From commodity to strategic localization
Language translation services have come a long way in a very short time. Take GAT’s experience.
We started out as one of many translation firms in Canada. We were often contracted to help address a federally mandated official bilingual language requirement to translate virtually every written Canadian English word into French.
This mandated translation process was long overdue in Canada – but costly. And many organizations approached it from an “as needed” commodity basis without regard for the strategic implications of quick and dirty translations –provided by whoever was available, wherever.
At GAT, we realized that Canadian French was Quebec French and that strategic attention to detail would ensure that something that was “required by law” could in fact be beneficial to the profitability of a company – if it was done right. The reverse was equally true if it was done wrong.
Over the past twenty years of globalization, we’ve seen the same mistakes made in international translation services. In the rush to enter emerging global markets, quality was sacrificed for urgency. But simply being there simply didn’t work.
Thankfully, established global players are beyond this. Localization is now a strategic, marketing and growth oriented necessity – driven by accurate communication generated at the local market level. And managed via high technology from a single head office location.
So if you simply want a commodity language translation services, don’t call GAT. We’ve grown well beyond that.
Technology is only as good as your people
We’re proud that GAT is well versed in Translation Memory/Localization software.
This powerful, money saving software applies a memory function to your pool of corporate translations to avoid re-translation and thereby control costs.
When you first begin to work with us, we “seed” your database with sentence segments, industry terms etc. that you would commonly use. As your file of projects grows, so too does your crop of translated material. We can then blend this information into any new translation mandate – without translating the same common terms over again.
But it takes really good people to grow and manage your crop of terms. And that’s where GAT excels. Especially with the use of our customer portal for project management.
Under superior project management, the combination of powerful memory software and skilled, experienced teams produces translations that turn around quicker, with higher quality and lower costs – plus fewer missed text blocks.