ISO standards and Localization

I was recently contacted by one of my clients who informed me that he was approached by a competitor of mine taunting the benefits of ISO13485 certification. This vendor stated that "Our Notified Body-endorsed risk management methods can help you eliminate the effort and expense of overseas distributor review". They also proceeded to inform my client that they are "the only ISO13485 certified translation vendor in the entire world!"

I can understand how a company tries to create a differentiator to win business. But I cannot see how developing a quality management policy, system or document can dismiss the client's expert input on the translation without lowering the product's final quality.

So I spent some time while on vacation reviewing write-ups on the ISO13485 standard and the article that our competitor forwarded to our client, which was authored by the president of their company.

In my research I could not find anything specific in the standard regarding the translation and localization industry or any recommendations on eliminating in-country client input. The standard is mainly targeting medical device manufacturers and their suppliers (typically manufacturers also).

When someone says "Our Notified Body-endorsed risk management methods can help you eliminate the effort and expense of overseas distributor review", it is obvious to me that they have no clue to the complexity of the work localization vendors and their clients do and the value of in-country feedback. In Control Theory, the first thing we learn is the importance of a feedback loop and how without it a system becomes unstable.

The author of the submitted article himself admitted that "certification to ISO 13485 is not necessarily a guarantee of competence". His main emphasis in the article is on parity and risk management.

Furthermore, if the standard is so important for translation, how come only one translation company in the world (which sold out to another company in 2005) has adopted it and no one else did? A few weeks ago I attended the Association of Language Companies conference and it seems that they are pushing for a different industry standard: ASTM F2575-06, which specifically addresses translation quality and standards.

At GlobalVision our translators amass significant amount of knowledge about our clients' products and their in-country reviewers' requirements that no standard or process can replace. We constantly depend on our client's in-country's experts input to improve our quality and better meet our clients' needs.

Standards still have their purpose. Companies that require vendors to comply with standards are out there and the vendors that service them will diligently comply to win their business. But for a vendor to impose a standard on a client was until now unheard of! How desperate can a localization company be?

Lowest Localization Rates

Due to heavy competition and fragmentation in the localization industry, many vendors are resorting to "buying" new business instead of winning it, by providing big up-front discounts to new clients. To make up for the initial investment, they boost up their hidden rates by overcharging for fuzzy matches or double-charging for repeat and 100% match.

This is why you find reluctance in the industry to provide the client's TMs back to the client. Some vendors try to keep their clients by holding their proprietary information and translation databases hostage!

At GlobalVision, we are committed to service our clients' needs even if they go against ours. This is our commitment to you when you sign up with us for the first project and remains for as long as you are a client.

Our prices are not the lowest in the industry. Given the superb level of quality, service, promptness, experience, technical know-how and the seniority of our project managers, translators and production staff, we price our services at a reasonable level with a long term win-win attitude in mind.

We continue to search for ways to improve our efficiency and service without reducing quality and excellence in service. In the past 5 years, we have not raised our rates. Furthermore, we have released our localization portal at http://www.gvaccess.com/ which is free of charge to our clients. gvAccess gives you the ability to initiate, track and monitor projects and budgets online. This is unique in the industry and a testament to the heavy R&D investment that we make.

Price is an important factor in choosing a localization vendor, but should not be the sole factor. Check references and make sure you do your due diligence before signing up with a new partner. If the price that is offered is too good to be true, it may well be so.