| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] > | How to find the largest translation agencies Thread poster: Pavel Zalutski
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| How to find the largest translation agencies | Mar 29, 2010 |
Pavel Zalutski wrote:
PABLO said that instead of the list of the BIG ones I should be looking for the list of the BEST ones. Does one exist?
I am afraid that such list does not exist. And if someone had it, I guess he/she will not put it for sale on the market. But, I believe we still have resources enough to segment the translation market to our convenience. This is what I'd do, but obviously to take decisions about your marketing strategie is on your own:
I would suppress all extreme values from my lead list:
Large translations agencies tend to be arrogant when it comes to negotiating and we are usually not able to face them in negotiations or in litigation case.
Very small translation agencies usually do not have resources enough to get interesting jobs and income, more than occasionally.
It remains the central part of the market to us, but I would still segment the market by removing from the list all the agencies who have any bad reference of any kind, but specially late payments or not payments at all.
I think that after this, it will not exist so much choice...
[Editado a las 2010-03-29 18:28 GMT]
| | | | Samuel Murray 
Netherlands
Local time: 20:38
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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| More speculation about large agencies | Mar 29, 2010 |
Pablo Bouvier wrote:
Large translations agencies tend to be arrogant when it comes to negotiating and we are usually not able to face them in negotiations or in litigation case.
The PMs at large agencies may also be under pressure to make certain targets, which includes selling translations at the highest price and buying them at the lowest price.
On the other hand, don't forget that large agencies often have offices in many cities, and whereas one city's PMs may be obnoxious, another city's PMs may be a great pleasure to work with.
A much better list might be a list of agencies with offices in more than one country or city, so that you can remember to treat them separately and market yourself to them separately. Unfortunately the Blue Board often does not indicate whether an agency has multiple offices, but other lists sometimes do (like Ted's list, for example).
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 20:38
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| ProZ.com rules? | Mar 29, 2010 |
Pavel Zalutski wrote:
If you like this idea, would you want to split the BlueBoard with me so that we browse designated alphabetical sections of it and then compile info into one list? Then we could use that list to market ourselves.
This sounds like something ProZ.com members could do privately (in a group or alone), but I wonder if it wouldn't be against ProZ.com's policy if a member were to take the Blue Board, repackage it a bit, and then sell it off to translators outside of ProZ.com. What do you think?
| | | | Pavel Zalutski
United States
Local time: 14:38
English to Russian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Let's keep talking about this | Mar 30, 2010 |
Samuel Murray wrote:
but I wonder if it wouldn't be against ProZ.com's policy if a member were to take the Blue Board, repackage it a bit, and then sell it off to translators outside of ProZ.com. What do you think?
I'd be cautious not to use any information which is proprietary to ProZ. I don't think it is wrong to take the names and contact info of agencies from the Blue Board. And I'd use the list only among friends who help me create it; I wouldn't be selling it.
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| "Information which is proprietary to Proz.com". | Mar 31, 2010 |
Pavel Zalutski wrote: Samuel Murray wrote:
but I wonder if it wouldn't be against ProZ.com's policy if a member were to take the Blue Board, repackage it a bit, and then sell it off to translators outside of ProZ.com. What do you think? I'd be cautious not to use any information which is proprietary to ProZ. I don't think it is wrong to take the names and contact info of agencies from the Blue Board. And I'd use the list only among friends who help me create it; I wouldn't be selling it.
I am sorry Pavel, but this idea of "...information which is proprietary to Proz." sounds a bit funny.
Any entries made by Proz members in the Blueboard were made FOR THE BLUEBOARD, under the conditions of use of the Blueboard, and with no other goal in mind. You are not at all entitled to grab my entries (or anybody else's entries) in the Blueboard and sell them (or share them in any way, for that matter) without my (our) explicit approval!
What information in the Blueboard do you think is not Proz.com proprietary? Do you mean to the members' proprietary information?
