GTS Blog

Hi Dave,

Though the timing was indeed poor, I’m not sure that your statement “The cost reduction request by Mr. Hélin just a few days before Lionbridge reported record earnings.” is entirely correct.

What has translators up in arms is that Lionbridge had just announced record profits back in August: http://www.lionbridge.com/lionbridge/en-US/company/news/lionbridge-reports-highest-quarterly-profit-in-its-history-2010Q2-earnings.htm, and the mail *requiring* (not asking for) the reduction was sent October 29. (original discussion at: http://www.proz.com/forum/money_matters/184162-hows_this_for_nerve%3A_major_lsp_will_require_a_5_discount_from_their_translation_partners.html)

To be fair, Lionbridge then went on to announce a “Q3 GAAP net loss of $3.8 million” on November 4: http://www.lionbridge.com/lionbridge/en-US/company/news/lionbridge-reports-2010-q3-earnings.htm (although it still had a year-on-year increase in revenue).

As for cost reductions at big LSPs, they must all either be sacrificing their translators on the altar of big business (massive projects at low rates), or they are very mismanaged, or possibly both. Most if not all of the smaller agencies I have ever worked with provide considerably higher remuneration than these big LSPs, and I would not even consider working for companies such as Lionbridge or thebigword until and unless they pay decent rates. I hope the people who still work for such companies are taking this opportunity to shop around!

Translators aren’t schmucks – and they’re a pretty over-meticulous kind, in general, so please bear with me if I write to correct your first statement: “Lionbridge VP Didier Hélin wrote an email to all Lionbridge freelance translators asking them for a 5% discount”.

In fact, Lionbridge VP used the following expression in his email:

“we require all our partners to provide a 5% discount on all Lionbridge projects. This discount is independent of any other agreements we may have in place with you.”

That’s not “asking” – and that’s the root of all evil…
Stefano

Janet, if you look at the long history of losses for Lionbridge, it is hard to draw the conclusion that the company is well managed. I don’t know to what extent one might say this of other organizations, but regardless of the profitability of others in its class, the attitude toward the serf translators is common enough. I have seen very few instances where a large LSP has been able to match the pleasant interactions one can routinely enjoy from the usually much-better-paying smaller shops.

When it comes to a company like the Big L, I usually just ignore the “offers” and walk quietly past, though I will at least do them the honor of stopping briefly so my dog can lift his leg.

I have to disagree: Translators are schmucks. Or maybe we’re just masochists… Why else would we continue working with/for/through a crappy company like “the Big L”?

I think this discussion became a crusade of the good against evil and is preventing translators from being objective about the fact that translation prices are going down regardless of what big LSPs want to pay. The focus should be on how to effectively revert this or find another way to work the same time and make more money. Businesses had to reinvent themselves when faced with a crisis; McDonalds is selling healthy food.
In my personal opinion, what is bringing the prices down is the large supply of translators in the market. This year, at the ATA, there were 5-6 booths representing universities. In the recent past, you would only find Monterey Institute and Kent University. It does not matter in which side of the political spectrum you are, supply and demand works and there is not much we can do about it.
What I see happening is that the large customers (on the top of the food chain) will keep pushing down the prices until students (on the bottom of the chain) lose interest on becoming translators because of low pay. Prices, then, will go back up because there will be only enough translators for the amount of work out there. This happened to nurses in the USA, where, today, the medical industry is giving all kind of incentives to people who are willing to become nurses and teach in nursing schools.
Translators are wasting their time and energy with vilifying the big LSPs, which will take them nowhere. Only an objective analysis will allow translators to make the right decisions for themselves and for the translators’ community. My friends and I boycott Walmart and this is not preventing it from being one of the largest companies in the world. Forgive me, but Miguel Llorens rhetoric reminds me of myself as a student in Brazil, in the 80’s, throwing eggs on the US Embassy walls, protesting against the American big corporations exploitation of South American countries. Translators need to focus, and put their energy in the right place. Have you seen anyone survive swimming against the current?
Translators have been working with 2 wrong assumptions: 1) translators that charge less are not good, and 2) there is plenty of work that pays what the well established translators can charge. The big LSPs have been delivering for years to demanding customers like Microsoft and companies in the medical and pharma industries, which is a clear indication that they get quality for what they are paying. The customers that don’t negotiate prices are those that spend little with translation because this is not a business for them; 2-3 cents per word will make no difference at the end of the quarter. They work with 2 translators per language and this is all they can “employ”. How many of this type of customers do we need to feed an increasing number of translators?
The big LSPs are in a very competitive market because the number of words their customers put in the translation market is such that they can demand lower rates in exchange of volume, and volume gives work to many translators. It is that simple, and we need to work with this fact.

