Translations play a key role in global success for any business. No matter your industry, professional translation is crucial for a variety of purposes, ranging from marketing and HR to global clinical trials and e-discovery.
Given the connected nature of the international marketplace, it is no longer sufficient to restrict business materials to English, especially if you are looking to expand your brand and product overseas. Translating materials not only functions as a boon to accessing a regional market – in certain countries, translations are required to meet local regulatory and compliance mandates. Translations also offer spillover benefits, such as improving global workforce engagement.
Enlisting a professional language service provider (LSP) will allow you to enjoy all the advantages of accessing a global audience, and growing your international presence.
1. International Litigation
International litigation is highly complex on its own. Add in the language, cultural, regulatory and procedural differences, and the experience can begin to feel overwhelming. Regulations are susceptible to change, even on a single-word basis, and mountains of discovery materials often include foreign language documents. Unless these are all translated appropriately, the likelihood of a transnational miscommunication is high.
There are three instances, in particular, where legal translations come in handy:
- Cases heard in multiple courts, in different nations.
- Staff are not fluent in the necessary language for an international case.
- A law exists in another language, but is required for use or application.
Given the high level of specificity within law code, there is little-to-no room for error when it comes to translations. Therefore, it’s important to ensure translators are ISO-certified.
2. Marketing & E-Commerce
The proliferation of digital devices and solutions across the world have encouraged businesses to go global. Conducting business on a global scale means interacting with different languages and cultures while creating websites, brochures, advertisements, contracts, commercial agreements, quarterly and annual reports, etc. Whatever industry you’re in, communicating the proper message abroad is crucial.
This is perhaps the most apparent in the realm of ecommerce. At the beginning of 2016, reports showed that 57% of participants across six continents purchased an item from a website based overseas. By the end of that same year, the U.S. ecommerce market had accrued over $322 billion in revenue, with projections indicating sustained growth. To enjoy numbers like that, ecommerce businesses have to market to different regional audiences. With English spoken by only 26% of the world’s internet users, localization and translation have become critical tools for successful international business adaptation.
3. Global Clinical Trials & Research Publications
Translation takes a prominent role in the medical industry when it comes to conducting global clinical trials and publishing scientific papers.
- Clinical trials require an immense amount of paperwork. There are documents that have to be filled out by patients (informed consent forms), administering staff (case report forms), doctors (clinical outcome assessments), and more. If the research sponsor is conducting global clinical trials, then all of these documents need to be translated for each location – twice. The documents need to be translated from the original language into the local language of the test participants. Once everything has been recorded, it has be to translated back into the original language of the research sponsor. Throughout this complicated process, expert linguists should be on staff to answer questions.
- 75% of scientific papers are written in English, with some fields reaching as high as 90% in English. As such, non-English research must be translated in order to reach the rest of the scientific community.
4. Patent Filing
Filing a patent application anywhere is a highly complex process. It’s even more complicated when you’re applying for a patent in a different language under a different set of regulations. Similar to the legal industry, accuracy and compliance are critical due to the highly technical and precise language of patent applications.
Filing and maintaining a patent application in major international markets can range from around $11,400 in Israel to nearly $25,700 in Japan. As international filing increases, translation prices have also increased. According to the European Commission (EC), “the costs for a single translation of a patent may be more than €1500.” When you add the cost of translations in multiple languages and filing fees for multiple countries, the EC says “national validation costs can add up to about 40% of the overall costs of patenting in Europe.”
Working with a language service provider can help reduce costs and verify accuracy throughout the patent application process. In a recent IP Watchdog webinar on patent filing, Morningside IP’s Rob Bloom explained, “Since Morningside IP represents hundreds of clients, our foreign associates offer us a much more competitive fee structure than an individual organization with an IP portfolio could obtain.”
Work with an LSP from the start
Using a faulty or inaccurate translation in any of the above industries could lead to a lengthy and expensive repositioning of your international business. Instead, use a professional Language Service Provider from the start of your venture to seamlessly integrate the various regions of your global business.