Part 4: Quality—how to get it when buying translation services

Armand Brevig 02 Nov 2020 4 min read

In this five part series, Armand Brevig, Managing Director of Procurement Cube, offers his thoughts on how procurement professionals can maximize their impact when sourcing global translation services.

Different people have different ideas of what a “good” translation is. Also, different departments place importance on different aspects of a translated text. For example, to the Marketing department consistent translation of brand messages will be important. To the Legal department the translator’s experience and capabilities to accurately translate patents is of utmost importance. So, how do you assess the quality of what translation suppliers produce when opinions differ?

In order to establish a set of criteria by which vendors can be assessed against, you need to ask all key stakeholders what a good translation looks like in their eyes. You will then be able to establish criteria for a good “Marketing translation”, a good “Legal translation”, a good “HR translation”, etc. These criteria can then be used to assess sample translation pieces relevant to the particular departments of key stakeholders.

Asking suppliers for these translation samples is a good way of measuring quality if done right. By “right” I mean:

The evaluation must be conducted in an objective and consistent way against the criteria of the key stakeholders
Vendors must be provided with some context of the text to be translated, even if it’s just a brief explanatory paragraph
Give vendors any relevant style guides your organization may have

Though translation samples are generally useful, they do have some limitations. Firstly, in order to win the business, translation agencies will deploy their best people to ensure the translation is as good as it can possibly be. However, it may not be cost effective for the supplier to deliver its service in that manner once the business has been won.

Secondly, a translation sample does not give any indication of what the ongoing working relationship with the supplier will be like. As mentioned in my article ‘How Procurement Can Add Value Throughout the Content Journey’, a good working relationship with the translation supplier is critical if you want to reduce hidden costs.

A pilot will tell you what quality the supplier can sustain over time, and also give you an idea of what that relationship is going to be like. Will you be in a relationship with a proactive supplier, or one that needs to be pushed every step of the way?

And don’t forget to keep in touch with the runner up bidders, as you will need them if you are unhappy with the outcome of the pilot.

Visit How to Buy Translation Services for more information, or read Part 5 where we look at how to continuously get more value from your translation supplier. And if you'd like to learn more about this topic, why not watch RWS's Jane Freeman interview Armand, where they discuss best practices to help you avoid costly mistakes.