S05E03: Effective MLV Supply Chain Management

Intro

Hello and welcome to the Translation Company Talk, a weekly podcast show focusing on translation services and the language industry. The Translation Company Talk covers topics of interest for professionals engaged in the business of translation, localization, transcription, interpreting, and language technology. The Translation Company Talk is sponsored by Hybrid Lynx. Your host is Sultan Ghaznawi with today’s episode.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Translation Company Talk podcast. Today we will be hearing from Beatriz Rodriguez Corbelle about the opportunities and challenges in localization vendor management. Beatriz is a senior talent manager at the RWS Group where she oversees all aspects of multilingual talent strategies across regions and the supply chain team. She leads the supply chain interpreting needs for APAC, EMEA, and NASA regions and she has successfully steered global talent initiatives for on-site and remote interpreting positions in various verticals such as finance, legal, and medical.

 

Prior to this role, she held several other roles related to resource management and RWS, SDL, Donnelly Financial Solutions, Tek Translations, and other high-profile organizations. Her mission is to attract, identify, develop, engage, motivate, and retain the best multilingual talent and she collaborates with cross-functional teams in a fast-paced, large-volume environment.

 

Beatriz, what a nice surprise to have you here and welcome to the Translation Company Talk podcast. How are you today?

 

Beatriz Rodriguez Corbelle

I’m fine. Thank you very much, Sultan, for inviting me.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Please introduce yourself to our listeners and tell us what you do.

 

Beatriz Rodriguez Corbelle

My name is Beatriz. I am a senior talent manager in our RWS Group. I have over 20 years’ experience in translation and localization. Although I started my career in tourism, I have been deeply involved in vendor management for over 15 years. In order to improve my skills, I took a master’s in human resources as well, about three years ago. And well, at present, I lead the supply chain interpreting needs for APAC, EMEA, and NASA regions.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

I always start by asking my guests on this podcast about their journey in the localization space. Can you please share a few words about how you came to be part of this wonderful industry? What were the beginnings like?

 

Beatriz Rodriguez Corbelle

That’s funny because I landed in this business by accident. I come from a very small town located in the northwest of Spain, which is called Leon. I studied tourism there. I have always loved languages and traveling, and I wanted to study a career related to those. I studied French and English. So, my idea was to live abroad and spend a few years both in Ireland and France to improve my language skills, while working. So, then I could go back to Spain and settle in the Balearic Island.

 

Now, one thing is what you have in mind, what you like to do. And then another thing is what you end up doing. I first moved to Ireland and lived in the South of Dublin. I was minding kids at the time. I was in two different houses. I lived in a very wealthy area. I don’t know if you have heard of Enya, the singer from Killiney. She bought a castle in Killiney, a very wealthy area in the south of Dublin. I lived in that castle, actually. I’m very proud of myself when I tell this story to people. So, that was a very interesting time in my life.

 

So, I was minding kids for that family for a little while and then I moved to another house. And thanks to the second family that I lived with; I started working in a hotel. While I was working in a hotel, I got the chance to do a course. It was partially financed by the Irish government, so I had to move to the North side of Dublin.

 

So, I did and it was a very good experience because I had the chance to step into my real first job, which was in the purchasing department of a former telecom area, now Aircom Telecommunications. The building was in Cathal Brugha Street, located in the heart of Dublin. I had very good times there and I gained great experience. I had the chance to work with senior employees, staff that really helped me a lot. I met very nice people, very fun people and so I stayed there for a couple of years.

 

Then I started going back to Spain and this is how my story with translation started because I spotted an advertisement in a translation company, which was looking for a purchasing assistant. I said okay, why not? I submitted my CV; I passed all the interviews, and I was offered the job. Initially I started in the engineering department. It was very brief and my boss at the time taught me how to analyze Word documents.

