It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that business is changing. Furthermore, business models that were working 6 months ago are now struggling to survive.
However, there are still a few reasons to be optimistic.
For example, last month in Romania, the VAT revenues going to the government succeeded in reaching the same level as it was in June 2019. That is a big thing. You can see the data here. This means that the consumption rate starts to grow significantly. Accordingly, in March 2020, the same VAT rate decreased 82% compared to the same period in 2019.
People are buying things. They hear that times are difficult, but they want to go back to their habits as usual. Still, everyone is waiting for something to happen. Like an economic boost.
We need to take this into our own hands. Anything coming from the EU is a bonus. However, we need to return to our clients that need us the most. It is important to adapt our business model, not just to survive, but to thrive. Nowadays, it is harder to meet our clients in person. Social distancing requires us to keep our distance. Management is a social science. This changes all our paradigms about the way we are doing business.
It is not just about going online. Human nature is not online. It is real. It has feelings, needs, behaviors. If we are reshaping our business model, we need to do more than just go digital.
We need to take into account that people are complex. People are not just buyers. They need to connect and trust you, as a service provider. That is more challenging now than ever before.
We’re trying to take it step by step…
What changing translation business models mean for buyers
The way language services are bought has shifted from per-word purchasing towards retained capacity, managed vendor pools and integration with the client’s own systems. The word rate is still quoted, but it decides less and less of the total cost.
For buyers the useful question has changed with it: not what a word costs, but what it costs to get a finished, reviewed file into the right format on the right date, repeatedly. Those are different numbers, and only the second one is comparable between suppliers.
Our view of the process behind that is in why the translation process decides quality.
