How Language Service Providers (LSPs) Can Scale Their Business
Global businesses are learning quickly that by offering their apps or services in multiple languages, they can reach a slew of new audiences and boost their top line revenue. And as their software localization strategy takes shape, many are employing the services of professional Language Service Providers (LSPs) — companies that provide a broad range of content translation and linguistic services — to get the job done right.
LSPs themselves are seeing green fields as well. Pinpoint translation often boils down to native speakers’ natural understanding of a particular language and the slight differences in meaning based on context. This nuanced translation makes apps truly authentic for the hyperlocal audience, builds loyalty and trust with end users and improves customer retention over time.
The LSP Challenge: Localization is More Than Just Translation
Localizing business apps and websites is not just a job for translators; it’s also a technical and process-oriented undertaking. Most LSPs, unfortunately, lack the technical resources needed to make sense of source files, translation string setup, documentation and coding. And many LSPs that do have the technical staff offer clients translation support for free, hoping they can recover their costs through up selling additional services later.
Partnering with Localization Platforms
LSPs can expand their businesses by partnering with established localization platforms that automatically manage the technical and process work (and, in fact, alleviate much of the common, more obvious translation work that doesn’t necessitate nuanced native expertise). LSPs are then freed up to do what they do best, and that’s translation. Put simply, LSPs shouldn’t have to be computer science whizzes, preparing code and internationalizing content to plug into a localization project.
Developing a partnership with localization providers carries with it several key benefits:
Reach New Markets and Offer a Broader Set of Services
Plugging into a pre-built localization platform opens up a whole network of new opportunities. LSPs reach an entirely new pool of potential translation customers and set themselves up to accept more business. Smart LSPs can also offer an expanded end-to-end service offering to their customers, most of which would rather not have to outsource a localization project to several different (or unrelated) vendors.
Never Turn Down New Business
LSPs no longer have to turn down a translation opportunity (or turn it over to a full-service agency) because they don’t have the technical resources to run a localization effort. That’s important for many smaller LSPs that simply don’t have the technical staff.
Lower Costs
The less time LSPs spend preparing content for translation, the more time they have doing the value-added work and improving the overall quality of the translation. Speeding translations by using an automated system also gets them to the finish line faster and sets them up to fit more projects into their schedule.
Exchange Ideas with Other Translators
LSPs can also interact with an entire community of other translators and localization experts around the world to exchange ideas and translations and get immediate feedback to solve common challenges.
The opportunities for LSPs to expand their businesses are out there. It’s just a matter of building the right localization partnerships and maintaining focus on what they do best.