 

For me, it was a very good experience because it was something totally different and new to what I was used to. The department provided quotations as well at the time, so at some stage he said, “I need a localization engineer”, and I just learnt that the sales department was looking for somebody to help in the team. He said, “if you want to stay with me, I can train you and make you a very good localization engineer”. I said okay, let me give it a thought. The next day I came to him and I said, “you know what, I think I’m moving to sales”. He said to me “you’re doing the right thing”, because I did not see myself actually working in engineering because of my background and personality. I just simply did not see myself working in engineering.

 

So, this is how it all started really in translation. I stayed in tech for a total of 13 years, and I held different positions from sales and moved on to DTP. I just took opportunities as they came because in the DTP department, a couple of years later, they were looking for somebody to help the DTP team, the manager of the department. I joined the team and I started managing the DTP vendor database, which was very exciting for me.

 

I realized that I really liked doing that, the way that the jobs were managed at the time by production. In that company, we would receive the request from production directly, so we would have to do a lot of outsourcing, and that implied that it had some kind of a personal touch. That meant a lot of phone calls to the DTP vendors. At the same time, I was working in the DTP department, he taught me how to do small edits in files in InDesign. I learned a little bit about InDesign, Freemaker, Adobe QuarkXPress. It was very interesting. It was very good time, but once I was there, in the DTP department, I realized that the task that I really enjoyed most was looking for vendors, dealing with them, picking up the phone calls, sending emails. And that was something that I really liked a lot.

 

So, I said, okay, hopefully in the future I can maybe gain more expertise and I may end up holding a position more related to vendors. Then after Tech, well, Tech just closed down at some stage. And then at the time, RR Donnelly, which was a former U.S. translation company, was looking for a vendor manager to manage and set up strategies for their number one account, which was a pharmaceutical company. So, I submitted my CV and I got a job. I was delighted with that position because that offered me a different side of not just vendor management, but the translation itself as well. And they were very busy at times because I had to deal with a huge number of resources.

 

At the time, we would service the clients in different language combinations, different services all together and it was very challenging because some of the services were not the standard translation or editors or DTPers. We had to make a lot of calls to universities and hospitals looking for healthcare practitioners and SMEs like surgeons for example, so it was really great. That was the language solutions and division of RR Donnelly in 2018, we were acquired by SDL in 2020 and in November we were finally acquired by our RWS group, and the rest is history now. So, I’ve gone through three different acquisitions already.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

I’ve invited you here today to speak with me about a few different things and we’ll get to that, but let me ask you this Beatrice, what was the main thing, the interesting things in our industry? Significant changes that stood out to you as revolutionary, or things that you always remember and you think, because of that the industry is moving in this direction or somehow, it impacted your career or your line of thought when it comes to translation and localization, as you know, as a business process?

 

Beatriz Rodriguez Corbelle

Good question. I will mention machine translation. I would say because you know many years have passed since MT sneaked into the already established human translation processes, put it that way, and introduced the different concept of processing and obtaining a final product in the industry. It became huge too fast; the method is efficient. It’s true that high volumes can be translated for example, which makes it faster in lowering in the overall translation cost, but you know, if machine translation is not done accurately, it can have an impact on quality and on the vendor management side. It must entail extra cost to carry out a post-editing afterwards, so we may exceed expenditure as well.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Your area of expertise, your passion, seems to be working with people and especially with vendors while enabling people to run this industry and I’ve invited you to speak about that with me today, within the MLV framework. Please provide a high-level view of what does vendor or resource management actually means in the context of translation localization.

 

Beatriz Rodriguez Corbelle

Well, I have always supported the thought that no matter how high the profile or how many sales are made, this business cannot be run without vendors in order to strive for success and ensure that the best quality resources are lined up to service a client. I think that LSPs need encouraging and well-structured recruiting teams that we rely on client satisfaction.

