WHY SIZE AND TECHNOLOGY MATTER!
Sorry to be a little late with this week’s blog but I’ve been very busy organising some great new developments for our business.
Thebignews this week is that thebigword is moving! We need to move to accommodate the tremendous growth we’ve achieved in the past few years, but we also need to retain the fantastic teams we’ve built up in our Yorkshire HQ, so finding the right place has been a tall order.
We’ve bought a 21,000 sq ft building that will house our Global HQ, translation services and our growing technology business, all under one roof. It will also allow for expansion to accommodate up to 300 people by the end of this year.
It’s an exciting development and it will give us more space to do our job well, and to provide much better facilities. We’re installing a restaurant, exercise studio and prayer and meditation room for our multicultural workforce, which represents 36 different nationalities.
This move is a great way to celebrate our 30th birthday as a company. In 1980 when we started, we had just a few desks, telephones and a phone book. Our first piece of technology was a Telex machine. It was at the leading-edge at the time and represented a huge investment of £1200 per year, which is £15,000 ($24,000 USD) in today’s prices. Much as this purchase gave me sleepless nights, worrying about paying for it, it paved the way towards communicating more rapidly and accurately with clients and enabled us to generate much more business.
For you young people out there, please remember that there were no computers, no Internet, email, or mobile telephones. Yet we still got the job done. Its amazing to see how much a global business today depends on technology that has only been invented in the past three decades.
Technology will be at the heart of our new global hub in Yorkshire. It’s also the basis for future developments within Language Services, as we see increasing use of technology platforms to manage complex multilingual projects, and use the web to crowdsource expertise that will enable jobs to be done much more quickly and ultimately, drive down the cost of communicating in another language.
It’s an exciting new world….if only I could decide on the colour of carpet for the reception!
Thebignews this week is that thebigword is moving! We need to move to accommodate the tremendous growth we’ve achieved in the past few years, but we also need to retain the fantastic teams we’ve built up in our Yorkshire HQ, so finding the right place has been a tall order.
We’ve bought a 21,000 sq ft building that will house our Global HQ, translation services and our growing technology business, all under one roof. It will also allow for expansion to accommodate up to 300 people by the end of this year.
It’s an exciting development and it will give us more space to do our job well, and to provide much better facilities. We’re installing a restaurant, exercise studio and prayer and meditation room for our multicultural workforce, which represents 36 different nationalities.
This move is a great way to celebrate our 30th birthday as a company. In 1980 when we started, we had just a few desks, telephones and a phone book. Our first piece of technology was a Telex machine. It was at the leading-edge at the time and represented a huge investment of £1200 per year, which is £15,000 ($24,000 USD) in today’s prices. Much as this purchase gave me sleepless nights, worrying about paying for it, it paved the way towards communicating more rapidly and accurately with clients and enabled us to generate much more business.
For you young people out there, please remember that there were no computers, no Internet, email, or mobile telephones. Yet we still got the job done. Its amazing to see how much a global business today depends on technology that has only been invented in the past three decades.
Technology will be at the heart of our new global hub in Yorkshire. It’s also the basis for future developments within Language Services, as we see increasing use of technology platforms to manage complex multilingual projects, and use the web to crowdsource expertise that will enable jobs to be done much more quickly and ultimately, drive down the cost of communicating in another language.
It’s an exciting new world….if only I could decide on the colour of carpet for the reception!
