By Sarah-Claire Jordan
Many companies think that their best bet in terms of translation is to assemble their own team of translators who work for them full time. This makes sense in many ways, because the team would know exactly what the company needs and can quickly adapt to any changes in the project as they work in the same office. However, there are some ways that an in-house translation team doesn’t compare to working with an outsourced translation service. Here are three reasons that outsourcing your translation projects may actually be the better choice.
1. Translation companies are prepared for anything
Whereas an in-house translation team may be made up of translators that area great at one kind of translation, a company completely dedicated to providing translation services will have a variety of translators who specialize in different types of translation. This way, no matter who their next client is, they can handle the project with ease. Since their product is the final translation, translation companies will also make sure to have staff whose job is to proofread and edit translations. This often doesn’t happen with in-house translation teams, or if it does, there are only one or two people who are in charge of this task.
2. Those who work in translation companies are more motivated to do their best
When you have an in-house team for translation, you have another part of your staff that works full-time and gets all the benefits that make them feel secure in the job they have. This is not a bad thing at all, and is how it should be for anyone working full time, but it does have its downsides. For example, if you end up not liking the way a translation project turned out, you can’t exactly fire your translation team. If that happens and you’ve chosen to outsource and work with a translation service company, then you can simply ask them to change it and consider using a different company for the next project. Translation service companies know this and so they will work extra hard to keep you as a client.
3. You will probably save money by outsourcing your translation projects
Having an in-house translation team may sound like the most convenient way to solve the translation/globalization/localization issue, but it’s actually the more expensive solution. Just think about how much money you would have to spend every year if you had a team of full-time translators, especially when there aren’t always projects for them to work on. You end up paying for them to basically wait for the next project, and this includes sick days, health care, and more. If you outsourced, then you would only need to pay for the actual time and labor it took for the project to be finished and wouldn’t be losing money maintaining a portion of your staff that you only need maybe 70% of the time, or even less.
The bottom line is that outsourcing your translation projects may not seem like the best idea at first, but when you look at the facts, it really is. Alpha Omega Translations is a testament to all of these reasons, as the staff includes writers, proofreaders, editors, and even interpreters, as well as translators with expertise in specific kinds of translation. On top of that, desktop publishing experts and staff specialized in localizing entire websites are available to make sure your final product turns out better than you envisioned.
