Translation and interpretation services have been incorporated into business models since time immemorial. This is no wonder considering the vast diversity of our planet’s human population.
In order to make your mark on the world and attract an audience that would otherwise be unreachable, it is necessary for start-ups to focus a portion of their budget on language services.
For start-ups to recognize the value of incorporating language services, they must first consider the following points in addition to conducting their own research with respect to the sphere in which they are engaged.
1. Reaching an international audience
The world is too large a place for your businesses’ web presence to be framed in a monolingual format. In order to expand, you truly need to look at the bigger picture and imagine your company’s presence both inside and outside your linguistic borders.
Whether your organization is based around commerce, medicine, the legal field, literature, marketing, networking, etc., adding translation services to your budget will ensure a more wholesome entry into the world market as you can feasibly convert your website, product manuals, and customer service facilities into more accessible formats for speakers of foreign languages.
Why limit yourself to only the English language, for example, when the number of native speakers of Spanish exceeds that of English native speakers and the amount of native speakers of Mandarin makes up more than 10% of the total world population?
Of course, considering budget limitations, it may be advisable to focus on languages relevant to your company’s reach or current location. For example, US companies always find advantages when incorporating Spanish language services while UK companies may benefit just as much from French and German language services given the proximity of their countries.
On the other hand, if your company operates in another country, it is imperative to ensure adequate translation and interpretation faculties on both ends. Even your company’s slogan may need to be translated!
2. Handling legal proceedings abroad
Building off this previous point, if your company is operating abroad in any way then it is paramount to ensure adequate translation services of any legal proceedings proceeding from or destined to entities within the foreign country.
Furthermore, it is often required of such documents that their corresponding translations be deemed certified translations, a procedure facilitated by professional translators within translation agencies.
Requirements regarding certified translations vary greatly from country to country so it is important to do your own research to ascertain the target country requirements for formal proceedings with respect to translated documents. Consulting with a professional translation agency can help clear up any potential doubts you may have.
The demand for certified translation is based on the fact that concepts between legal systems, formal proceedings, and administrative processes between different countries vary greatly. It is essential that a professional trained in the comprehension of such differences be able to discern these details and adapt texts and ideas accordingly. Notarized translations are another crucial aspect of maintaining an international presence and handling formal proceedings abroad.
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A critical difference that plays a role in your start-up’s foreign presence is the demand for interpreters. An interpreter, in contrast to a translator, is someone who is present for the actual meeting or conversation and converts all spoken material to the corresponding target language for the relevant party.
Abroad, interpreters can often form part of the foundation of a company’s on-site staff and can be trained to perform additional functions while not actively interpreting or translating. Nonetheless, even if this service is not in high demand within your company, it is always wise to have contract interpreters or a reference translation agency on speed dial in case of emergency need.
For this exact reason, many agencies now offer over-the-phone interpretation services at more budget-friendly rates and with the same level of professionalism on behalf of the translator.
3. Increasing e-commerce sales
Increasing sales is highly beneficial to any company as it typically forms the foundation of all business models and strategies. The idea here is simple: if your website, online shop, company brochures, mission statement, and product or service descriptions are available in a multilingual format, said product or service will find itself in more varied reaches of the world. Don’t you want to see your creation reach as far as the Baltic states, Asia, Latin America, and even Africa?
Take a look at the largest commerce organizations in operation today, such as Amazon, Alibaba, and eBay: if they don’t have completely separate websites dedicated to different nationalities or language groups (such as Spanish, French, Russian, Mandarin, Hebrew, German, etc.), they at least offer products and online services in a multitude of languages in order to ensure that their customers feel confident in their purchase and know exactly what they are ordering. This level of accessibility and comprehensibility is imperative to attaining the reach of an international audience.
Imagine yourself trying to find a product for weeks and you finally find exactly what you’ve been looking for on a German website. Unfortunately, you cannot make out any of the text and Google Translate is giving you a very vague rendition.
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You probably wouldn’t buy the product, right? Furthermore, how will you even know you’re putting in your address and credit card information correctly when it comes to finalizing the order and selecting shipping options if the words you are looking at ultimately leave you clueless?
The whole world has a wealth of needs, desires, and ideas which will continue to fuel e-commerce and online business to unrestrained degrees, and if you do not take advantage of this early on then you will be missing out severely in the long run.
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