Monday, August 11, 2003
One study estimates the translation industry will be a $5.7 billion business by 2007.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
MIAMI -- Ken Zwerdling remembers the moment he fell for the translation business.
It was 1997. He had left his management job at Ryder System to work for himself, writing business plans for start-up firms. But then, his wife, Tamar, an Italian translator and interpreter, got the job of her career: interpreting in a high-profile case involving Italian families suing a U.S. fighter pilot blamed for colliding with and snapping a ski cable, sending 20 skiers to their deaths in the Alps.
Zwerdling was struck by the inefficiencies in the translation business. He noticed that most translators and interpreters did not have the background in management, finance, marketing and accounting to run a company and take advantage of the new marketing opportunities the Internet offered.
He saw opportunity and founded Mondial Translations & amp; Interpreting Co. in 1998. The Fort Lauderdale, Fla., business uses the Internet to solicit and provide translation and interpreting services in more than 30 languages.
Big business
The tech revolution is transforming the translation and interpreting business, once a niche industry for bilingual people who offered their services to businesses, government agencies and individuals in their communities.
Now digital technology, Internet-based marketing strategies and e-mail are turning the business into a nimble, tech-intensive international industry that favors management know-how and quality control.
The transformation comes at a time when demand for translation and interpreting services is growing.
"As we move all of our materials in a global direction, translators will be more important," said Gina Bigge, a product manager at Sunbeam Products. She hires Mondial to translate packaging and instruction manuals.
The American Translators Association's membership has tripled in the past decade to include 9,000 companies (up from 3,000 in 1993), and an Allied Business Intelligence study estimates the translation industry will be a $5.7 billion business by 2007.
Membership in the ATA is just one of the new credentials translators are using to distinguish themselves from amateurs. New associate degree programs in translation is another.
The ATA charges $120 per year for membership and $130 for an accreditation test.
Competition
In the new world of translation and interpreting, there are opportunities as well as challenges.
Ambitious translation companies are now going after rival firms' contracts for translating legal, medical, technical and academic documents and textbooks in their local markets as well as other cities and countries.
Globalization and relaxed trade policies have increased demand for translation of Web pages, annual reports and other corporate documents for foreign investors and customers.
With the advent of the Internet, having a diverse bilingual population is no longer as much of an advantage as it once was for local translation firms.
Some customers, for example, are switching from hiring local translators to hiring translators working in their home countries.
"For years the translating industry was run by interpreters and not business people," Zwerdling, 42, said. "They don't know how to get new work efficiently. With my business background, I do."
His three-person company functions as a contractor and manager for 600 free-lance translators and interpreters scattered worldwide. Fees range from 15 cents a word for translating a letter into English from Spanish on the low end to 21 cents a word for translation of Japanese patents, the most technical and difficult assignment in the business, he said.
Mondial's revenue has doubled each year since its founding to reach $500,000 in 2002, he said. However, Zwerdling now faces the challenge of a crowded marketplace with high-end players.
In recent years, the industry has begun to consolidate, and it now has its own 900-pound gorillas.
Worldwide offices
Among them is New York-based TransPerfect, which has 19 offices around the world. With $25 million in revenue in 2002, it's among the world's largest translation companies.
TransPerfect's blue-chip client list includes American Express, ExxonMobil and Coca-Cola.
Elizabeth Elting, president and CEO of TransPerfect, said the company's Fortune 500 clients now have higher expectations than in the past and expect to see specialization in their industries from a translation company.
"Our goal has been to transform the industry, make it more sophisticated than the mom-and-pop industry it had been," she said, "and it's working."
TransPerfect, which was founded in 1992, expects each of its offices to make more money this year, contributing to an overall 35 percent increase in revenue in 2003.
With the advent of the Internet, small companies can set themselves up with marketing material pretty quickly, she said. But it's difficult for customers to gauge the quality of a firm's work through a Web site.
Criteria
While corporate managers who hire translators say quality is important, they also look for consistency and speed.
Some companies are opting to build in-house translation teams and bypass the outsourcing process altogether.
Meanwhile, Ken Zwerdling will continue to pour every business skill he possesses into building Mondial up through the Internet. He checks for e-mail from clients every 15 minutes, even while on a recent Orlando vacation.
Zwerdling also sends out 6,000 promotional e-mails to potential clients twice a month, attends trade shows, and does a lot of networking.
In the face of competition, he said, "I have to wow clients with service."