 

So, in my view, a vendor or talent management is somehow two operations, what HR is to a company, a business partner and our mission is to attract. We need to identify, we need to develop, we need to engage, we have to motivate and retain, which is very important. And we need to engage in the business of the vendor, so that’s the very important, the best multilingual talent and of course, doing all of this in collaboration with cross-functional teams.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Building on that from the MLV or an LSP point of view, what are some of the largest challenges when it comes to managing vendors? But before we go into that, the nature of our industry dictates that we rely on these vendor-type relationships, as you just mentioned. How is this different from industries where there is reliance on third parties, such as ride sharing and others that have to subcontract.

 

Beatriz Rodriguez Corbelle

Well, I would say it’s a totally different landscape, like I’ve never tried ride sharing myself, but my understanding is, if I’m correct, that drivers and passengers connect through an app to book and share the rides and they pay for that. So, it’s simple that there’s no agreement. Now, compliance is highly important in this business, so vendors are subject to signing contractual agreements before starting collaboration with LSPs and these include a number of requirements and conditions, such as confidentiality. Contractors are obliged to not disclose anything that is confidential and that includes data, includes materials etc. to any third party or the personnel who have a need to know.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

From the MLV point of view, what are some of the largest challenges when it comes to managing vendors today?

 

Beatriz Rodriguez Corbelle

Your vendors are nurtured and fostering good relationships with them is really necessary. We have some requests that might be very challenging, and it might be hard to spot the right candidate fast. It is possible to select the best-looking candidates, based on their profile and on the experience they have. That’s fine. But we always have to look at the different options. Like, for example, if we are recruiting for a medium-term project to secure a vendor and high volumes and the job frequency can give us leverage in the right negotiation process. So, at the end of the project, we should keep the vendor engaged in continuing a collaboration with us on other jobs. This is the way I see it.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

What should LSPs know about developing a proper vendor or resource management framework in which they manage the full lifecycle of a resource, from discovery to training to maintenance and in some cases, unfortunately, in parting ways or firing them? What is the process or framework that’s accepted in our industry and that has been shown to produce good results?

 

Beatriz Rodriguez Corbelle

There has to be a standardized process for recruitment, that we need to follow a certain pattern of identifying the vendors, vetting selection, testing, etc. But it’s one that all that is accomplished, we need to make proper use of the vendors.

 

Vendor management needs to warrant pools of vendors to respond to company needs. And this implies making significant efforts in order to accommodate all the requests in a timely fashion, but the teams should not rely on a specific vendor or limited pools unless, let’s say, for example, the vendors are recommended to us by the client. This is one of the things that we see sometimes, so that leaves others empty handed and we may take the risk of losing them if they become inactive for a certain period of time. So, it has to be a win-win.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Vendor managers are quite unique, Beatrice, as you know, because they have to fulfill the requirements of project managers and then in some cases, even sales. What is the best way to set expectations in order to make sure they don’t over-promise and under-deliver?

 

Beatriz Rodriguez Corbelle

Yes, that unfortunately happens often. Well, I personally try to be as assertive as possible. I think it’s important too, at the risk of sounding maybe too full of myself or having too much confidence. I think that it’s important to educate the client because not all the requests are of the same nature. And not all the vendor’s time response, or availability are the same either. Soj for example, in APAC, in the APAC region, vendors tend to prefer using emails instead of the phone, which might slow down the recruitment process if we’re in the middle of peak times.

 

However, and I’ve seen that in NASA or in MEA, for example, vendors would rather prefer having 10 calls with you before exchanging several emails. So along my career, I have dealt with original requests for rare combinations and non-service to which an SAP answer is simply not feasible. So while I understand the team’s concerns, the truth is that vendor management are the experts in this scenario and the ones who really may confirm where we really stand. Soj we should be consulted before going back to the client.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Beatriz, you just referred to something. We’ve all dealt with emergencies and last-minute issues related to finding vendors or to accommodating a specific request. What are your thoughts about contingencies and being prepared to deal with unexpected resource situations?

