The coronavirus pandemic has impacted organisations across many different industries. Businesses that trade internationally – whether selling to customers, or working with employees, suppliers or other partners overseas – will be especially wondering how they can get through these uncertain times.
At The Translation People, we’ve seen an increase in enquiries for certain types of translation – including HR documents, remote interpretation, e-learning material and websites. Here, I explain how our changing customers’ translation and interpretation needs highlight the ways businesses can strengthen their international operations and prepare for new opportunities during the current crisis.
Strengthen Your Digital Presence
With travel restrictions in place and many non-essential shops forced to close, having a strong digital presence has never been so important. Building the perfect website requires many different considerations. It must be easy to navigate, visually attractive, mobile optimised and secure, and if you’re selling to customers overseas, you should consider the ways you can make your site multilingual. A recent survey of more than 3000 global consumers in 10 non-Anglophone countries showed 75 per cent of people prefer to buy products from websites in their native language. On top of this, 60 per cent saying they never buy from English-only websites. And it’s worth remembering that although English is the world’s third most spoken language, Chinese and Spanish come in at first and second positions, respectively. Other popular languages in the top ten include Hindi, Arabic, Bengali, Russian, and Japanese. Making sure your customers have the option of landing on a website in their native language means they’re likely to stay and interact with your website for longer, and it can increase your conversion rates.
As well as making sure your digital ‘shop window’ looks good and is easy to understand for international audiences, you should also consider local search engine optimisation (SEO). As part of your website translation project, this means considering which search engines your audience uses, and terms they’re likely to search for, which often aren’t the direct translation of the English terms.
Every Day’s A School Day With Online Learning
~Business Game Changer Special Promotion~
Over recent years, the global online education market has undergone huge growth, with some statistics suggesting it could be worth $132.98 billion by 2023. As a result of the Coronavirus pandemic, you might find yourself unable to engage face-to-face with your target audiences at the conferences, events, workshops and demonstrations you might’ve normally attended. Many other businesses impacted in this way are turning to virtual means to share their expertise in an interactive way. For example, you could monetise online learning as a way to bring in extra revenue. Or you could use virtual training and tutorials as a way to build an audience, increase brand awareness and position yourself as an industry expert. If you want to attract an international audience, consider foreign language voice overs and subtitles to make learning materials more accessible to audiences in your target markets.
Putting People First
If you have a network of people in other countries who you rely on for your business operations – for example, employees or suppliers – you need to keep communications open with them. HR teams are working hard to share messages around health and safety and travel advice, as well as helping to make sure that remote workers remain positive and motivated. To keep all parties up to date with any changes and to help reassure them, it’s worth making checklists, contracts and guides available in relevant native languages. Thinking again about e-learning, this could be an effective way of keeping people’s training and development up during potentially quieter times. Putting people first and communicating with them in their native language not only avoids confusion and helps to share messages effectively, it can also boost morale and make them feel a valued member of the team.
Taking Offline, Online
Conferences, events and meetings are unlikely to happen for a few months. Although tools like Skype and Zoom are great ways to keep in touch with people all over the world, for international businesses there is a problem when it comes to translating in real time. Multilingual, remote conferencing and interpreting platforms help to resolve this issue. Such tools facilitate an unlimited number of virtual interpreting booths that are accessed remotely by the organisers, participants and interpreters of conferences and meetings. Once everyone is present, qualified linguists are allocated to the relevant booths to work within the platform so they can translate live, in real time, for every participant.
Future Proofing Your International Business
International trade is worth billions to the UK. Although businesses across all sectors are feeling the impact of the global Coronavirus crisis in one way or another, thanks to quick government support and incentives, plus businesses demonstrating a flexible and innovative approach to adapting to changing times, I hope we’re able to come out of the pandemic stronger than ever. Businesses that are able to adapt quickly, improve operations and strengthen their offering will increase their chances of surviving the economic uncertainty. For international businesses especially, clear and effective communications, sales channels and motivated teams are especially important to not only survive the pandemic, but get back to normal operations as soon as possible once restrictions subside.
I’d love to hear from you – what is the one thing you’re prioritising at the moment to protect and strengthen your international trade?
About The Author
Alan White has worked in the translation industry for over 20 years, in roles such as a translator, account manager and in business development. Alan currently heads up the Business Development team at The Translation People, working with a variety of clients from different industries, advising on best practice when communicating with an international audience.
As a fluent French and Spanish speaker, Alan is passionate about languages and their use in breaking down communication barriers, both in a business context and beyond. He is committed to providing companies with customised solutions that meet their requirements and allow translation budgets to be maximised, in particular those that combine the best that translation technology can offer with high quality linguistic input from specialist translators.
