Why most businesses need a translation agency, not a freelancer
by Grey • February 16, 2010 • Uncategorized • 14 Comments
There’s a fairly common belief among freelance translators that translation agencies are, at best, something you necessarily grow out of as your career develops and, at worst, a plague to the translation industry. The problem with this belief is that it assumes that all translation agencies are nothing more than paper-shufflers passing e-mails back and forth between translator and customer. Unfortunately, this is true for a great many translation agencies, but as not all freelancers are created equal, so, too, are there great differences between “quality” translation agencies and the chop-shops.
So why exactly should a business prefer a translation agency over cutting out the middleman and going with a freelance translator? Well, it’s much the same question as whether to hire a law office with a team of lawyers or hire just one individual lawyer or, indeed, create a legal affairs office within the company (or any combination of these three basic solutions). In fact, it’s much the same as deciding whether (and how) to outsource any function a company needs for its operations.
The main problem with a business going direct to a freelance translator is that, like with most lawyers, freelancers are specialized in just a few fields and just a few (or one) language pairs. So if a business has a frequent need for fairly urgent translations in a variety of languages, they are going to need to hire several freelancers, not just one. So the problem becomes how to select and then manage all of those freelancers. Does the business know how to assess the quality of a freelance translator’s work? Maybe, but more than likely not. And do they set up a specific office to organize and manage translations and translators? Or do they let everyone in the company fend for themselves when they need a translation done? I think you start to see the problem, as well as the parallels with other business functions….
So sure, some businesses may find that it’s best for them to go direct to the freelance translators (or to do so for specific types of projects), but given the highly specialized skill set needed to execute and manage translation projects, I would say that most businesses would be better served by a high-quality translation agency that can advise them on how best to manage their translation needs, in much the same way that many businesses would be best served by an external law office with a team of lawyers.
And this is before considering the translation-specific issue of proofreading. What about that? If it’s better to cut out the middleman, should a business also arrange for their own proofreaders? Or does the freelancer handle that? If the freelancer handles it, does that mean proofreading one’s own work? Personally, I would hope not (but that’s a topic for another blog post…). Or do we arrange for a proofreader and bill the cost to the customer? If so, then we’re already on our way to becoming agencies ourselves….
Anyway, this is why I think we freelance translators should be careful about bashing translation agencies generally and should focus our efforts on promoting “quality” translation agencies and perhaps even raising awareness about the great many chop-shops out there and how to recognize them. That segment of translation agencies is something of a plague for our industry.
Well said
Freelance translators can also protect themselves against financial malpractice, by joining a service like BHT at http://translator.babylon.com which GUARANTEES payment of a fair price.
First of all let me apologise for my “Wrong, wrong, wrong”- tweet, which, as you pointed out, lacked nuance. I had promised to comment on your post in a couple of days, but I realize it isn’t fair to you. So I’ve put aside my lunch and work, and here I am.
My comment is of course based solely on my personal experience.
My problem with *most* translation agencies is that a) they choose translators with the lowest rate b) most PMs know next to nothing about translation. In the end, they don’t offer that quality we are all talking about. If this goes on, in about 10 years times (or maybe sooner), there won’t be any professional translators left on the market, simply because the professionals will have to look for another job in order to survive, making room for those who translate for hobby or pocket money.
In most cases, working directly with freelance translators is the best and most cost-effective solution for a business. True, a translator has few specialisations and language pairs. But how about referrals? In the past my direct clients have asked me for names of colleagues with other specialisations or language combinations. Proofreading? I charge what is considered by some a high rate, in order to offer my direct clients revision or proofreading of the text (or a final check of the PDF) by another colleague (I also check my colleagues’ work).
Illness? Holiday? I designate a trusted colleague.
If the translation jobs within a business are few and far between, then finding the right freelancers won’t be a problem. If the company has regular translation jobs, then they’ll be better off designating a project manager *or* a lead translator (like some of my clients do).
I believe freelance translators could and should offer more services, maybe in ongoing collaboration with other freelancers.
Do I want to see all translation agencies disappear from the face of the earth? No (although the thought has crossed my mind
. There are few translation agencies among my clients. These are small agencies (1-5 employees), that operate on what an Italian colleague some time ago called a “mercato rionale”. Why I work for them? Because a) they offer me interesting jobs b) they pay me a decent rate c) their deadlines are reasonable d) they value my work (in some cases, they asked their clients for a longer deadline to accommodate me) and e) their PMs are translators themselves and therefore provide me with swift and valuable feedback. Also, these agencies do not handle all sorts of projects (a project manager told me some time ago that his agency doesn’t take on projects involving exotic languages, because of quality issues). If this description fits your concept of “high-quality translation agencies”, then I agree with you. Trouble is, that these small agencies (maybe the term “cooperative” would be better?) will have to make room for the big ones that are taking over.
