subject: How To Stay Within Budget When Buying Translation Services? [print this page] Running over budget is one of the capital sins of localization management. Its high up there with late delivery and bad quality. There are probably countless excuses for it, but what you really want is to avoid needing one.
Budgeted, quoted, or invoiced.
To explore how best to avoid a budget crisis, lets consider a single localization project and the following definitions:
Budget the maximum amount of money you anticipate spending.
Quote the amount of money your vendor proposes to charge for the work.
Invoice the amount of money you end up paying the vendor.
Very doubtful this double equation ever materializes in the real world. Nonetheless, it represents the two basic challenges project managers face:
The challenge of committing how much it will cost (budget) before your vendor gets all the materials they need to precisely estimate the cost (quote)
The challenge of trusting your vendors estimate (quote) before you begins the project and commit to paying the bill (invoice)
The cost of localization is directly related to the nature and size of the content to be localized. The more precisely you can identify the project scope, the more accurate your budget will be.
In a perfect world, before you utter the slightest opinion about a budget, the complete and final localizable content would be delivered to you on a silver platter. Under these circumstances, the first equation is easy to fulfill: since the work can be precisely estimated, the quoted amount becomes your budget.
In reality, you rarely have access to all the data you need when you provide a budget. The content is probably still under developmentif development has even started. The product engineer, content author, or product manager, your information sources, might offer no more than a wild guess when you pressure them for a number.
To find some solid ground in this sea of uncertainties, youll be much better off querying for a range rather than a number. When people lack the knowledge to respond directly, they are much more confident setting the boundary between what they know and dont know.
Thus, unless you like to gamble, dont even think about formulating a budget if you cant answer the following:
What are the different types of localizable content?
For each type of content, what are the expected minimum and maximum volumes?
Share the responsibility
Lets not forget that your objective is to avoid that nasty meeting with your manager.
So far, youve obtained as much information as possible about the scope of the project, youve taken care to express volumes as ranges rather than numbers, and youre pretty confident that the minimum and maximum boundaries are realistic.
As you were gathering the information from your colleagues in various departments, perhaps it struck you: while responsibility for the localization budget weighs on your shoulders, its fate rests totally in your colleagues hands. Knowing from experience where localization resides on their priority lists, you should be a little nervous.
Why not share some of that responsibility with your co-workers? In a short e-mail, explain how their work impacts localization and its budget, summarize the information they have provided, and formally ask them to confirm these assumptions. Copy your manager and theirs. Your work will get more attention, you will gain some peace of mind, and the accuracy of your data is likely to get a boost.
With the project scope now formally summarized, you are ready to contact vendors and get an idea of the corresponding cost range. Before you do so, however, remember to formally ask your manager to confirm that the project scope is as good as it can get. Theres no reason your manager shouldnt get a bit of the responsibility.
You should always talk to the vendors before finalizing a budget. After all, if they are going to do the work, they might as well stick their necks out like everybody else.
Since the final project materials are unavailable, we are not talking about a quote at this stage. We want a cost range corresponding to our scope range. If formalized, our request would be a Request for Information, not a Request for Estimate.
Ideally, samples of the different types of localizable content should be provided. These materials dont have to be part of the actual project, as long as they are representative of the file structures and formats.
With the feedback from the vendors, we can now finalize the budget. It should correspond to the maximum side of the estimated cost range, plus whatever security margin you think necessary and justifiable.
It is always a good idea to read a quote attentively. Youd be surprised how often the numbers dont even add up. If you initiated a vendor selection process, and you are getting multiple quotes, reading them is vital. No two vendor quotes look the same; comparing apples to apples is very difficult, unless you take the time to analyze the information.
To determine whether you are getting comparable levels of service, try to match the line items between quotes. If you cant find a match, call the vendor and find out why. For instance, if one quote lists translation and editing as separate line items while another lists just translation, does this mean that the first vendor has all translations reviewed by an independent editor, while the second vendor doesnt? Perhaps it simply means that one vendor likes to be explicit while the other one considers editing standard practice.
Assuming you deliver final source content and make no changes to it, there is no reason to have any variable or conditional component in a quote. Every line item has a fixed price. If a service is charged by the hour, the total number of hours should be explicitly stated and frozen. What is quoted is what you pay.
If you need to start a project for scheduling reasons, but you dont have all the content, split the project into subprojects, and have each part quoted when the corresponding content is available.
Dont update versions in the middle of a localization project. If you have no choice, negotiate the amounts due for the work already performed, close out the active project, and then start a new project based on a fresh quote.
Aunes Oversettelser AS has been in the business for 26 years, and we are specialized in technical translations. We are specializing in the Nordic languages, and can offer services into Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Icelandic. The premier translation agency for Norway and the Nordic region! Technical translation services for businesses in the Nordic countries and translation agencies world-wide.