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 20:38
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote: Pavel Zalutski wrote: Samuel Murray wrote:
...but I wonder if it wouldn't be against ProZ.com's policy if a member were to take the Blue Board, repackage it a bit, and then sell it off to translators outside of ProZ.com. I'd be cautious not to use any information which is proprietary to ProZ. I don't think it is wrong to take the names and contact info of agencies from the Blue Board. And I'd use the list only among friends who help me create it; I wouldn't be selling it. Any entries made by Proz members in the Blueboard were made FOR THE BLUEBOARD, under the conditions of use of the Blueboard, and with no other goal in mind. You are not at all entitled to grab my entries (or anybody else's entries) in the Blueboard and sell them (or share them in any way, for that matter) without my (our) explicit approval!
1. Well, when I made my original comment, I wasn't even thinking of the proprietary aspect. What I was thinking of was that if you share Blue Board information with anyone (for free or for money) who are not paying ProZ.com members, then you are stealing from ProZ.com (and in some weird sense, also from everyone who paid membership fees to have access to the information).
I find it strange when non-ProZ.com translators ask on other forums about Agency XYZ, and the ProZ.com members pipe up with helpful information like "Oh, their rating on the Blue Board is 4.2" or "I'll e-mail you the Blue Board record for this agency", which is against ProZ.com rules. You're not allowed to share Blue Board information with people who are not paying members of ProZ.com.
2. As for the proprietary aspect, well, the ratings may be proprietary, but the names and addresses of the agencies are not. So I would see no problem with it if someone were to use the Blue Board as a starting point for creating a list of translation agencies, as long as none of the information that is Blue Board-specific (or that is not available by other, public avenues) is directly or indirectly made available on such a list.
If, for example, you'd create a list of agencies sorted by the number of ratings that they have on the Blue Board, but you simply leave out the ratings count, you'd still be in trouble because you would not be able to show that your list's sorting order is independent from the Blue Board. Or if you were to create a list of agencies with a 4.5 or higher rating, for example, you'd have to be able to show that your selection of agencies is independent from the Blue Board and is not founded on proprietary information gleaned from the Blue Board. I could go on...
| | | | Pavel Zalutski
United States
Local time: 14:38
English to Russian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Let's talk more about big vs. small and where to find the small... | Mar 31, 2010 |
Thanks everyone for your replies.
Would anyone like to talk a little more about the advantages of working with small to midsize agencies as opposed to big agencies and how to find them, other than the BlueBoard?
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 20:38
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| The value of many LWA entries | Mar 31, 2010 |
Pavel Zalutski wrote:
I was thinking that one way to compile a list would be to look through the BlueBoard and jot down the companies with most LWA entries. Indeed, the guys I've had great work from all have a lot of LWAs. Seems like a meaningful factor.
What would you regard as a good cut-off point? I mean, at how many LWA entries would you accept an agency on your list? Just to give you some idea... I had a look at the United States entries.
Number of USA agencies on the Blue Board: about 2400
Number of USA agencies with at least 1 rating: 1280
Number of USA agencies with no ratings: 1140
Number of USA agencies with at least 99 ratings: 6
Number of USA agencies with at least 50 ratings: 24
Number of USA agencies with at least 20 ratings: 134
Since you do Russian and English, I did some calculations for Russian Federation agencies as well:
Number of RF agencies on the Blue Board: about 260
Number of RF agencies with at least 1 rating: 110
Number of RF agencies with no ratings: 150
Number of RF agencies with at least 25 ratings: 8
Number of RF agencies with at least 10 ratings: 15
Number of RF agencies with at least 5 ratings: 31
As you can see, the numbers are very different.
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| Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member because it was not in line with site rule | | Very much likely | Dec 7, 2013 |
jyuan_us wrote:
tend to pay very low rates.
I agree! Smaller agencies tend to offer more competitive rates.
| | | | Pavel Zalutski
United States
Local time: 14:38
English to Russian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Large agencies are worth it | Dec 30, 2013 |
It's been a while since I started this thread - and didn't I go a long way from asking what the largest translation agencies are to where I am now.
And from where I am now I can say that large agencies are NOT awful to work for, to the contrary of what many have pointed out.
Large agencies have larger translator pool and sometimes they even post jobs on their internal job boards and sometimes translators even bid for them. So yes, large agencies sometimes pay lower rate... See more It's been a while since I started this thread - and didn't I go a long way from asking what the largest translation agencies are to where I am now.
And from where I am now I can say that large agencies are NOT awful to work for, to the contrary of what many have pointed out.