 

Beatriz Rodriguez Corbelle

Well, in principle, we always have to stick to the client’s requirements. Investigate what options we have and how feasible it is to meet their expectations. Now, if the request is particularly challenging, we need to think outside the box and present alternatives. Some might be different, although workable. And then go back to operations or sales, whoever they’re requesting, with a full picture of the potential resource allocation for the internal review first and then later discussion with the client. Now, some clients might tend to keep lawyer to the initial approach despite our suggestions.

 

I have learnt that surprisingly; they might change their mind and consider another alternative. So, in any case, yes, pressure on turnaround time has increased. And this usually means that a much larger bench of resources is required, lending flexibility and subject matter expertise. Now, for a vast number of language birds, this might be possible, whereas some ad hoc requests might require a different turnaround.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Different countries, Beatriz, as you know, have different problems when it comes to the labor market. For example, in the United States, there’s a worker classification issue and translation companies had to fight hard to gain exceptions and regulations where contractors would be classified as employees. What are some of the common trending problems related to this type of labor globally that you can think of?

 

Beatriz Rodriguez Corbelle

That’s correct. This is a relevant piece of something important to bear in mind at the recruitment stage. For example, in California, there’s a law which obliges interpreters to comply with certain criteria in order to work as independent contractors and be recognized as such and not as employees. So, they must have a certification for a national interpreting organization or institution approved by California, etc.

 

And, for example, in the UK as well, they have their IR35 regulation, which is the anti-avoidance tax legislation. Without getting into detail, there are specific countries under regulations made under the sanctions and anti-money laundering laws, and with whom, obviously, there’s no possibility of a collaboration, I’m afraid.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

I think communication and having the right information is key, as you know. What efforts should vendor managers put in place, if you can explain, to make sure all vendors start with the right understanding of what is expected from them so they can have a fruitful, long-term relationship with the MLV?

 

Beatriz Rodriguez Corbelle

Well, as you said, communication definitely plays a great part. But I believe that transparency and support by both, like vendor management join operations. It’s fundamental because we as vendor management is the department who manages the vendors and what operations deals with, is the vendors from the project related point of view. So, I think it’s important that we work together, and we are both on the same page in order to support the vendor as much as possible.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

I would like you to talk about regular vendor profile maintenance and review. What is the best process to ensure every profile has the most up-to-date documents, agreements, internal performance data, and so on? In other words, how do we make sure that every vendor or every resource, every freelancer has an equal opportunity to take as much work from the MLV as possible, so that the relationship is mutually beneficial?

 

Beatriz Rodriguez Corbelle

Well, yes, of course, it is important to have systematic documentation and management, so everyone is aware who the suppliers are. So, the vendor data is stored in the vendor database and should always be complete. And vendor management encourages vendors to submit revised versions of their CVs on a quarterly basis and contact us if additional information is to be provided at some point that could not be managed on their end.

 

Now, for identifying the most engaged vendors, vendor management in LSPs use dashboards which use data to create insights. The information that we get from Dashboards supports a VM, supports us, to identify gaps in the skills so that a proper vendor recruitment and onboarding plan, if needed, can be created and executed.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Where does the dashboard data come from? Is it coming from production versus recruitment? Is it coming from an ongoing system in which you’re constantly tracking existing vendors as to how they’re performing, or their quality issues with them? Are they responsive so that you can have a proper coaching system in place for each one of them?

 

Beatriz Rodriguez Corbelle

Yeah, that’s right, that’s a platform. It’s a platform where we store the data for the vendors and this information that we receive ourselves, vendor management. So, we can assist, and we can connect with them. Well, we can assist operations afterwards based on a series of, well, on a number of requirements.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Let me ask you related to that, Beatriz, about coaching and continuous improvement. How does vendor management perform a role in making sure all vendors are optimized for 100% performance at all times?