Anyway, thank you for your time and patience, and for letting me comment on this. I promise that my future tweets will have more nuance.
Best wishes.
OK, I guess we could argue all day long about whether “most” will be better off with an agency or a freelancer, but that’s not really the point. Let’s just agree that in some cases an agency will be needed and in others a freelancer will be what the company wants.
But… a lot of what you describe as solutions to a company’s needs come really close to being an informal agency: finding other translators, arranging for proofreaders, billing a high enough rate to allow for the cost of a proofreader, etc. Indeed, it’s these things that are the main reason I personally prefer to work for agencies: let the agency worry about finding the proofreaders and available translators and dealing with the customers questions and other needs that you can’t easily bill for. If I had to charge a high enough rate to compensate me for all of these time-consumers, I suspect I’d end up costing as much as a quality agency.
Plus I’d be doing all of these agency-like tasks without the benefits to the client of being an actual agency. Take ISO quality certifications, for example. As a freelancer (or network of freelancers), I certainly can’t be bothered with that kind of thing, but a large enough agency can. And as you say, “if the translation jobs within a business are few and far between”, but what if they aren’t? Sure, for a smallish company who’s “native language” is English, that may indeed be the norm, but for a company that needs their stuff translated INTO English? Or any company that does business in multiple languages…. How do they control the quality of all those texts they send out into the world? They might be able to understand and control quality in two or three languages, but being able to control the quality of texts in all languages would certainly be beyond the reach of many companies. If they’re lucky, they find translators that are good at what they do. But if they aren’t lucky?
Anyway, the main reason I wrote this blog post was because it bothers me when people say it’s best to “avoid translation agencies”. Full stop. Rather than saying something more to the point, and fair to the quality agencies, like “watch out for all the chop-shops”.
Cheers (and thanks for commenting!
,
~G
Ciao Grey.
Not entirely in agreement, but no time to put a lengthy case right now.
Suffice it to say that the theft of your article here http://troikaablog.blogspot.com/2010/02/0-why-most-businesses-need-translation.html hardly speaks volumes in favour of agencies.
Best,
Chris
Yeah, I saw that little bit of content stealing. Oh well….
Al contrario di Isabella, scrivo il mio commento in italiano perché è la lingua in cui riesco a esprimermi meglio, anche se non necessariamente più sinteticamente.
Nel corso degli anni, la maggior parte delle agenzie, che si chiamano così per questo, sono passacarte che svolgono un mediocre lavoro di mediazione tra domanda e offerta.
Per aggiungere valore occorrono conoscenze, abilità, competenze e infrastrutture di cui le agenzie, nella stragrande maggioranza, sono prive. Da un punto di vista economico non avrebbe neanche senso disporne: i margini di lucro si ridurrebbero drasticamente rendendo l’attività non più conveniente perché, soprattutto in Italia, i progetti in cui potrebbe essere necessario disporne sono pochissimi. La filiera è lunghissima e si lavora quindi su margini che si assottigliano ogni giorno.
È come in agricoltura: senza i contributi europei e nazionali non avrebbe senso continuare a coltivare prodotti per raccogliere i quali non si rientra dalle spese, eppure frutta e verdura costano ogni giorno di più.
I clienti si rivolgono alle “agenzie” perché non sanno generalmente niente di traduzione che ritengono un male necessario e preferiscono quindi affidarsi ai cosiddetti “one-stop shop”. Per questa ragione, l’esempio del legale è inappropriato: posso citare almeno uno studio in cui è il titolare a garantire anche per i suoi soci ed è principalmente, se non solo per quello che continua ad avere clienti. Come in tutti i rapporti commerciali, anche per la traduzione, è la fiducia a fare la differenza, e questa dipende dalla capacità di soddisfare richieste e requisiti.
Non sapendo niente di quel che comprano, è naturale che i clienti si orientino innanzitutto con il prezzo e i traduttori, e non solo, fanno di tutto per convincerli che fanno bene insistendo tutti sulla stessa proposizione di vendita.
È altrettanto vero che i cosiddetti project manager non sanno praticamente niente di traduzione, ma questo dipende dal fatto che clienti e fornitori non sanno praticamente di project management. Non è un caso se in quest’industria, meno dell’1% dei cosiddetti project manager è certificato.