Large agencies have larger translator pool and sometimes they even post jobs on their internal job boards and sometimes translators even bid for them. So yes, large agencies sometimes pay lower rates. Often they do not have close relationships with translators; often they send out mass email offers.
With that said, large agencies also sometimes pay high rates and often pay decent rates. They are sometimes in a tight situation needing a translator urgently, and there's always a chance to negotiate a higher rate with them. As a translator you can do many things when to break through their impersonal armor and have project managers do exceptions for you by offering you exclusive jobs and giving you higher rates: be it great customer service, or trying to make relationships more personal, or just negotiating and using your power of persuasion.
Large agencies are not bad to work for.
If you want to find them, here's a great link: http://languageoperative.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/2013-common-sense-advisorys-top-100-lsps.pdf ▲ Collapse
| | | | Kay Denney
France
Local time: 20:38
French to English
| Totally with Nicole | Dec 30, 2013 |
Pavel Zalutski wrote:
Would anyone like to talk a little more about the advantages of working with small to midsize agencies as opposed to big agencies and how to find them, other than the BlueBoard?
They tend to specialise more, so there's less chance of being sent something totally outside my comfort zone. And specialised agencies tend to charge more and pay more.
The PMs are more likely to have had training in translation and are thus better aware of issues you might have. They'll look into them more thoroughly and will contact the client when necessary. They're more likely to be knowledgeable about the client and let you in on what they know rather than making you figure it all out from a bland corporate website. They take the time and trouble to educate their clients so you don't have to educate them.
You get a more personal relationship, more enjoyable, which then blossoms into a more fruitful relationship. Several translators I used to work with have now become friends (which is a wonderful thing just in itself), who I recommend to clients when I'm bogged down, and who can now recommend me.
As a result of discussing weekends on the phone beyond "it was great, how about you?" I knew about people's hobbies and once managed to place a pretty technical translation about horses with a translator who usually only did legal. She loved it and added equitation to her list of specialities later on.
As another result of the personal relationship, I'm prepared to fit things in for them when I might refuse a similar job from another client. They understand that they are given preference and will try to do favours for me: the virtuous circle that everybody can thrive on.
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| Large enough to cope, small enough to care | Dec 31, 2013 |
That was the motto of a one-woman 'agency' I worked with at one time.
There are advantages in size, but I have seen at least one agency grow too fast and lose the personal touch. They no longer provide the good service they used to for translators, and their rates stay the same, so you end up doing more work or wasting time for the same rates.
Another agency I know is proud of its growth, but is concentrating on quality, attention to detail and providing what the client... See more That was the motto of a one-woman 'agency' I worked with at one time.
There are advantages in size, but I have seen at least one agency grow too fast and lose the personal touch. They no longer provide the good service they used to for translators, and their rates stay the same, so you end up doing more work or wasting time for the same rates.
Another agency I know is proud of its growth, but is concentrating on quality, attention to detail and providing what the client needs. They avoid growing too fast to be able to keep up their standards. Nevertheless, to fulfil their own ambitions, handling many EU languages and major world languages while providing DTP and other services as well, they do need to be fairly large, and are still expanding.
It is well worth looking for that kind of large agency, but as Nicole so rightly says, look for the GOOD ones!
Happy New Year! ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Largest by what metrics? | Dec 31, 2013 |
For the past couple of years, I've become more picky regarding my clientele.
I've been quite busy translating for great translation agencies, but I don't think these are physically so large.
Yet after this more selective approach, i.e. including only the fairly good to the best ones, one type of event has happened so consistently, that I'm taking it as a rule of thumb: ... See more For the past couple of years, I've become more picky regarding my clientele.
I've been quite busy translating for great translation agencies, but I don't think these are physically so large.
Yet after this more selective approach, i.e. including only the fairly good to the best ones, one type of event has happened so consistently, that I'm taking it as a rule of thumb: The worst experiences I had in this meantime were with agencies having over 100 entries on their Blue Board record.
Of course, their composite score was always well above 4, if not a solid 5.
Now please don't ask me to explain it, I'm merely stating an empirical fact.
It's food for thought, and I'm still thinking...
Any more scientific explanation will be most welcome. ▲ Collapse
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Thanks for the update - it's interesting to hear of your progress since your original post. I hope you continue to do well.
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