DELIVERING BRILLIANCE AT THE RIGHT PRICE
This week I have spent mostly at home, floored by some random virus. This is something that I rarely give way to, but with excessive coughing fits I found myself banished to lying on the sofa and feeling very sorry for myself. Even the constant bleeping from my beloved mobile did not encourage me to raise my head, except when it was time for another lemon and honey infusion. The only activity I could manage was mindless watching non-stop TV. By the end of the first day, and listening to the dire warnings of the near end of the Eurozone and almost the end of the world, I doubled my medication in an attempt to speed my recovery. The only good news of the week was that FIFA gave in to Prince William’s and David Cameron’s requests that the English football team can wear the poppy. This is a symbol of remembrance for all those soldiers who were lost through the many wars since 1918. That certainly perked me up a little, to see that common sense and decency had prevailed.
The original reason for my writing my blog was for me to be able to reach out to our 500 staff working in our offices around the world, and the 12,000+ translators and interpreting contract workers who are based in 73 countries. I was initially inspired to start the blog to combat all the negative news and information that the media constantly fed everyone about the economy, recession, etc. which I felt lacked balance and I still do. I wanted to share with all our stakeholders the good news that we were experiencing in our company, and are still experiencing. The negative influences coming from the media can be so damaging.
It would be ridiculous for anyone who is even twice as positive as I am about the future, to ignore the reality of the world debt crisis. You only have to visit our offices in New York and London and see the number of protests. For all those people who have lost their jobs, my heart truly goes out to them. For all the young people who have been misled into believing that higher education would lead to automatic employment, I feel great sympathy and frustration on their behalf.
However, all is not lost. It is a very painful correction that is going on, which has been led by overspending by many governments, organisations and of course people like ourselves. This correction will cause misery, and those people who are working and are able to help must do so. But you must also open your eyes and look around, and see that nine out of 10 people are working, and businesses are continuing to grow. If you look on the recruitment websites throughout Europe and the USA, there are still many thousands of jobs available. Maybe it is not what everyone wants, but it is there and once you are in a company, I know from my own experience that you can often find better positions within the company you are in, than from being an outside candidate. So if you are frustrated in your job, perhaps you should tell the people you work for that you want more. Again I know at thebigword that we always prefer to firstly promote from within as opposed to recruiting from outside.
thebigword, in these difficult times, is thankfully still seeing business increasing and new contracts being won. Partly it is due to the fact that we have recognised market pressures and have greatly reduced prices to win these contracts. However, many of our wins have been due to the millions of pounds we have invested in the last few years in automating our processes. We believe that thebigword spends more money as a percentage of its turnover on automation than any of our major competitors. This in turn has reduced our operational costs. But like it or not, the buying and selling of our language services has become commoditised, there is no doubt of this. thebigword wins business because of its excellent quality (whatever the price is, if your quality is no good, you are finished) and ability to deliver on time. The reality is we sometimes do lose business, simply down to the fact that the price from our competitors was lower than ours. Of course, if a company just sells its services at the lowest price, then this can be disastrous. So our challenge is how do we offer competitive prices and pay for the cost of delivering the service and still make a profit? Without the profit we would be unable to invest in automation, staff training and the huge cost of the 500 non-linguist employees, many of whom travel the globe, often away from their families for long periods of time in the quest to win the contracts. This, together with the brilliant support we are getting from the majority of the freelance community, will mean that we can continue to give them the much needed work, admittedly at less than the prices we were previously able to charge and pay.
All our research indicates that the appetite for translation and interpreting services is set to continue to grow and grow and grow. This is fuelled by governments and organisations wanting to engage with all the population. Also global legislation requires in a number of situations that material must be translated and interpreters have to be provided. This is in addition to the amazing opportunities that the internet has created, which has given companies world-wide access to customers around the globe and where the final barrier to do business is language. That barrier can only be broken by our services, aided by our linguists’ community.
Despite the fact that the short time ahead will continue to be challenging, for those people who are qualified linguists I believe there is a great future, which I would like to continue sharing with you in my weekly blog.
Hope you have a happy and healthy weekend.
Larry
The original reason for my writing my blog was for me to be able to reach out to our 500 staff working in our offices around the world, and the 12,000+ translators and interpreting contract workers who are based in 73 countries. I was initially inspired to start the blog to combat all the negative news and information that the media constantly fed everyone about the economy, recession, etc. which I felt lacked balance and I still do. I wanted to share with all our stakeholders the good news that we were experiencing in our company, and are still experiencing. The negative influences coming from the media can be so damaging.
It would be ridiculous for anyone who is even twice as positive as I am about the future, to ignore the reality of the world debt crisis. You only have to visit our offices in New York and London and see the number of protests. For all those people who have lost their jobs, my heart truly goes out to them. For all the young people who have been misled into believing that higher education would lead to automatic employment, I feel great sympathy and frustration on their behalf.
However, all is not lost. It is a very painful correction that is going on, which has been led by overspending by many governments, organisations and of course people like ourselves. This correction will cause misery, and those people who are working and are able to help must do so. But you must also open your eyes and look around, and see that nine out of 10 people are working, and businesses are continuing to grow. If you look on the recruitment websites throughout Europe and the USA, there are still many thousands of jobs available. Maybe it is not what everyone wants, but it is there and once you are in a company, I know from my own experience that you can often find better positions within the company you are in, than from being an outside candidate. So if you are frustrated in your job, perhaps you should tell the people you work for that you want more. Again I know at thebigword that we always prefer to firstly promote from within as opposed to recruiting from outside.
thebigword, in these difficult times, is thankfully still seeing business increasing and new contracts being won. Partly it is due to the fact that we have recognised market pressures and have greatly reduced prices to win these contracts. However, many of our wins have been due to the millions of pounds we have invested in the last few years in automating our processes. We believe that thebigword spends more money as a percentage of its turnover on automation than any of our major competitors. This in turn has reduced our operational costs. But like it or not, the buying and selling of our language services has become commoditised, there is no doubt of this. thebigword wins business because of its excellent quality (whatever the price is, if your quality is no good, you are finished) and ability to deliver on time. The reality is we sometimes do lose business, simply down to the fact that the price from our competitors was lower than ours. Of course, if a company just sells its services at the lowest price, then this can be disastrous. So our challenge is how do we offer competitive prices and pay for the cost of delivering the service and still make a profit? Without the profit we would be unable to invest in automation, staff training and the huge cost of the 500 non-linguist employees, many of whom travel the globe, often away from their families for long periods of time in the quest to win the contracts. This, together with the brilliant support we are getting from the majority of the freelance community, will mean that we can continue to give them the much needed work, admittedly at less than the prices we were previously able to charge and pay.
All our research indicates that the appetite for translation and interpreting services is set to continue to grow and grow and grow. This is fuelled by governments and organisations wanting to engage with all the population. Also global legislation requires in a number of situations that material must be translated and interpreters have to be provided. This is in addition to the amazing opportunities that the internet has created, which has given companies world-wide access to customers around the globe and where the final barrier to do business is language. That barrier can only be broken by our services, aided by our linguists’ community.
Despite the fact that the short time ahead will continue to be challenging, for those people who are qualified linguists I believe there is a great future, which I would like to continue sharing with you in my weekly blog.
Hope you have a happy and healthy weekend.
Larry