Su queste basi, continuare a parlare di qualità è da sciocchi, eppure, insieme alle tariffe, altro argomento da sciocchi, è l’argomento principe di ogni discussione tra operatori di settore. Attenzione, è da sciocchi parlare di tariffe, non di denaro, cosa di cui in generale i traduttori sanno poco o niente.
Alla fine, vale la legge per cui la moneta cattiva scaccia quella buona ed è vero che i veri professionisti sono destinati a scomparire: di solito hanno capacità per fare altro e predisposizione al sacrificio. A restare sul mercato sono le sciurette cui basta il necessario per qualche sfizio che permetta loro di farle sentire indipendenti ovvero per compensarle della sfortuna di percepire mensilmente uno stipendio da impiegata quando se avessero altre capacità forse non farebbero le impiegate.
È per questo che la traduzione è il regno oscuro dei doppiolavoristi lagnosi.
Il problema non si affronta con la solita contrapposizione che porta alle solite false soluzioni. Il problema non consiste nel sapere se si possa fare a meno delle agenzie o no: semplicemente quello che sanno e possono farne a meno ne fanno a meno, gli altri no. Il problema sta nella natura del lavoro. Quello di traduttore è un mestiere che in troppi dichiarano di fare per amore o per passione, non con amore o con passione. Non è un caso se periodicamente si sentono ripetere i soliti paragoni con avvocati, medici, ingegneri, architetti, notai ecc. e non capisco perché chi li propone non abbia scelto di fare l’avvocato, il medico, l’ingegnere, l’architetto o il notaio. Raramente mi capita di sentire avvocati, medici, ingegneri, architetti o notai che hanno lasciato la loro professione per dedicarsi alla traduzione, ma quando lo fanno, di certo non si lamentano per essere trattati peggio di prima.
Tra gli imprenditori della traduzione, perché è tra questi che vanno annoverati i titolari di agenzia, molti non sanno niente del lavoro dei loro collaboratori, ma conoscono i loro clienti e il mercato su cui operano; molti altri sono autentici accattoni che non sarebbero in grado di intraprendere altro, e altri ancora, una minoranza, sono traduttori che hanno semplicemente deciso di porsi sul mercato in modo diverso. La figlia laureata in economia e commercio con MBA figlia di un imprenditore dell’acciaio deve per forza sapere di metallurgia per dirigere l’azienda di famiglia? E un ingegnere deve sapere di arredamento? E si potrebbe continuare…
Listen, people. We all know there are a bunch of awful agencies out there. Maybe even the majority of agencies are awful. I never said there wasn’t a problem with bad agencies. But I also know for a fact that there are good agencies that DO give value to their clients. I know this because those are the sorts of agencies I work for. We all know all too well the problems within our industry. But that’s not what this post is about.
This post is intended to point out that we should be careful about generalizing and thinking the solution is to eliminate agencies and work direct with the end client “whenever humanly possible”. So rather than proving my point by criticizing my post on the grounds that there are LOTS of bad agencies out there — let’s just all agree that that’s true — let’s discuss things such as when someone might prefer a “good” agency over a freelancer, or how does someone needing a translation choose a good agency or a good freelancer and avoid the bad ones.
All of this about all the bad agencies out there is certainly true, and definitely a major problem, but it has little or nothing to do with the point of my post and only serves to emphasize the need for us to be careful about generalizing.
Thank you.
In other words, this post is about emphasizing the good, not focusing only and always on the bad.
~G
Marc Plancke wrote:
“Freelance translators can also protect themselves against financial malpractice, by joining a service like BHT at http://translator.babylon.com which GUARANTEES payment of a fair price.”
You’re kidding, right?
“How much can I earn at Babylon Translations?
The current rate you are paid for your work is: 0.08 USD per word”
Pingback: ProZ.com petition and translation rates | drane.it
Based on decades of freelancing translation experience, in case of 95% of the assignments I’ve received from translation agencies the presence of a middlemen (agency) was completely unnecessary. Period.
I’m working in a big company which handles lot of materials but I think it’s better for any translator to check the work himself to avoid many problems from PM and so which result sometimes in delay.
working as a freelancer is better as you will be in direct contact with the client but the big businesses don’t trust freelancers as they sometimes have large projects which needs big staff to handle their projects and to have strict agreements with managers to ensure quality and so on.
Well, yes. Some self-checking is necessary, of course. But I do think it’s inefficient for a translator to try and catch all of his or her errors when a proofreader can do it more effectively.