 

Beatriz Rodriguez Corbelle

Yes, a little bit related to the previous question. I will make two distinctions. On the vendor’s behalf and on the client’s behalf. So, on the vendor’s behalf, we have KPIs, which are the key performance indicators, that serve as indicators in measuring several aspects, depending on the needs of the company. So, we measure quality, we measure commitment, we measure flexibility, and responsiveness, for example. And of course, delivery, time delivery and cost management, which is very important. And then, I mean, cost management needs attention because every transaction between vendors and the profit gain from partnering with them has to be measured in order to see whether that meets the KPI that we have established.

 

Now, on the client’s behalf, it’s important to see if they are satisfied with the services that our vendors have offered them. So, I think that, if possible, as best practice, we should follow up with them on a quarterly business review call. Now, agree to discuss performance to keep them updated. And if possible, to discuss projected workloads for the months to come.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Vendors’ output quality. You just made a reference to that, and price, which is the economics of things and availability, as well as turnaround or primary issues, that vendor managers deal with on a constant basis. Beatriz, in your experience, what other issues generally trend in this area?

 

Beatriz Rodriguez Corbelle

Based on my experience, I will remark on service. Language combinations, for example, and location. The location of certain services is very important. Let’s say, for example, for interpretation, if a client requests a translation from Spanish into Chinese, the recruitment efforts all around will be lower than recruiting an interpreter who does Japanese-Chinese, for example. And is required for an on-site event in, Hong Kong where the chances of flying the interpreter over are scarce. Meaning that the client requests a local linguist.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Let’s discuss technology. Obviously, a lot of our challenges, including the one that you just mentioned, with regards to distance and geography, we can address it with technology to some degree. But we are seeing the impact of automation in so many areas in our industry. Machine translation, you mentioned earlier, is a very good example, which has changed the dynamics of how translators create a translation.

 

How do you feel about the impact of new technologies on the vendor management side of things? I mean, there are so many that are out there. Some of them are really cutting edge. Some of them have existed in the past. I would like you to speak about how vendor management takes advantage of technology today.

 

Beatriz Rodriguez Corbelle

Well, I have my reservations with technology in this sense a little bit. At present, many companies already use generative AI to study resumes and short-list candidates. And yes, there are companies that offer this platform, where candidates submit their CVs so the clients can access them and select, initially, the best fit for them through the system. So, clients participate directly in the process.

 

Now, I recently read an article about a multinational company who were thinking to automate part of its HR with AI to relieve the employees in the department of many of their routine tasks or many administrative tasks that prevents them from devoting themselves to high value tasks and a virtual assistant will manage things like payrolls, contracts or holidays.

 

Now, some questions come to my mind when I read the article, such as, how we’re going to manage staff selection, how the company is going to do it or perform evaluation or such a sensitive issue as layoffs, how is that going to be managed by AI? So, in terms of recruitment, I know that many companies strictly use ATM systems for resource selection, and I understand that they do it in a certain way because the number of CVs that they receive on a daily basis is really high. But I believe that technology by itself might discard candidates that might have an outstanding track record, especially senior candidates. But, however, due to certain circumstances or parameters, they might not pass the filters established.

 

All I know is that AI is evolving too quickly. I expect to see automated processes in the near future that will definitely help vendor management teams better, assist them better in the process. But I think that right now, there are still many big unknowns for which there’s not really a straight answer, at least it’s the way I see it.

 

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Sultan Ghaznawi

In a world where we will be seeing a combination of technological output with human intervention, such as post-editing, how do you see the role of vendor management changing, Beatriz?

 

Beatriz Rodriguez Corbelle

Well, to me, vendor management is a strategic department in which there might be a human component. To me, it’s very important that there’s a human component because, to help ensure the success of customer relationships, especially for certain services where presence is required, for example, I have seen requests with extremely specific requirements, which at first glance seem difficult to accomplish. However, I think humans provide alternatives that is a little bit in line with the previous question as well, that maybe automation might have difficulty in overcoming. In my experience, the outcome has been positive as the client has approved new candidates for the job.