@Monica Very often the only ones to survive are the ones swimming against the current because they are cleverer: they oblige themselves to use their minds. As these are simply changing times, we all have to react and no reaction except “whining” is wasted time. I agree it is not protesting in itself that changes things, but the reasonings, the conclusions which come with the protests, as people start to “think” and search for and find solutions for their “own” problems.

I think you’re completely right when you say that their will be a new demand for high quality SERVICE (not translations) at a certain point (not far away I think as I notice in my own work) as the nurse example you give. The visibility of the big ones may hide the little ones, but it does not “erase” the little ones. We are reacting at the big ones as we know that their visibility influences the changes to come. Eyes opening reactions are always positive, whether it are a few translators who open their eyes or some companies (buyers).

But I totally disagree with the way we are all talking about “prices” for our work, when in fact we are talking about “costs”. Except some idiots, many companies do not wish low “prices”, they instead wish to pull down their costs. If a company like LB includes low-price-workers, that is their business, not mine and it is only one way to lower companies linguistic costs. As the text amounts are growing, also the demand for translated tests will grow. The “cost” of the solutions for that problem must obviously stay within reasonable limits. But that cost does not depend (only) on the “prices” of single translations or translators. When this solution includes freelancer work, normal longterm reasoning companies know how much outsourcing to a freelancer costs. So they will have to find combined solutions which includes also the cost of a freelancer (or freelancers) but which cut the amounts of “work” to give out to that freelancer(s). As a matter of fact, we and many companies are talking too much about translation. We and they should reason a lot about “writing” reducing words and texts “to be translated”. That’s why machine translation must come and must be developed in a serious way. My time to work on a MT provided text will have a every year growing PRICE, so if you want me to spend little time on it, you will have to provide me with a good text. But MT is not the only solution and will be, still for a while, a solution only for big companies. Companies should work on their upstream text-creation processes. Writing less and better results in less time to spend in translation (= lower costs) and in problemless translation processes or even problemless relationships with foreign language speaking partners. It does not matter at all to a freelancer how much words he translate for “one” customer! A freelancer combines different customers to create his earnings. His “prices” are only important for “his” processes and “his” earnings and definitely not for the buyer as so many translators think (and you are saying to). Frauke

Thanks, Frauke. First, I’d like to make sure you know I’m a Lionbridge employee (in VM). Since I’m not talking on Lionbridge’s behalf and everything I wrote here is my own opinion as a translator in this business for many years, sometimes I don’t think of disclosing my employment. I’m a person with my own thoughts before being an employee, but given the fact that Lionbridge is in the center of this discussion, I realize it is important that you know. Please, note that I’ll not discuss any topic directly related to Lionbridge and I’m only interested in discussing the topic, not Lionbridge’s business.

You made a very good point which is the cost and smart way to control costs is the trick for a healthy business ecosystem (customer, LSP, freelancer). Productivity – through content management of the source text, MT or other ways – will determine the earnings. At the last Locworld in the beginning of October, I talked to the owner of a LSP that I have known for years and he was telling me that rates are not his focus, productivity is. He is convinced that rates will not go up in the foreseeable future but he will be able to make money by improving his productivity (including the freelancers). I saw that his is the common sense among LSP and translators in the past LocWorld and ATA conferences. The number of sessions on MT at the ATA in Denver is unprecedented. I talked to a translator who invested in his own MT and is translating 10k words per day and the variation of the rates do not affect him as hard as the others. But this is another discussion. I’m about to create my personal blog and will invite you to discuss this there, if you are interested.

I disagree with you, though, that one will survive by swimming against the current. The ones to survive are those who will swim with the current and smartly find a way out of it.

Dave, thanks for hosting this paralel discussion.

“Have you ever regretted clicking the Send button?” Yes i have!

As parallel discussions are allowed, I feel free to share the comments of another very seasoned translator about the ATA conference.
I think it is worth its salt: http://www.translationcommentator.blogspot.com/

Monica, I have to take issue with your statement that “The big LSPs have been delivering for years to demanding customers like Microsoft and companies in the medical and pharma industries, which is a clear indication that they get quality for what they are paying.” I’m now working very happily for a former client, a very large fish indeed in the medical world, who expanded beyond my individual capacity and spent several years having their translation done by a very big LSP. The LSP kept asking me to continue working, but at derisory rates, using their choice of tools, etc. The client doesn’t seem to have been that happy with the quality as they left the large LSP at the end of the contract, and I’m now working for them through another large but well-managed agency that adds value in many ways for everyone involved – client, translator, agency. They also pay very good rates. I am stunned by the appalling quality of many of the translated documents done through that large LSP (freely available on the former client’s website). It’s clearly perfectly possible to have both high quality and good profit all round, if the company actually understands its clients (and, indeed, medical terminology) rather than some nebulous “translation business”.

I genuinely treasure your work , Great post.

Hey Dave,

Thought you might like this: http://blog.csoftintl.com/your-own-terms-four-conversations-that-translators-love-not/

::whistles innocently::