GALA Blog

Serge Gladkoff, GALA Board Member and President of Logrus, recently asked his very popular Linked In group (Localization Professional) to brainstorm about the evolution of vendor management. He also invited all group participants to a new subgroup he is creating focused on vendor management issues, and encouraged members to come to GALA 09 (Sept 14 – 16) where he will lead a discussion on the topic. Maintaining strong vendor relationships is a critical ingredient for any language service provider. Now there are several opportunities to discuss and advance ideas for better vendor management–don’t miss out.

In Serge’s words:

Understanding structured outsourcing process is serious business, and approaching serious business requires understanding of how key structures work within client organizations.

Vendor Management is essential component of any professional service business, be it localization, translation, language quality assurance or even testing and software development.

Professionals need to have a solid vision of how Vendor Management works and is to be built as both internal business service and exernal point of contact for potential suppliers.

To advance this understanding, I have created a Vendor Management subgroup within Localization Professional group. Your are welcome to join, it’s completely free for LocPro group members, and without any approval.

ALSO, one of the good opportunities to have a bite of this particular pie is upcoming GALA 2009 conference in Cancun, where I am running a VM panel with important people from Adobe, Lionbridge, VMWare, Verisign et. al. to give and take at VM aspect of localization industry.

The GALA 2009 VM panel is designed to illuminate both client and vendor sides of Vendor Management, from inside and outside, in all roles.

At GALA 2009 VM roundtable, we will ask and answer questions like
-”Is it all about price?”
-”Is it all about size?”
-”Does quality matter?”
-”How do you build VM in your organization?”
-”How do you make it work for production in everyday life?”
-”How do you improve VM with technology?”
-”How do you choose if you have so many suppliers already?”
-”What is best relationship policy?”
-”Should you maintain long-term relationships?”
-”What are the advantages/disadvantages to establishing relationships?” and so on.

We will have a discussion how to create and manage, how to approach, how to develop and structure Vendor Management.

So, HAVE YOUR SAY:

- Join VM subgroup of Localization Professional (free for LocPro members)
- Post a discussion as question or comment

Welcome to the subgroup, please post your questions about VM in subgroup Discussions and in Surveymonkey form, and also hope to see you in Cancun (check out for registration discounts and flights to Cancun from US by JetBlue at $99 – also the deals at Cancun resorts including Marriott are simply incredible)!

In any case, those sharing their ideas will get the ideas in return, and will have more than one apple!

There are five different calls for tenders in the fields of economics, finance and statistics covering the following language combinations:

20 EU languages into English
9 EU languages into French
7 EU languages into German
English into 20 EU languages
French into 20 EU languages

The deadline for submitting tenders is 2 October 2009.

The following link has full details of the required services and further information on terms and conditions:

http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/translation/workwithus/calls/open/index_en.htm

All the tender documentation can be downloaded from this site.

Common Sense Advisory is surveying buyers and users of translation, localization, and internationalization software about their experiences with the products and the support they’ve received. Let your voice be heard. Take the survey!

Whenever we plan to buy something, we often look to Consumer Reports, J.D. Power, Underwriters Laboratories, Good Housekeeping, or their national equivalents to get a sense of quality, performance, and customer satisfaction from previous buyers. None of these companies have asked purchasers of translation, localization, and internationalization software how satisfied they were with what they bought, so Common Sense Advisory is stepping into the breach to ask. Voice your opinion and take our survey on customer satisfaction with language software.

Over the last few months, globalization software vendors have released a wave of new products and updates, many in just the last few weeks. Some of these new versions debuted quietly, sliding in to replace earlier versions without anyone noticing. Others called attention to themselves, heating up the message boards as translators shared their concerns about changes in license policy, interfaces, and pricing. Still others escaped notice altogether, testament to their esoteric or tiny communities of users.

It’s time for you to tell us what you think about the language software that you use in your company, at your agency, or in your freelance practice. Take our customer satisfaction survey, in which we ask about your strategic translation and localization vendor, the products you use, and whether you’re satisfied with the product itself and the service and support you’ve received. We’ll post a summary of results in an upcoming Global Watchtower entry and here in the GALA blog.