Managing Translation Services

Geoff Samuelsson-Brown's second book relating to translation services avoids the temptation of writing a management textbook but looks at the real issues faced by the practicing translator who wishes to progress from being a sole practitioner to an owner-manager of a translation organisation. While the book deals specifically with translation, its contents can be readily applied to a range of service industries which are based around knowledge and skills. Julie Skinner, Learning and Development Manager.

This is a sequel to the author’s best-selling A Practical Guide for Translators first published in 1993 and now in its 4th edition. Managing Translation Services looks at how to successfully make the change from being a single freelance translator to developing a translation company offering a range of value added services. The book is intended principally for those who presently work as a freelance translator with all the inherent limitations this presents in terms of income and being reliant on the limited range of skills that the individual can offer. While some business skills will have been accumulated by virtue of working in a commercial environment, the transition from being responsible for oneself and taking the bold step of employing additional resources can be quite daunting. However, the opportunities this offers in terms of income and personal satisfaction are considerable. This book considers the initial Ssteps towards business development, exploiting these opportunities and the rewards they can offer. Advice is given on setting up a translation business, organisational development, what a business plan needs to consider for successful growth, how quality management needs to be approached, managing human resources, customer relations and other topics. The book provides a wealth of ready-made examples of quality procedures, forms that support business management and sources of further information. It also considers an exit strategy and related long-term planning when disposing of the business. Managing Translation Services is based on the many years of experience gained by the author working as a staff translator, freelance translator, university lecturer in translation studies, and former head of an award-winning, ISO 9001 accredited company. As a result, it covers a range of management issues relating to providing professional translation services.

Wonder how other freelance translators market their businesses? Effective marketing - of yourself, of your business - can help you reach the next level of success. The ideas and tools explored in this book have produced positive results for translators at every stage in the game and they will for you too. Each section of this book is adapted from a podcast interview with an established translator or other professional. I started my website and podcast Marketing Tips for Translators to connect with and share information the international translation community. We have many issues and concerns in common and the podcast is a meeting ground of sorts for those of us who spend a lot of time alone working on documents. The chapters in this book will help you discover the inspiration you need to market your translation services in an efficient way, as well as fresh ideas about productivity and tools for organizing your time and workday. We'll also cover proven methods and systems for marketing to your ideal potential clients, and strategies for maintaining a continuous marketing plan for finding new clients, keeping your existing clients, and getting the word out about your translation services. We'll show you how to get clients to find you, instead of you trying to find them.

Over the past three decades, translation has evolved from a profession practiced largely by individuals to a cottage industry model and finally to a formally recognized industrial sector that is project-based, heavily outsourced and that encompasses a wide range of services in addition to translation. As projects have grown in size, scope and complexity, and as project teams have become increasingly distributed across geographies, time zones, languages and cultures, formalized project management has emerged as both a business requirement and a critical success factor for language service providers. In recognition of these developments, this volume examines the application of project management concepts, tools and techniques to translation and localization projects. The contributors are seasoned practitioners and scholars who offer insights into the central role of project management in the language industry today and discuss best-practice approaches to the adaptation of generic project management knowledge, skills, tools and techniques for translation and localization projects.

The book provides insights, description and analysis over the knowledge production process within business, organization, and management research. Importantly, it does so from a language and translation perspective. It critically engages with the role of English in this process and provides theoretical argument for the need to include multilingualism in research. Translation is investigated as a concept for future inquiry. The book is expressive and formative of language-based research that is gaining momentum in business, management, and organization research. It offers conceptual innovation through a thorough treatment of multilingualism and translation, having the potentiality to guide future empirical and theoretical research, and to dispel hidden hegemonic knowledge production practices. The readers will gain insights into the current status quo of language-based inquiry, discussions of multilingualism for research design and be informed about the philosophical underpinnings of language-based research. Specifically, the benefits include the review and summary of key publications in this field, discussion and analysis of hidden assumptions of knowledge production, a critical take on knowledge production, an outline and discussion of implications of multilingual research for research design and methods, discussion of philosophical underpinnings and a vision for future research. The book is an invaluable source for all research students whose projects contain elements of multilingual research, whether empirical or theoretical. Likewise, the growing body of researchers who take a language-sensitive approach to their research may find it as a source that ‘pulls together’ the current knowledge status quo while offering discussions of future trajectories. The book is extremely useful for the teaching of research methods in undergraduate, postgraduate and also Master’s or doctoral programmes as many students are not native English speakers and are directly confronted with the subject matter of the book.

This collection brings together new insights around current translation and interpreting practices in national and supranational settings. The book illustrates the importance of further reflection on issues around quality and assessment, given the increased development of resources for translators and interpreters. The first part of the volume focuses on these issues as embodied in case studies from a range of national and regional contexts, including Finland, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and the United States. The second part takes a broader perspective to look at best practices and questions of quality through the lens of international bodies and organizations and the shifting roles of translation and interpreting practitioners in working to manage these issues. Taken together, this collection demonstrates the relevance of critically examining processes, competences and products in current institutional translation and interpreting settings at the national and supranational levels, paving the way for further research and quality assurance strategies in the field. The Introduction, Chapter 7, and Conclusion of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Over the past three decades, translation has evolved from a profession practiced largely by individuals to a cottage industry model and finally to a formally recognized industrial sector that is project-based, heavily outsourced and that encompasses a wide range of services in addition to translation. As projects have grown in size, scope and complexity, and as project teams have become increasingly distributed across geographies, time zones, languages and cultures, formalized project management has emerged as both a business requirement and a critical success factor for language service providers. In recognition of these developments, this volume examines the application of project management concepts, tools and techniques to translation and localization projects. The contributors are seasoned practitioners and scholars who offer insights into the central role of project management in the language industry today and discuss best-practice approaches to the adaptation of generic project management knowledge, skills, tools and techniques for translation and localization projects.

This is the fifth revised edition of the best-selling A Practical Guide for Translators. It looks at the profession of translator on the basis of developments over the last few years and encourages both practitioners and buyers of translation services to view translation as a highly-qualified, skilled profession and not just a cost-led word mill. The book is intended principally for those who have little or no practical experience of translation in a commercial environment. It offers comprehensive advice on all aspects relevant to the would-be translator and, whilst intended mainly for those who wish to go freelance, it is also relevant to the staff translator as a guide to organisation of work and time. Advice is given on how to set up as a translator, from the purchase of equipment to the acquisition of clients. The process of translation is discussed from initial enquiry to delivery of the finished product. Hints are given on how to assess requirements, how to charge for work, how to research and use source material, and how to present the finished product. Guidance is given on where to obtain further advice and professional contacts. This revised edition updates practices in the translation profession and considers the impact of web-based translation offerings. Industry and commerce rely heavily on the skills of the human translator and his ability to make intellectual decisions that is, as yet, beyond the capacity of computer-aided translation.