 

Despite how rapidly the technological landscape is moving right now, I would like to believe that companies are going to ensure that they least have a hybrid vendor management mode in place in the future. I don’t know, what do you think? Do you think clients would like to deal directly and simply with the machine for the outsourcing needs instead of having the figure of a human in the process that will help them manage the vendors and support them as well?

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Well, Beatriz, I think, since you asked for my opinion, I think vendor management will always be a human-to-human interaction type of business process. But there might be room for AI to automate some of the repetitive and more mundane type of tasks. But we always in the end prefer to deal with humans, especially if we are choosing humans to do the job, they would rather talk to a machine. And the same on the client side, they prefer to describe their requirements to humans who can go and find the right match for the requirements.

 

But that being said, with the changing role of the translator, for example, instead of being the creator, they’re the supervisor of a machine that creates them. And from a post-editing, I think the job of the vendor management will slightly change because they will have to look for skill sets such as post editing, such as people’s experience working with AI output. And also, we will have to retrain ourselves as vendor managers too, to find new areas beyond translation where there will be a demand for it. For example, you know, we may need translators down the road who can create text and summarize it, so summarization abilities, classification of abilities, whether they can look at different types of texts and say it belongs to this industry and based on that create content.

 

So, I think there will be specific things that will change with the emergence of AI and other types of technologies. And I think our industry, especially vendor managers, are very well prepared to handle those types of things. But with that, let me ask you about what are some of the ways, Beatrice, that would enable translators and other colleagues in this industry to form better relationships with translation companies or MLVs? What is working today from the vendor’s point of view and what is not working? Where’s the disconnect between collaboration of an LSP and the freelancer?

 

Beatriz Rodriguez Corbelle

I will highlight the following points as major concerns. On the one hand, I think it’s relevant for them to know how relevant they are to their client, as a service provider. How important they are to the client, how their customer responds to problems that might arise and how challenges are overcome. That’s, I would say, one of the challenges and one of the concerns.

 

Another one is how the client positions in the market, in the industry, as for company culture, sustainability, innovation, for example. I think it’s crucial that LSPs develop their brand and strategy well. So, because for some, name and image, is not just a face. Some vendors, you might get an application for vendors, saying I want to work with you because you are X and Y and you are very well positioned in the market. Vendors want to work with you because you are in a certain position in the market. But most of the vendors are not really like that. They are looking for something else, despite like I said, name and image. They are looking for a certain, I don’t know if requirement is the right word, from their client.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

From my recent discussions with colleagues within the industry, there is a trend that either people apply to work with translation companies as an interim part-time solution so they can find full-time jobs. I’m talking specifically about freelancers. Or in some cases where people are long-term freelancers, they have very specific requirements that the LSP is expected or forced to morph into that. And obviously you cannot do that for every freelancer, given the wide scope of our industry.

 

But talk to me about an issue with talent shortage following the pandemic. Terms such as quiet quitting became a thing and has quietly since faded from conversations. How is the talent availability situation today?

 

Beatriz Rodriguez Corbelle

I think it depends on the market needs. Because I think that vendor management teams are constantly learning and adapting. So, like you said earlier, we need to be trained ourselves. We need to keep growing as professionals and our attitude to the new times and this is part of that development.

 

Besides the pandemic, the tech crash, for example, in the US impacted negatively across businesses of various kinds. And of course, translation as well as localization. However, in our industry, I’ve seen myself, the services have been growing significantly in response to new demands. This challenges the need for rush onboarding of certain specific profiles and in order to secure dedicated pools in the long term. So, this might affect cost management as well because vendors have been gradually increasing rates.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

You know, inflation and the cost of living across the world is impacting our ability to deliver our services. The prices that we did before and that’s a conversation to be had. Both inside our industry and with our clients. What advice would you give vendors, Beatriz, aspiring to work with MLPs and global players in our industry?

