I wonder a couple of things about translation agencies. And when I say “I wonder…,” I mean that honestly. Not as in “most agencies do it this way, and that’s clearly the wrong way.” As in “I honestly wonder.” Here we go:
Why don’t more agencies have in-house translators?
The knee jerk answer to this is cost and flexibility. When agencies use freelancers, they pay only for the services they need, when they need them. No benefits, no office overhead, no providing computers and software, no caffeine-addicted translators draining the coffee pot all day, and so on.
But here’s the other side of the coin: I’m guessing that most mid-sized agencies, and certainly all large agencies, have enough work to keep at least a few in-house translators busy full-time in their most commonly requested languages. And then, the agency has a few advantages:
- Those translators can work for the same clients all the time, which the agency can’t guarantee when it uses freelancers.
- Those translators are on salary, so the agency can charge a markup for rush projects without paying more to have them translated.
- Confidential projects are never sent outside the office.
- It’s easier to monitor the quality of a translator’s work when they’re right there in your office.
- A small team of translators would get used to working together, which would probably raise the quality of their translations.
- The agency could cut its administrative overhead significantly. Instead of having to find an available freelancer, negotiate a rate and deadline, deal with snafus like the project being late or the translator having a computer crash, the project could just be assigned to one of the in-house translators with no back and forth.
Why don’t more agencies specialize?
One of the first pieces of advice given to any beginning freelancer is: specialize. Become the expert. Don’t try to be all things to all clients. Yet, the vast majority of agencies do not specialize *at all*, and even use “translating all subjects, all languages” as one of their selling points. Just Google that and you’ll see what I mean.
There are exceptions: I work with a couple of agencies that only do one subject area, and I can think of a handful of agencies that only do one language. But again, that’s the exception. It seems to me that by specializing, agencies could reap many of the benefits that specialized freelancers do:
- Become the go-to agency for their language or specialization.
- Fish in a smaller pond when it comes to marketing.
- Get to know one subject area really well, thus producing better translations.
- Know who to market to, rather than anyone on Earth who needs a translation.
Agency owners? People with insights into this? Any thoughts here?
Hi Corinne, very interesting analysis. Are you sure that the big agencies do not have in-house translators? It just doesn’t make sense.
Regards,
Leticia
Thanks, Leticia! Definitely, some agencies do have in-house translators. There are even some agencies that are specialized *and* have in-house translators. I just mean that that’s not the norm.
It might make sense to have more translators “on staff” but literally “in-house” is very limiting for both translators and agencies. One of the things I love about translating is that it is a job I can do from anywhere. People ask me if there is much demand for translation in NC and I am delighted to explain how very little geography matters to me. As for “monitor[ing] the quality of a translator’s work when they’re right there in your office…” Please no. I had enough of this in the corporate world. My work comes out on the page and it’s easier for someone to view it on their own screen than from over my shoulder.
Thanks, Jenn!
Very good questions!
Many translation agencies know little and care little about translation, their customers and translators.
Since most of their customers know and perhaps care little about translation, this sad story continues.
Thanks, Charles! Just to clarify, I don’t mean this as agency-bashing at all. I work for some great, small agencies that treat their translators and their end clients really well. I’m looking at this more as a general phenomenon in our industry. But thanks for your comment.
Oh, I agree with you completely. There are some very good agencies out there, and from my experience they do tend to be small and also specialized.
Hi Corinne,
I especially love your last point. Specialisation helps you know your target audience and create specific messaging that attracts the business you want rather than anybody and every thing. You waste less time dealing with inquires that lead nowhere or are solely based on price. You have more value to add when you specialise, because you an expert in something rather than being all things to all people. This helps you command (not justify) a higher margin. Oh I could go on and on…it reminds me of the story of the Miami divorce attorney who decided he didn’t handle women’s cases well and felt men were underrepresented. He gave his women customers to a trusted colleague (half his business) and focused on the guys and was wildly successful. He doubled his revenue by eliminating 50% of his business.
As for in-house, I think it is highly situational. There is a company in the UK that has a language set specialty and mainly uses in house resources. But I think it’s because of that specialty they have sufficient business to keeps them all busy. Others require scalability that happens only once every few years where only a combination of everything gets it done. It’s worth pondering what’s best for which customer base!
I look forward to your next post!
Jessica
Thanks a lot, Jessica! Very interesting observations there!
I believe if more agencies were started by “grown-up” freelancers (ones who DO specialize and DO have a small but effective team of trusted colleagues), there would be more agencies with the same qualities, and it would help the whole market.
Thanks for an interesting post. I thought I was the only one who wondered this!
I can compare the two, because I worked in-house as a trainee for six months, then continued to work for the same agency on a freelance basis after I left Spain. The difference is huge. In-house, as you say, I worked with the same clients over and over again, got to know their quirks and whims, and soon started blasting through their texts. The PMs called me “La Hija del Viento”, the Daughter of the Wind; I don’t say that to brag, because I attribute that to the fact that I was in-house. All of my time was devoted to that one agency, and if one PM’s deadline conflicted with another, I could get up, walk over to them and shuffle things around so that I could meet both deadlines – just imagine how much time that would have taken if they’d been PMs from two different agencies that I was juggling from home! I also got MUCH more feedback from the QA team when I was right there in the office: not from over my shoulder either – my work followed the same IT path then as it does now – but just because I sat across from the person revising my work, and it made sense for her to point out any terminology mistakes or formatting tricks since I was right there. Nowadays, even when I specifically ask for feedback from QA, it never comes: it’s much easier for the PMs to forget that I’m waiting for a response from them when I’m not walking out past them to take my lunch breaks, etc.
What’s worse, as far as the clients I worked with in-house are concerned, the agency charged them so little that it seems they could ONLY afford to keep their projects in-house: when I left, if I wanted to continue working for the clients I was so accustomed to on a per-word basis, the rate I’d have to accept was low even by Spanish standards.
In many ways I really preferred working in an office: I was much more productive, I felt more confident, I got to interact with humans (!) and I got to spend almost all of my working day actually translating, instead of invoicing and marketing and all the rest of it. And all of those things added value to the agency I worked for, not just for me. So I’m totally with you: I can’t understand why more agencies don’t have decent-sized teams of in-house translators.
Thanks, Megan! That’s a really interesting real-world example; thank you so much!