Disorganized… it is costing us
As I run this translation services company, from its inception to where we stand now i have noticed our translation services industry is totally disorganized in India. As we grow in our Industry we see a lot of individuals claiming themselves a company by designing a good looking website contributing to this perception . Many customers from the west complaint, saying…”Oh…i thought he was making sense”…”yes, I am going to get it cheap” finally what has happened, the person has switched off his phone, now Lyric can you help us..
I don’t see this isolated incident, I see this happening very often, Customers fail to see the certifications, reference, etc, they says we are running out of time…ultimately the vendor ran out of business…
I also see another peculiar thing happening in our industry, eg. once individual calling a company in the past 3years have changed his company name 3 times. As they get black listed, they keep changing their names. Our industry works on outsource model, any job that you undertake has to be outsourced, there is a risk for the resource to work, as collecting money from these so called companies will prove to be more expensive. By saying this I also confirm that, I have not seen anyone who has grown from an individual’s stature to an organized company, they should realize there is more money and satisfying work when we get organized and work towards our promises.
A lot of individuals either a journalist or a translator comes to know about the potential in the industry. Its easy to find the potential as you interact with companies like Lyric or Lion bridge you will know the potential one works on, Than investing on the facilities and expertise, these individuals go to get orders, and when the order comes in with money, they are nowhere in the scenario….in some cases the individuals try to do the job, but fail to understand the domain, requirements and its usability, this again puts the customer in trouble.
At least in Lyric, we find it very difficult to cope up with such a situation when a customer narrates his problem like the one mentioned above.
One thing I can tell you guys there is more money in our Industry if we stand by what we promise in our website, the customer is ready to participate in our growth, they know translation is as critical as marketing to their products and services
Good Luck
Dear Sasidhar,
The above piece from your pen is an ugly truth of the Indian translation & localization industry. Although I am comparatively a newcomer in the industry having only 6 years of presence, I strongly feel the pathetic scenario of our industry. But from another point view, I feel we are in a growing phase and if you go through the history elsewhere in the world, you will find anarchy during the developing phases everywhere. So I feel the good days are ahead for the Indian localization industry and we people have the responsibility to make the industry organized.
Warm Regards
Gouranga
Couldn’t be written any better. Reading this post reminds me of my old room mate! He always kept talking about this. I will forward this article to him. Pretty sure he will have a good read. Thanks for sharing!
Hi… I don’t know if you’ve been making changes, but your pages aren’t displaying correctly for me. The edges of the text are running into each other. I didn’t do this the other day. I don’t know if it’s something on my computer or if you’ve made a change… Just thought you might want to look at it. Thanks!