 

Beatriz Rodriguez Corbelle

I’m thinking of three big advice. The first one might sound very plain. Maybe not very relevant, but it is very relevant. So, number one is to ensure that the profiles are up to date and detailed in as much detail as possible. It’s not a matter of submitting a 20 page document. But the more specific information, the more chances to be contacted as it will give us as vendor management a better approach to expertise. So, that will help identify and allocate the vendor in a specific project. That’s one thing.

 

Another one, I would say productivity. I always encourage vendors to contact through the established channels on a quarterly basis with an updated version of their resumes. I would add as well, flexibility and rates. Rates to be competitive. These two come together, I want to explain, and sometimes they can be misinterpreted. Being flexible doesn’t mean accepting every job at any rate. Instead, what I mean is, to be open-minded and consider options according to the offers. For example, if a vendor performs well and tends to be flexible, he or she will have more chances to be engaged regularly or even become a preferred vendor for a client.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

In closing, Beatriz, what is your advice for LSPs who are interested in streamlining their vendor management to improve their processes and relationships with their suppliers and vendors?

 

Beatriz Rodriguez Corbelle

I think it’s very important to establish clear processes in documentation. That’s one very important point. So the vendors know how to proceed and when and who to contact in each case, within the LSP. I think we must facilitate the walkthrough with training if necessary. We must help them to start off on the right foot, especially SMEs who are not familiar with this industry. I’m thinking of healthcare professionals such as surgeons, for example, whose learning curve might be a ST. That’s one thing.

 

Another point is, I think, it’s important to collect reverse feedback from vendors. It’s very important to know where we stand and if possible, follow up with them on a quarterly basis with feedback for analysis and so for us to know and learn and take corrective actions if needed.

 

And the last one, and it’s at least related to the previous ones, is to cultivate good relationships. with vendors. It’s very important to have long-term partnerships and overall engage them in business. The LSP can set up local or regional vendor gatherings, they could be set up maybe once a year, for example, or working at international fairs. Take that advantage of being present at an international fair. And if in-person gatherings are more difficult to organize, in the digital area we’re in now, remote catchups might be an alternative.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Thank you so much, Beatriz. I’m so happy to be able to speak with you about vendor management. There’s so much to process and learn. And I’m sure people listening today found every answer helpful and useful if they’re on the supply side, to improve how they deal with LSPs and MLPs.

 

If they are on the buyer side of things and working with LSPs, they now have an idea about how to streamline their work processes, how to improve things and I cannot wait to speak with you again related to your experience, a topic of interest that might actually resonate with the industry. And there’s a lot that you can cover for sure. With that, let me thank you for your time and for sharing your knowledge and expertise with the industry.

 

Beatriz Rodriguez Corbelle

Thanks to you, Sultan.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

It’s time for my roundup of the interview and my analysis as to what has been discussed. So, let’s get started. Vendor management is a critical and important part of the language services business. There is no LSP that can handle all the languages, domains, and requirements by themselves today. And as such, our industry needs this interweaving of talent and resources that makes us truly unique, global, and interconnected. In order for this machine to work well, we will need all components to work in sync and harmony. With the changing technology, threats from outside the industry, and an aging population, our industry is ripe for innovation

 

We need translators who are experts in solving today’s linguistic challenges, but also possess great customer service skills to attract and maintain long-term relationships from LSPs. On the LSP side, we need them to understand the modern challenges of linguists and offer them innovative solutions to deliver their skills, help them modernize their expertise and experience, and expose them to new areas of our ever-changing industrial systems. Only together, we can solve the challenge of global information access.

 

That was a fascinating and interesting conversation with Beatriz. I’m glad I spoke with her as vendor management is a key topic that typically doesn’t get much exposure. I hope you found this conversation as insightful and informative as I did. Don’t forget to subscribe to the Translation Company Talk podcast on Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, or your platform of choice. And make sure to rate this episode with five stars.

 

Until next time!

 

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