The current market still has providers offering just their out of the box solution and software houses who claim to write the code from scratch for each and every client of theirs. The reality however, is that companies which would build your bespoke TBMS would be reusing a lot of the functionalities already used by their other clients. Just like all the industry leading providers of ready-made solutions would be more than happy to accept custom feature requests.

At Consoltec, we like to say that this is how we grow. With every new client pushing us to new levels of efficiency or security – we accept the fact that decades of industry experience do not give us the right to impose just our way of solving certain translation process challenges.

It may seem tempting to develop your own bespoke TBMS just to make sure it will seamlessly integrate with your whole current technology landscape. However, any reliable provider of a ready-made system should also offer industry leading connectivity, both via integrations as well as through their API. Both should also be secure, which is guaranteed by their certifications. When building your own solution, make sure your chosen provider would understand the nuances of all the different ISO and SOC II norms that your clients will expect you to meet.

As any organization grows, it is critical to look at being efficient from the very first translation project you successfully deliver. Building good habits takes time, so the sooner you start – the sooner you’ll see the benefits. Start with digitalizing knowledge – who are your clients and who are your providers. 

How was the quality rated when you used translator A for client B, and was it better than when you used translator C? Who was the proofreader and how do they combine with specific translators? There are many factors that will affect the final quality of the deliverables and it goes way beyond just the linguistic quality of the translation.

As soon as this gets overwhelming and yet you still want to keep on your way to becoming successful and profitable – it may be time to consider implementing a Quality Management System (QMS). The most commonly known and used in the translation industry is ISO 9001. It’s not the most demanding implementation and is a foundation for anything process management related in multiple organizations (not only in the language industry). It will help you expand on your process awareness and achieve repetition in various aspects of your business. This is the first step to achieving predictable quality.

What has for long been the next logical step, was the implementation of the EN 15038 norm. Like the ISO 9001, it helped with process standardization, but focused specifically on elements fundamental to the localization industry. Dealing with an EN 15038 certified provider meant you no longer could be reckless with your names of services, as proofreading, review and revision are three different tasks.

As the industry evolved, it had to acknowledge that professional translation does not just happen – it first needs to be requested and then managed. Therefore the EN 15038 standard was welcomed into the ISO norm family as ISO 17100. The new standard included several changes compared to its predecessor. One of which was to also include non-linguistic, but business roles, i.e. the client and the Project Manager. Instead of seeing the translation as a product, it was now described as a service with a key role of project management, and fundamental importance of scope definition and data protection.

It may sound obvious to us now, but when the ISO 17100 norm was first published in 2015, data protection awareness was anything but a given. The few providers that really took data security seriously had the choice to look into an ISMS (Information Security Management System), namely an ISO 27001 or a SOC II certification. Very similar to each other, both demonstrate an organization’s efforts for security, cybersecurity and data protection. 

The maturity of Language Service Providers does not stop there and being really serious about the quality of your linguistic project management efforts, there are plenty more standards that can be considered.

The two most common ones are ISO 18587 and ISO 13485. The first standard is dedicated to organizations offering machine translation (MT) and post-editing services (PE or PEMT). The ISO 13485 is a certification specific to medical device quality assurance processes. Nonetheless, it is quite popular among LSPs providing language services to medical device manufacturers, as it demonstrates their understanding of their clients business and challenges they face.