- urgency;
- need for services other than translation.
To complement this list, in the article "3 simple steps to choose a language service provider" we also indicated what are the three basic questions to ask yourself before choosing.
And Qabiria?
After this brief overview of the market for language service providers, you may be wondering which category Qabiria belongs to and who should work with us.
In Qabiria we work differently. With the Q System we make your texts more streamlined and effective, your translation more economical and your message more powerful. How do we do it? Optimizing and eliminating unnecessary processes, redundancies, automating the automatable.
In size and turnover, Qabiria belongs to the large group of micro-agencies, also often referred to by the euphemism "boutique agencies." If you are curious you will find the history of our origins and all the stages of the journey that began in 2008 in the Why Qabiria section.
Given these relatively small corporate dimensions, in terms of skills and technical abilities, Qabiria is second to none. Often, more renowned agencies turn to us for refresher courses or to receive support when facing technologically complex projects.
In addition, with an extensive network of carefully selected collaborators, Qabiria can take on large-volume projects.
And finally, Qabiria’s owners, Marco and Sergio, continue to interact directly with clients, ensuring a personalized relationship without lengthy paperwork.
In short, Qabiria is smaller than a soccer team, but it plays with all the big ones.
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