The Russian translation market: Translation Center KGTC's view and opinion

How would you briefly characterize the Russian translation services market? 

Today, if we go on the Internet, we can find hundreds of links to websites of bureaus, agencies and translation centers. Moscow alone has over 2,500 of translation companies, bureaus and groups of translators, a fact that highlights market saturation. Indeed, such a situation is expected, since each year universities produce lots of language specialists and all of whom need jobs. Many of them become CEOs of translation companies; others assemble themselves into communities and groups of translators. The level of responsibility and organization in such groups is not high, but their prices are much lower than the market average. It is rather hard to evaluate the annual size of the Russian translation services market in numerical value, as new companies incessantly appear on the market, majority of which operating via so-called ‘grey schemes, in the best cases. Of course, there is an official statistics, which, in my opinion, does not reflect the real picture. So, to put it briefly, I can characterize Russia’s today translation market as large, but at the same time convoluted and weakly organized. 

According to politicians, the Russia economy has successfully exited the global financial crisis. Do you agree with such opinion, and how did the crisis affect your company? 

As an entrepreneur, it is hard for me to agree with such opinions, since I actually see this ‘kitchen’ from the inside, and except for the high oil prices, I cannot see any positive dynamics in the country. There are also state orders, but it is usually difficult to get free access to them without having the right connections or ‘cash bags.’ However, with regard to our company, we have positioned ourselves as a professional services provider in the big translation projects sector. But, due to the crisis, many plans of our customers, and consequently, ours as well, have been postponed or put on hold, as there is no hard-proof assurance of economic stability both in Russia and across the globe. There has been a significant decline since 2008, and even today many companies are still leaving market or trying to survive by merging with one another. But, despite this poor dynamics, we do not intend to stop or rest on our laurels, but shall continue to further expand our client base, keeping our approach of “the best service for people” to every customer and project. 

The quality of translation and consequences of low quality work could have fatal outcomes. In this regard, it is interesting to know if there is a connection between price and service quality? 

Yes, there is a connection, and very direct one. Many respectful companies claim that it is impossible to make a quality translation cheaper than $15 per page. But it is the market that dictates the rules. Besides, leading global translation experts have also emphasized the need to give the clients exactly what they want, and not force unneeded services on them. For a translation company to function normally and be able to hire professionals, because our job is intellectual, it needs to offer them worthy work conditions. There are translations that require the efforts of several people, and also there are orders, where quality plays a secondary as such clients only simply needs to know the general meaning of the text. 

If a company is dumping prices, it is obvious why it is doing so, but what is unclear is why clients often realize that cheap translation might have deplorable consequences. Does this bother you?

Yes, such companies constitute a temporary problem, because their life spans are rather short. They are fighting with shadow, and as a rule, they always lose. Initially, clients don’t see the differences between companies offering translations for $10 or $20 per page, except for the prices. Our mission is to explain and let clients know that differences do exist and what they exactly are. Responsibility and knowledge are valued more than irresponsibility and fragmented information. 

“We don’t intend to rest on our laurels, but shall continue to further expand our client base, applying our approach of providing “the best service for people” to every customer and project.”

Is it worthy to economize on translations? 

It is possible to economize on translations, but not in all cases and one needs to do it very intelligently. It is necessary to understand what purpose such translations will serve. We, for instance, ask clients lots of questions when taking and processing their orders. Of course, some clients always ask about the prices, as they usually do not see the point, in their opinion, in ‘useless’ questions. We view such approach as an unserious one. Typically, our services are not the same, and therefore, using the same template, can lead to failure. The purpose and target audience of translation are very important as well. These are the questions that usually interest us first — what a client wants the translation for and for whom the translation is targeted, that is, who will read it, etc. In addition, use appropriate terminology and style of presentation also play an important role. We often have to compile our glossaries ourselves. This is a completely different task. We only make our proposals based on clients’ needs. This is why our offers can vary in prices. We can offer a translation for $10 per page and client will be very satisfied with the quality, and we can also offer it for $30 per page and the client will equally not be disappointed, client’s satisfaction is the most important factor.  

In your opinion, what would you recommend as the best way to choose a translations company? 

Clients need to pay serious attention to everything: the questions that are asked by the translators, their capabilities and solutions being offered. They equally need to understand that there are professional translation bureaus, agencies and centers as well as fake and amateurs that call themselves professionals. Placing others with the latter will surely lead to problems. One more advice is not to place all the orders at once. A good approach is testing; a much better methodology is to make a sort of pre-qualification trial that should include at least official information about the company, previous work samples and proposed solutions to one’s tasks. Choosing translation companies by prices means putting one’s tasks at a huge risk that could kill the entire business or project. This will a real formality approach not directed at actually doing the task as required. However, a totally different approach is needed for projects that are important, meaningful and purposeful for clients. 

How would you characterize your company and future plans? 

Our company is distinguished by clear standardization of all business processes and flexibility in our approach to clients and their projects. Our company does not hire people from other translation companies. We do not support conservative viewpoints, believe that the market should develop, and we see ourselves in the role of satisfying clients’ needs. We also abide by the principle of division of labor since everyone should professionally do his/her job and do it very well. We apply an individual approach to the selection of project executors. For instance, if a translation of legal documents is required, we give such tasks to translators with law degrees or get a lawyer involved in the project. A translator should be familiar with specific terminology used in the industry. Our company has experts in different areas, such as constructions, medicine, technique, pharmacology, IT, etc. It is often believed that a CEO of a translation company should be a professional translator, but I do not support this view. Our future plans include diversification into provision of editorial and expert services. 

How would you briefly formulate the ideal model of a successful business in your industry? 

As we have understood over six years of our company’s operation in this industry, personnel is the most asset in this business. The logo of our company used to be “KGTC - Innovations, Quality and Service, but in the beginning of 2011 it was changed to Keeping Good Traditions of Communication “People, Knowledge and Technologies.” The more you understand people, the better for business.