The Russian translation market: Prima Vista Translation Agency's view and opinion

How would you briefly assess today’s Russian translation services market, and how has the crisis affected the industry and your company?

Today’s market reality is characterized by cutthroat competition. It is hard to pin the market size to concrete figures, but, according to our subjective opinion, the number of translation agencies has grown significantly in recent years. This can be explained by the fact opening a business in this industry does not require big upfront investment. All that is required is rent an office, hire one or two employees, and place an advertisement in any of the media. Notably, the number of translation agencies is rising against the backdrop of falling demand. After the events of 2008 many corporate clients have significantly reduced their document translations budgets. A specific peculiarity of the Russian translation services market that needs be mentioned here is the absence of an obvious leader, as no single play control at least 10% of the market. We believe this situation will change in the near future, when big players will step in, while the overall number of companies will likely decrease.

There is an increasing use of so-called ‘electronic translators’ in this industry. What is your opinion of this tendency and how really helpful are these “gadgets” to translators?

First of all, we would like to stress that no professional translator uses machine translation programs, as their level of development is so low that it is much easier to translate texts from scratch than edit the abracadabra generated by such translators. Things are not likely to change soon in this aspect. In our work we use quite different programs – the so-called ‘Translation Memory’ tools, which save every translated term in special ‘memory’ files. Thereafter, when translating a new text with a phrase or sentence that was translated before, the program would generate and propose it for further use. This technology, in some cases, enables us to significantly speed up the translation process and reduce the production cost.

Now, let’s shift our focus to your company, which has grown from a small agency founded in 1999 into a reputed company with clients in several countries. How would you briefly explain this meteoritic rise?

Initially, our enthusiasm was our company’s main driver, which was later complemented by experience, market knowledge and the ability to prioritize business processes. We have long realized that price is far from being the main determining factor in our business, especially when it comes to working with big corporate clients. Quality is the key to success, and we are constantly improving it. For instance, last year our company got the ISO 9001 Certificate and we plan to keep developing this area.   

“Initially, our enthusiasm was our company’s main driver, which was later complemented by experience, market knowledge and the ability to prioritize business processes.”

Competition is very high, as all possible players — from individuals and small translation bureaus to gigantic corporations — are present in this industry. In this regard, what are your company’s major competitive advantages in this sector?

Our clients’ esteem is based on the fact that we seldom say ‘no’ to them. We can mobilize all our translation resources in order to fulfill a thousand-page translation in a few days. We are capable of handling all tasks of any complexity, even if we have to master new fields of knowledge to do so. We instantly respond to all suggestions and comments. Most of our clients have remained loyal to us now for 9-10 years, a fact that speaks for itself.    

As already noted, much depends on translation quality, as any error, say, in a translation of a manual of some complex equipment can lead to some unpleasant outcomes. Do you have any examples of such outcomes in the industry?

Thank goodness, there have been no cases, where a translation performed by our company caused something unpleasant. However, such cases are not rare in the industry and everyday life. Take, for instance, the incident with the poor translation of the EU-brokered peace agreement in South Ossetia-Georgia crisis, the so-called Medvedev-Sarkozy Peace Plan, which almost led to international diplomatic scandal.