by Reed Peterson

s the vast expanses separating the world’s population are bridged by technology and the Internet, and as national economies continue to be dependent on each other for sustained growth, globalization, the process by which societies and economies are being integrated, is the defining issue of our time.

The slumping of the global economy is requiring companies to look for cost-effective ways to grow revenue anywhere they can. And although 2 billion of the world's 6 billion people speak at least a simplified form of English, companies are realizing that to profit in the global economy, it's critical to speak the customer's native tongue. Many of these forward thinking companies are turning to outsourced translation providers. One such company is MultiLing.

Founded in 1988 as a paper-based translations bureau, Utah-based MultiLing Corporation has developed into an experienced provider of language technology and services. With complete integration of its multilingual assets and cutting-edge linguistic technology, MultiLing is a full-service language and globalization services company for businesses expanding into multilingual markets. Marketing the Transit and TermStar product family – products that have redefined computer-assisted translation, MultiLing has become the regions premier language technology and services company.

MultiLing prepares products and documentation for international use - translating marketing materials, training videos, user manuals, and Web-based content. In addition, the company provides product certification and testing services to ensure quality in Web sites, software applications, and hardware.

“If you can write it, we can translate it,” said Michael Sneddon, president of MultiLing, of his somewhat esoteric business. “This includes translating English into other languages and other languages into English from many sources - company literature, training materials, technical and support materials or other publications.”

“Our mission is to help people communicate with the world by bridging language and cultural barriers,” Sneddon continued. “We are a medium size company with capacity to compete in quality, cost, and service with any company in the world. In fact, several of our customers tell us they like our smaller size since we give them more attention to their particular needs. I think we give excellent value, as good if not better than any company around. For example, we are the least expensive of all of Dell’s vendors, and we have been told that our costs to Dell are 20% less than one of their other vendors.”

One way MultiLing is able to provide high quality translation services for less is the use of various translation technologies.

“Our technology helps improve the speed and productivity of translators,” Sneddon said. “A lot of the material in the technical documents we translate is repetitive. The technology we use doesn’t replace translators, it enhances their abilities to translate; it gives them access to glossaries and allows them to reuse translations.”

“Our computer analysis finds exact matches in the translation – sections that don’t have to be retranslated,” continued Sneddon. “This can save between 20 percent and 60 percent in translation costs and time.”

One of the technologies MultiLing uses is translation memory, a break-through technology, which allows translators to reuse past translations to enhance terminology and translation consistency. If many of the same words or phrases are used again, this memory progressively boosts the amount of text clients are able to translate for the same budget. MultiLing’s translation memory is based on the productivity software of two products, Transit and TermStar.

Depending on the amount of repetitive text, Transit, a complete translation system, creates and maintains client-specific translation memories to preserve formatting throughout the translation process. It maintains this integrity through several built-in quality assurance features and cross-checking to keep terms consistent. As new projects are completed, MultiLing updates the memories during the final step of the translation process.

Transit works with all major formats, e.g. Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint; SGML, HTML, QuarkXPress, PageMaker, FrameMaker, and all commercially usable languages. Transit can also be configured to support other file formats.

TermStar, another MultiLing product, generates and maintains the glossaries; any supporting graphic files are altered and stored via MultiLing’s desktop publishing specialists.

GoldenEye is an enterprise resource management (ERP) system MultiLing developed to track each project from beginning to end so the status of the job is known and can be reported on at every moment.

“A real benefit is that the specific layout is preserved,” he said. “Other companies usually have to start from scratch with any document that needs to be translated.”

MultiLing’s technology, along with the language dictionaries and translation memory, allows a language professional to produce consistent, high-quality translations in a short amount of time. This technology, coupled with experienced in-country translators, and MultiLing’s familiarity with global regulatory standards, allow MultiLing to accurately and rapidly translate the highly technical and ‘hard’ science material for a number of global companies.

One such company is Thermo Nicolet Corporation, the leading designer and manufacturer of scientific instruments for infrared analysis. Difficult enough in English, Thermo Nicolet’s additional challenge was to provide its complete line of spectroscopy products and solutions to its audience in nearly every worldwide market. The global translations would require translators to be fluent in three languages: the primary language, the secondary language and the language of the specific science.

