How Translation can help winning international business

Translation can be an important part of winning international business – done right the quality of your translated materials can win you more business, whereas translation done cheaply could cost you more than just your reputation.

It might seem fairly simple to say, but there are a number of ways in which translation can help contribute to winning international business:

• The final decision maker might not be the people you’ve been negotiating with, and if the decision maker doesn’t speak English they might not understand your bid properly.
• If your bid isn’t translated, it might seem to the client that you aren’t serious about doing business in their country, and no-one wants to take a risk with a supplier who isn’t committed.
• Sometimes the invitation to tender requires the submission to be translated in order for the submission to even be considered.
• Our technical translators are very familiar with the industry sector in the country to which you are submitting your bid and can provide you with country specific insights which you might otherwise miss out on.
• On a really large order, the only thing which the decision maker might actually see of your delivery is the written documentation, and as such the quality of your translated documentation is all they have to judge you by when it comes to placing a repeat order.
• You might understand exactly how your product should be assembled and deployed, but minor mistakes when unpacking or installing might cause malfunction or even costly damage.  Well written and translated instructions are more likely to be read and followed avoiding these problems.

We get a regular stream of enquiries from clients needing help winning international business, and often this starts with cost estimates for the translation of a large volume of text and diagrams which they might need to translate as part of the terms of winning an major overseas order.  We at Technical translations are always happy to help of course, and even to go much further than just providing a quote.

A recent enquiry for instance involved the translation of a large number of instruction manuals, product data sheets and other materials relating to a very large contract.  As is often the case the client sending us the translation enquiry was part of a supply chain and as such didn’t have access to all the original source documents which he needed translating.  Fortunately our project managers are very experienced and even though the range of materials were created a variety of different software packages, we were able to convert them all into Microsoft Word, retaining all the formatting and diagrams which not only made the quote we provided much more accurate, it also gave the client a head start in preparing his own documentation as part of his bid for the contract.

For us, translation is only part of the service – we want to take an active part in helping our clients winning international business, and if we can help with a bid by providing some cultural insight, or simply by making sure that all the documentation is prepared for minimal cost then we are glad to help.