Dear SDL,
I attended your London
Roadshow at the Sofitel London St James Hotel on 22nd October 2015. This was my
third SDL Roadshow. It was my first as a freelance translator. I was a
translation buyer/project manager and client on the two previous occasions. I
wish to share my Roadshow impressions with you from my multiple perspectives on
the localisation industry.
TM Experience
As an MSC student in
Translation Technology, I gained experience in a wide range of software
including SDL Trados, Multiterm and Passolo. My preference back in 2005-7 was
Déjà Vu. Since turning freelance in 2012, I have preferred Kilgray's MemoQ as
more intuitive. I have also tried WordFast and OmegaT. It was in hearing of the
improvements in SDL Trados from fellow professionals that I signed up for this
year's Roadshow.
Great organisation
As a former marketer, I
couldn't help but be impressed by the new slickness of SDL's marketing and
event organisation. I liked the way you extended an equal welcome to all your
different types of clients - even humble freelance translators. The
coloured-edged badges made it easy for your sales team and attendees to find
each other. Your sales manager came up to us early on and made it known where
we could make enquiries or seek answers to technical issues. Not pushy, just
available. I liked that.
The presentations were well
planned. The room was wider than it was long. It had a screen for both sections
of the room. This meant that it was easy to follow the software demonstrations.
Listening to clients
My biggest impression was
that SDL is taking much more notice of its clients' and end-users' opinions
than it did in the past. A number of developments in SDL Trados Studio 2015
relate directly to such customer requests.
Clear vision
As a translator with a
Smart Cities' specialisation, I was particularly interested in SDL's focus on
the Internet of Things (IoT). This demonstrated to me that SDL is thinking well
beyond client requests too. The videos and explanations to explain that vision were
very clear.
Interactive
I liked the use of
interactive questions with the audience using their smartphones and tablets to
respond. The analysis was available in real-time too. 66.67% said that they had
a much clearer understanding by the end of the Roadshow. What a great way to
measure how your audience is responding to your messages during a live session.
It was so much better than a cagey show of hands.
Open to criticism
Your Roadshow team invited
comments from the audience - good, bad and indifferent. I was generally very
impressed by SDL's Roadshow. I do have one major misgiving.
Word counts
My concern relates to how
SDL has responded to project manager requests over word counts. It was very hard
to hold my tongue when I hear that SDL allows project managers to
"manipulate data". Someone is losing the plot when word count
scrutiny gets to the level of quibbling over whether a hyphenated word should
be one word or two.
Surely it cannot be common
sense for SDL to spend valuable IT development time on such
"manipulations"? In the demonstration, a word count was reduced from
112 to 79 words.
If we take a very average
rate of say £70 per 1000 words, 33 fewer words mean a saving of £2.31.
Maybe company project
managers feel the "manipulations" are worthwhile on large projects? Such
quibbling is responsible for creating bad feeling between translation companies
and freelancers. It makes freelancers feel aggrieved towards SDL and other tool
manufacturers too.
Translation company salaries
I understand that SDL is
responding to project managers' requests. Not every client request is practical
in the cold light of day. The translation industry is not noted for its
financial acumen. Salaries in the industry have fallen behind other fields.
I remember reading in the
lead-up to the UK's ATC conference that even a senior translation project
manager could only expect a salary in the £20,000 range. I pity junior project
managers trying to survive near the breadline in London. Maybe this explains
why £2.31 seems so important?
Client viewpoint
Clients are looking to
save thousands or hundreds of thousands in their documentation processes - not
£2.31. Process streamlining is more likely to deliver real savings. Translation
makes up a very small fraction of a project's costs. The real savings are
always to be made in multilingual design and other production costs.
As a client, I valued and
set a value on my time. It strikes me that while a freelance translator and a
project manager are quibbling over £2.31 neither can be working productively.
The freelancer will not be earning at all. The project manager's time will no
doubt have far exceeded the saving he is pursuing too. And what price do you
place on the damage to a working relationship?