Thermo Nicolet enlisted MultiLing to carry out the translation services. Mary Ellen Schutz, translation coordinator and senior technical writer for Thermo Nicolet, manages the difficult task of global translations and price comparisons.

“We had a difficult time finding translation houses that were familiar with technical language – particularly the hard science translations,” said Schutz. “It’s easy to find translation houses that can translate a business letter, but to find an organization that has the ability to discuss infrared spectroscopy for semiconductor analysis in Chinese is a much more challenging.”

“MultiLing has the ability to find skilled translators in very specialized areas,” Schutz continued. “The translation memory MultiLing uses has been extremely accurate for our purposes and has significantly expedited our turn-around time. Our subsidiaries have been much more impressed with the polished text they receive now as opposed to the text in the past. Projects flow together better and the consistency has increased. MultiLing has raised the bar and has offered us translation technology and services beyond any other firm’s we tested.”

Outsourcing their translation and language needs to MultiLing allows Thermo Nicolet to continue operating at a global level with seamless transition between languages and cultures while concentrating on its FT-IR and Raman analytical instruments.

Another such client that uses MultiLing’s language and translation services is General Electric Medical Systems OEC, an $8 billion global leader in medical imaging, interventional procedures, healthcare services, and information technology.

Realizing its challenge to provide medical system solutions to GE’s global audience in the medical industry, which is so highly monitored by governmental regulations and requirements for specific wording, GEMS OEC engaged MultiLing to perform the company’s translation, globalization and localization services.

“We searched all over the U.S. and MultiLing had the expertise we were looking for,” said Paul Rushton, translation coordinator for GE Medical Systems OEC. “Their software for translation memory and comparison of files is really outstanding and the consistency among translations is so strong. Particularly in medical stuff because you’re meeting demands for governments all over the world. Our manuals need to meet those standards and we’ve always done that while meeting the consistency we require among our products and among the various languages.”

“We’ve been able to do some incredible things,” Rushton continued. “The Holy Grail in translation is to release all the documentation internationally at the same time you release it in the US. I’ve worked on it for years, and have finally achieved it several times here.”

“Whenever I run across clients or while working contracts, I send them to MultiLing,” Rushton continued. “They’re willing to do the work and they do a great job. They’re very customer centered and customer oriented.”

Many other companies have found similar results with MultiLing. MultiLing’s client-base holds many Fortune 500 companies – Hewlett Packard, IBM, AT&T, Caterpillar, General Electric, 3M, Siemens-Nixdorf, Procter & Gamble, Walt Disney; corporations with familiar household names. In addition, other very technical companies such as Thermo Nicolet Corporation, Caldera, Citadel Technologies, Zebra Technologies, et al are companies that have used MultiLing’s services.

MultiLing’s current success and growth has not been without substantial pain. In 1998, ten years after it’s founding, MultiLing had to completely revamp a business model that wasn’t working with MultiLing’s larger volume and demanding needs. During the two years of internal changes from 1998-1999 as Sneddon moved to reengineer the corporation, MultiLing nearly went bankrupt. Deciding in late 1999 to move from IT and dot.com companies to more solid customers, MultiLing avoided much of the fallout from the dot.com bubble. This decision has provided MultiLing with clients who are leaders in their particular market segment.

“By making these changes early on,” said Sneddon. “We increased our revenue per employee to 30% beyond the industry average. And by incorporating properly language technology and uniform processes in all our languages, we improved our margins. Pricing pressure has forced us to lower our rates substantially over the past 3 years, but we have maintained and even improved our margins over this time. Further, our client base has endured well the global recession and so have we. Right now in 2002, we are on track to complete our most profitable year ever. Our financial performance has been solid.”

In today’s world, many businesses are expanding beyond the national borders into international markets. Such expansion requires software or products to accommodate differences in language, culture and hardware. These businesses have turned to outsourcing translation, particularly highly technical and scientific translations. Thermo Nicolet and GEMS OEC are just two of the companies that outsource to MultiLing because of the success, accuracy and cost effectiveness of the translation services. MultiLing’s services allow companies to continue operating at a global level with seamless transition between languages and cultures while concentrating on their core competencies.

Businesses seeking to successfully compete in international markets can save time and money by concentrating on their core competencies while outsourcing their translation needs to companies such as MultiLing that provide the professional language services with extensive resources.