At a time when business boundaries have become unlimited and are stretching beyond set geographical borders, tapping into international markets is a massive achievement for any brand or business.
This global presence takes your products and services to audiences worldwide. But at the same crossroads, it also imposes a challenging task: communicating across the plethora of languages and cultures in the world marketplace, allowing your brand to communicate with the target audience in a language they fully understand.
Mastering the language of your international customers and workforce is not just an added advantage but a must. Inability or misunderstanding is what breeds misinterpretation, unmet needs, and, finally, missed opportunities.
This article explores the crucial role that professional language translation plays in breaking communication barriers and facilitating business activities in a competitive global setup.
Reading Between the Costs of Miscommunication
Every business exists solely to encourage customer engagement and drive revenue. However, what most companies usually miss out on understanding is the potential financial disaster that comes hand-in-hand with poor communication. Surprisingly, such communication catastrophes are said to cost big businesses a staggering £55 million annually.
Traditional corporate communication structures, now including the board of directors and front-line employees, are already heavily reliant upon digital communication tools, such as email or virtual meetings.
This is true for both internal company communications as well as external relations with clients and partners.
Success in communication is, therefore, based on the skills which a business has towards giving such matters an exciting perspective.
Internally, within an organisation, clear and effective communication is required to maintain a harmonious and productive work environment. As organisations grow and diversify themselves, especially on the international front, the scope of miscommunication increases.
Suppose an organisation carefully observes and sees that it has a workforce from varied cultural and language backgrounds. It wouldn’t be surprising that the risks is in this case can be quite pronounced.
Currently, most organisations ensure proper internal communication as it is critical to ensuring employees receive all updates and organisational information on time.
However, the quest is not limited to the operations inside. Resources put forward for effective marketing and customer engagement strategies are aimed at turning international prospects into loyal customers. However, language barriers can, in full measure, hinder those efforts.
When it is known that potential clients around the world today expect support in communication in their respective languages, accurate translation almost becomes mandatory. These include the translation, the localisation of websites, and business communication according to international prospective linguistics preferences and cultural settings.
No organisation or brand should ever turn a blind eye to the issues of communication breakdown. However, the assistance of a professional translation agency can immediately correct these issues to let the rebuilding of the cultures of trust and shared understanding resume.
The Perspective of a Translation Expert
To better understand the importance of translation services within the international business sector, we consulted experts from TS24, one of the leading global providers of translation and interpreting services based in the United Kingdom.
We asked their professional translators to shed some light on the type of businesses that require their services most frequently and what skills professional certified translators and interpreters must possess in order to provide the most accurate solutions for their clients.
TS24 told us that: “Translation services have always played an important role within the international business sectors. Companies and organisations approach our agency regularly to translate a wide variety of documents, both for internal use and materials aimed directly at potential customers and markets, for example, marketing campaigns or social media communication. Generally speaking, there isn’t one particular sector which requires translations more often than others. As a result, we work with businesses from practically all industries, including legal, marketing, finance and many more.”
In response to our second question, ‘What skills make a good professional translator?’, experts from TS24 said: “To provide accurate business translations, one of the key skills of a professional translator is an in-depth understanding of the customer’s particular industry. Professional translators must not only be experts in their language pair and understand the audiences’ culture, but for the translation to be truly accurate, they must also grasp what their client is all about.”
Case Study: Overcoming Communication Barriers
Take the example of Nutanix—a global cloud computing software company with a worldwide network of third-party manufacturing companies.
At one time the company had over 5,000 employees as part of the workforce and had hundreds of outside partners and was having enormous communication issues.
Initially reliant on tools for external communication, Nutanix suffered from miscommunications, which led to errors in products and financial loss. This is an example of why the assistance of professional translation services is vital in ensuring accurate and timely communication and project delivery. With the assistance of a professional translation agency, the errors could have been avoided.
If ever there is a classic case of the problems encountered in global communication, it is within the manufacturing sector, more specifically with its suppliers from China. Language barriers can result in miscommunication during negotiations and, worse, incorrect product specifications for orders.
Relying on the services of a professional translation agency ensures overall success not just in the translation but also in the translation’s cultural or contextual suitability. Such careful translation is essential to prevent costly errors, particularly in custom orders that require intricate detail.
Implementing Global Communication Strategies
Implementing global communication strategies can be considered essential for new companies to go international, especially when it comes to translating critical documents and localising digital content.
While a small business may do this entirely in-house, the process is time-consuming, rigorous, and specialised. Business enterprises aiming towards global acquirement and diversification of market areas make a strategic decision to invest in professional and certified translation.
Such an investment shows a well-orchestrated operational structure. It increases the brand perception before a worldwide audience, helping in clear communication with customers and investors.
How Professional Translation Is the Development of a Business Strategic Investment
Most organisations start realising that within the complexities of internationalisation, professional translation agencies are critical partners that may serve strategic purposes rather than just technical purposes. This is true for both human translations and AI-based translations, such as Unbabel, which says it is actually even more accurate than ChatGPT.
After all, this is not some mere typing work or computers translating one language to another, but a comprehensive understanding of cultural nuances, legal standards, and industry-specific terminologies.
This shows that every business has a need, regardless of the sector, to embrace the assistance of a professional translation service. These include legal, medical, technology, and manufacturing, among others.
Certified translation service providers ensure that any documents prepared, or contracts agreed upon are adhered to under very high professional standards. This means the work is completed by native linguists with a legal background who are degree qualified.
Moreover, the rise of digital communication and commerce has increased the need to hire marketing translation agencies. These professional translation agencies are great with website localisation and translation services targeting SEO-friendly content.
Such services have further allowed customising exposure even more locally to appeal to such audience needs, thereby making the user experience more friendly and competitive worldwide.
Conclusion: Navigating Global Markets with Precision
Professional translations are one set of value-added services that might more than map out your checklist for your global business.
Such services help make communication possible with customers and employees across the globe by breaking cultural, linguistic, and market barriers to talking to customers or clients.
In fact, high-quality translation services that are culturally correct and well-executed—will only become more necessary as international businesses continue to expand.