Relationships
I fear that SDL must
shoulder some of the responsibility for the bad blood between freelancers and
translation companies. I was a client when SDL and other agencies started
selling their discounted rates based on full and fuzzy matches. The words
"discounts" and "savings" are always music to clients'
ears. They impress senior management and go down well in performance reviews.
Pricing strategy
Clients are not
responsible for the translation industry's ludicrous pricing system. They
readily accept hourly and daily charges from other suppliers working on the
same projects. Clients generally want a bottom-line translation price to add to
other project costs. They need the reassurance of price comparison to ensure
that they are paying a fair market rate for their stated quality level.
My colleagues never fully
understood the complexities of translation pricing. One translation company
presented a price study that claimed massive savings. The claimed savings
exceeded our annual translation budget.
How realistic are TM savings?
With translation company
help, I set about analysing actual translation memory savings over the
long-term on live projects. Unfortunately, I no longer have access to the
figures. I would be unable to reveal them for confidentiality reasons anyway.
However, I can say that for marketing texts, where there is far greater
originality from job to job, the TM savings were minimal.
Greater savings are made
in repetitions on financial and legal documents. Such projects involved
hundreds of pages and were produced in multiple language versions. I would
still argue that TM savings are insignificant by comparison with the cost
benefits from genuine multilingual design and streamlining production
processes.
TM discounts v. Quality
In my view, the
translation industry's focus on TM discounts has been to the detriment of
quality. When translators do not get paid for 100% matches, they understandably
do not waste valuable time on pressurised projects checking them. This approach
once resulted in large chunks of English copy appearing in a Spanish prospectus
after a problem with SDL Trados extraction. To add insult to injury, the said
prospectus was then certified to be a fair and true translation of the
original. It still was the original...
A project experience
I remember that my
mildest-mannered colleague once became practically apoplectic over a marketing
translation. The English sentences had been reworked into a different order.
This meant that every single sentence in the German version started in exactly
the same way. It strikes me that when a software system and pricing focus
override creativity and common sense, then something needs to be done. My
colleague got a very poor impression of the translation industry from this
particular translation.
Translating Europe Forum 2015
There was an amazing new
generation of confident, entrepreneurial at the Translating Europe Forum in
Brussels last week. They are digital natives. Many have a Masters in translation and are trained in translation tools.
(Only 50% of Proz translators use translation tools). SDL's Roadshow demonstrated
how much these new language professionals are needed. The demand will outstrip
the supply. There are concerns that they will not stay beyond five years after
training.
TransCert
During the forum, it was
possible to gain access to the training materials for TransCert. There were 182
slides to explain translation estimating and invoicing. This demonstrates how
ridiculously complicated translation pricing is. I pity both trainers and
students grappling with the subject.
Time-based pricing
In switching sides of the
industry, I have become aware of how some
translation companies take advantage of newbie translators. The best favour that SDL (and other
translation tool providers) could do for the next generation of language
professionals is to drop TM discount calculations from its software. This would
encourage simpler and fairer time-based pricing. It would bring localisation pricing
more in line with what clients expect from other creative industries.
Poaching risk
This new generation of
language professionals is talented, confident and entrepreneurial. They will be
poached away by other industries if the word-based pricing approach does not
change. SDL's own Roadshow showed how much they are needed. We can't afford to
lose any of them. We need to attract many more enthusiastic recruits.
SDL, I reiterate that you are not to blame for the
way the translation industry has implemented your software. The ball is in your
court (and that of other translation tool providers now). You can help to drive
the localisation industry towards the sustainable pricing strategy that it so
desperately needs.
I hope this letter will
empower other translators, project managers, buyers and clients to give further
examples in support of this change from their experiences.
Thank you for an
impressive, informative and friendly event. I hope you will see this letter in
the positive manner in which it was intended - as part of your own drive for
continuous improvement.
Thank you for reading.
Karen
Karen Andrews
Freelance translator
Former client/translation buyer/translation project manager with 15 years' experience
Anglicity Ltd
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