From Cobblers to Conductors

Paula Shannon
CSO, SVP, General Manager
Lionbridge
 The Cobbler‘s Song

I sit and cobble at slippers

and shoon
From the rise of sun to the set
of moon
Cobble and cobble, as best
I may
Cobble all night and cobble all
day
And I sing as I cobble this
doleful lay…
 The Cobbler‘s Song

The stouter I cobble, the

less I earn
For the soles ne’er crack,
nor the uppers turn
The better my work, the
less my pay
But work can only be done
one way
…and Conductors
 The Mozart Effect
The issue service industries face is The Mozart Effect, as described by
William Baumol, an economist at New York University*

As noted essayist and author, James

Surowiecki puts it, “When Mozart
composed his String Quintet in G Minor
(K. 516) in 1787, you needed five people to
perform it—two violinists, two violists and
a cellist.

Today, you still need five people, and,

unless they play really fast, they take
about as long to perform it as musicians
did two centuries ago.

So much for progress.”

*Performing Arts: the Economic Dilemma
(1966), Baumol and Bowen
 Baumol’s “Cost Disease”
In a range of businesses, such as
the car manufacturing sector and
the retail sector, workers are
continually getting more productive
due to technological innovations to
their tools and equipment.

In contrast, in some labor-intensive

sectors that rely heavily on human
interaction or activities, such as
nursing, education, or the
performing arts there is little or no
growth in productivity over time. As
with the Mozart string quartet
example, it takes nurses the same
amount of time to change a
bandage, or college professors the
same amount of time to mark an
essay, in 2006 as it did in 1966.
 Are We Cobblers or Conductors?
Industry Group A Industry Group B

workers are continually getting labor-intensive sectors that rely

more productive due to
technological innovations to their
tools and equipment.
heavily on human interaction or
activities, such as education, or the
performing arts where there is little
or no growth in productivity over
time.

The Translation Industry Exhibits Elements of BOTH!

Airlines, Car Wash, even Lawn Care:
Differentiated Services and Pricing Models
What About Pricing Models?
We talk about different types of content, but the price is
remains, on average, .22 USD cents per word?*

Cheeseburger
Cheeseburger,
Cheeseburger.
*Common Sense Advisory No Coke, Pepsi
 QUALITY MEANS
Industry Standards? Customer Expectations?

“My requirements have been met”

“Staying on message and on

brand”

“Avoiding adverse outcomes”

“That LSPs use the resources I

dictate”

“Minimizing headaches on our end”

“Consistency I can trust”

Most Meaningful KPIs and SLAs are
Specific to the Client and Content
Let’s Get a Few Definitions Straight
 •
•

© Lionbridge 2008
Portugese
Japanese
Spanish

German
Chinese
English

Korean
French

Arabic
Italian

Rest of World Languages

0
28
31
34
40

50
Internet Top Ten Languages

56
59
86
89

100
200,000,000
400,000,000
600,000,000
800,000,000

0
1,000,000,000
1,200,000,000
1,400,000,000

Chinese

150
Arabic
Hindi
English
Spanish
159

Bengali
Portuguese

Millions of Users
Russian
Japanese
German
French
Korean

200
Javanese
Telugu
Marathi

203
Vietnamese
Tamil
Italian
Reaching 1 Billion Users requires +/- 127 languages

Turkish
Urdu
Punjabi
Ukrainian
Gujarati

250
Thai
Polish
Malayalam
Kannada
Oriya
Burmese
Azerbaijani
Farsi
Sunda
Pashto
Romanian
300 Bhojpuri
Hausa
Maithili
Malay
to Developing Nations

Serbo-Croatian
Awadhi
Uzbek
Connecting 5 Billion Users will necessitate more than 1,000 languages

Yoruba
329

Dutch
Sindh
350

Igbo
Amharic
Oromo
Indonesian
Tagalog
Nepali
Assamese
Saraiki
Cebuano
Hungarian
Chittagonian
Shift Happens - Growth is Migrating

Zhuang
Shona
Madura
Sinhala
Marwari
Magahi
Haryanyi
Greek
Czech
Chhattisgarhi
Fulfulde
Deccan
Malagasy
Belarusan
Publication Plotting Quality and Value of Content
Quality

Advertising & Collateral

Customer Education &

Service Product Information
Enpocket
Mobile Ads
Community
Generated Content
Informational

FAQ’s eCommerce
User
Interface

Customer Care
After Sales Support

Lower Value Higher Value

 Varied Content Mandates
Differentiated Approaches
Transaction Cost

Marketing
Content
Streaming Web
High Content
Product Updates
and Training
Product, Materials
Solution Technical Doc
Efficiency and online Help
Demands I18N
Initial Product
Localization
Low

Translation Cost 1/year Marketable Shelf Life of Content 1/hour

“…But Work Can Only Be Done One
Way”

Or Can It?
 Varied Service Levels – An Example
Type A: Basic
The following rates are all-inclusive. Rates include all file preparation,
translation & editing, recording & project management – Audio is VOIP and
does not include dialog director or post production engineering and QA

Type B: Advanced
The following rates are all-inclusive. Rates include all file preparation,
engineering, desktop publishing, quality assurance and project management.
Audio performed by talent in a studio and includes post-production engineer.

Type C: Professional
The following rates are all-inclusive. Rates
include all file preparation, engineering,
desktop publishing, testing of compiled
application, quality assurance & LQI checks,
DTP Print proofs, professional voice talent
and project management.
Hybrid Model – UI, MT & Community
 More Content = More Options
Microsoft’s View from 2010 On

Community
Broad reach to
penetrate new outreach at
markets effectively lowest cost
for widest
expansion

Lower-cost alternative
Premium- for expanded
level quality marketplace
for targeted
product
audience
Deliverables

Quality
Current Localization Cost Model
Traditional Premium localization cost breakdown
~60% ~25% ~15%

Copy
Translation Editing
Proof

Logoport LTB

95% Average Quality

• What % of quality comes straight from translators?

• What % gets improved via each of the post-translation steps?
 Basic Pilot #2
MT Post-editing + Tools
Average to Good Translators + Tools
50% of cost

MT MT Post-Editing LTB

Logoport

50% Average Quality?

• Use of MT as baseline for Basic loc

• LTB will post-process files and identify/flag strings with highest probability
of wrong MT translation (based on experience + statistics)
• Must cut 50% of costs and reach 50% of quality (to be tested/proven in
during pilot)
 Value Pilot #1
Direct Translation + Tools

Good (not great) Translators + Tools

70% of cost

MT Translation LTB

Logoport

70% Average Quality?

• By using only translators + tools, we can eliminate 2 steps in process

• Probably can cut costs by 30% and still maintain >=70% of quality (to
be tested/proven during pilot)
• Perform a LQA to measure the Quality
Cobblers and Conductors
Service Oriented Architecture &
A Symphony of Service Models
Components for Enhanced Connectivity

Language
Global
Quality Mgt.
Computer Branding
Assisted
Community TM
Models
Crowdsourcing

Asset & Global

MT
Terminology Search
Mgt. Relevancy
Human
Translation
Authoring