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What is the current business climate for LLE’s services? What do you anticipate it to be in the next 12 months?
The business climate has never been stronger in the language services industry. It is estimated that $8.8 billion is spent on translation and localization worldwide ($6 billion commercial and $2.8 billion government). LLE is a complete solution language service provider; in addition to translation, we offer telephone interpretation services as well as training and proficiency testing. We believe that when taken as a whole the language services industry could reach $10 to $12 billion in the next few years.
What are some of the recent trends in the language services industry that can affect how contact centers operate?
The trend in the language services industry is to provide multi-channel contact centers an enterprise-wide multi-lingual solution, such as LLE Lingo Suite. Lingo Suite furnishes language services at every customer or prospect communication point within the contact center: telephone, e-mail, live chat, document, web site, voice mail and bi-lingual language testing.
Also, the language services industry has been composed of many small enterprises (artisans; translators running their own businesses). Recent trends indicate that consolidation of these smaller companies into larger entities will be the norm.
Please explain the business case for your type of services.
In a word – communication. To do business, an organization must communicate in the customer’s language.
People around the world are reaching out to each other culturally, politically and economically. We help people to understand, and to be comfortable with one another. Basically, we deliver understanding and provide culture comfort.
The exponential growth in the global economy, immigration and the current geo-political situation will continue to have a huge impact on international and domestic organizations that service people of limited English proficiency.
In the twenty-first century, the language of business must be the language of the customer. Recently, Fortune published a graphic image of globalization in its July 2005 issue of the number of college graduates in 2005. China will produce 3,300,000; India will have 3,100,000 graduates; U.S. will graduate 1,300,000 people from college. The numbers foretell what languages will be in demand in the next decade.
In addition to voice, email and web communications can require translation services. Does your company offer such services?
Yes, LLE provides language solutions for both the written and spoken word. We offer transcription of voice mail and translation of email and websites. We also offer interpretation of spoken messages over the phone or on-site.
Can we expect new services from LLE in the near future? If so, can you give us some idea of what we can expect?
Yes, we plan to add 24 x 7 e-mail and live chat translation as well as our language testing / assessment capability to LLE Lingo Suite. In addition, due to the increased demand to develop, implement and deliver enterprise-wide language service solutions, we are expanding our professional consulting services business unit to handle the volume of requests for on-site language assessments.
Our services are based on rendering a message from one language to another. Thus, our language technology center is working on ways in which we can develop faster, more efficient delivery mechanisms. By offering faster access to a wider range of our services through the Internet, we will expand the availability of our linguists to our clients.
As you know, there are several companies that provide services similar to yours. How does someone differentiate LLE from other companies?
LLE is distinguishable by its completeness. LLE provides language solutions at every point of personnel, customer or prospect contact. We are the only language service provider that is structured to offer its clients comprehensive, tactical language solutions: 1) on-demand solutions (telephonic interpretation, e-mail and live chat translation where the interpreter / translator is immediately accessible to the client); 2) reflective solutions (document / website translation where the translator deliberates and requires time to respond accurately to the client); 3) educational solutions (language instruction where the teacher spends months in a classroom transmitting language acquisition to the client); and 4) assessment solutions (bi-lingual, interpreter and translator proficiency testing; on-site language assessments and consulting).
LLE’s services require that you have people available that are skilled in various languages. What information do you base your staffing requirements on? How many languages does LLE support?
Not only do we require skill in a range of languages, we also require professional skill in the art of translation (written), interpretation (verbal), transcription (audio to written) and instruction (teaching / testing). We base our staffing on existing client needs coupled with finely tuned projections of future needs. Our 26 years of experience allows us to do this with remarkable success. We support over 150 languages, but in actual demand we service about 70 languages day to day.
What type of training program do you employ that keeps your people proficient in these languages and enables them to effectively communicate in a business environment.
LLE utilizes linguists, not merely bi-lingual speakers. LLE engages linguists who are native speakers of their own language and who are proficient in English. Accordingly, we do not train for proficiency, rather we train for skill. A bi-lingual speaker is not automatically an interpreter or translator—the skill has to be learned. We seek individuals who already have the requisite language fluency, linguistic skill and cultural competency in the source and target language. In addition, we offer our linguists professional development in content and in delivery style.
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