We have spent more than a decade building up a vast database of external human resources. Basically anyone who can deliver their work over the internet. Check here for a detailed explanation of the type of external human resources we are constantly seeking. In short, such resources enable us to offer the following full set of services:
The above list of services is explained in greater detail below.
To see what some of our customers say about us, check out our customer testimonials.
Translations
Choosing the Right People
It is said in the publishing industry that every document must pass by at least six sets of eyes. Well, most customers will not be keen on investing so much to perfect their translations, but we provide what services our customers require. For example, one customer may need just an “informative” translation, in which case it does not need to be translated by a native speaker and price is more of an issue. In this case we can refer to our translators located in lower cost countries, who understand well the source and target languages, who produce a high or appropriate quality, yet who are not native in the target language but can offer an attractive price for the customer.
Other times the customer requires very high quality, for which at least one proofreader is required (a translator independent from the one who translated the “first draft”), and possibly an expert specialised in a very defined subject.
Having an extensive database and resource of tested translators is a good place to start when looking for the right person or team to work on your translation.
Getting the Job Done
Once the team is chosen, the
translation process is not necessarily all that cut and dry. All our translations undergo a vetting process, which is a comparison of the translation against the original document to make sure that nothing was overlooked and that the formatting is correct. If something was found missing, the document is sent back to the translator for completion. This is where the virtual office comes in handy, because the vettor can be one chosen who operates on a time zone later than the translator. The vettor can work while the translator is done with their working day, so that the task at hand is prepared for the translator at the start of their next day once the vettor is finished.
This can get more complicated when larger projects are concerned – our favourite. A customer may want a very large project translated in a very short period of time, which is often the case. For this a team of translators is chosen, one of which would be selected as the lead translator. The lead translator could spend a day going over the material to develop a dictionary of terms and guidelines to be used by the other translators. Sometimes the translators are encouraged to participate in a discussion forum, as more heads and opinions can often be beneficial when choosing the correct terminology. This is important to establish localisation rules and to keep everything consistent.
After establishing some basic terms and guidelines, the developed dictionary might be imported into certain translation software to help the translator while translating. We often like to use Transit, a leading translation memory software where the developed dictionary terms are marked in red and a little window available for the translator so that they can see the chosen translation of that term, and any necessary comments, if applicable. In the translation environment, the original format of the document is protected so that the translators only need to concern themselves with the actual text. Phrases which have been translated in the past are either translated automatically, or offered to the translator as an option, if repeating phrases are not exactly the same as previously translated ones. This speeds up work for the translator, keeps things entirely consistent, and saves on overall costs.
For such larger projects, we set up a line of communication between the translators and lead translator to deal with particular issues. Sometimes an expert in the field might be brought in to help with terminology choices.
Once the translators begin, either a proofreader is chosen to comb through the text for stylistic purposes, grammar and spelling, or the lead translator is responsible for reading through everything. Or the text might be read by both the lead translator and a proofreader specialised in grammar and style – all depends on the individual project and the customer’s requirements.
Once a section is translated and proofread, it is then vetted to make sure nothing is missing and that the formatting is correct. If any translation was found missing, which can happen because people are not machines, it is sent back for completion.
With such a system, you can see why it would be advantageous to operate in a virtual office where vettors operating on later time zones than the translators can keep the process running and prepare files for their next morning. Or for multi-language projects, which we often get, translators are located on different times zones, in which case it is important to have project managers always available (different ones located on different time zones) to help every translator with any technical issues or to answer their questions. Or otherwise to forward files between translators, proofreaders and vettors and to have a general overview of the project’s progress. Imagine a translator who is having a problem with a technical issue, and either does something wrong or does not translate at all, because they are waiting for a translation bureau to answer them and to open office on the other side of the globe. The translation bureau opens, answers the email, but is closed by the time the translator reads it. For such large projects it is imperative that there is an active window of communication to address such issues live, otherwise translators become idle, or do something wrong, causing the project to suffer.
With such a system, where everyone is busy like ants and someone always available to help with technical issues, we have managed an 11 language project of 5 million words which needed to be translated within one month! Over a hundred translators in all, and you can imagine that such a constantly running virtual office can certainly come in handy. For a demo presentation of our virtual office, please feel free to email us.
You can also check out our
translation prices.
Desktop Publishing
Once a translation is completed, presentation is also important, for which we have a ready team of experts qualified in all sorts of DTP programs, such as FrameMaker, InDesign and many others.
Click here to view DTP samples provided by some of our remote personnel.
Search Engine and Web Ranking Optimization (SEO)
For full details please refer to our website on search engine optimization (SEO).
Transcription and Typing Services
Having more than 7,000 translators from all over the world offering more than 180 languages can come in handy when one needs to transcribe a document. And since one does not have to be a native speaker to type in a particular language, we can offer you this service at a competitive rate as well, drawing from our resources located in lower cost countries.
For this, you can scan in the documents and send them to us by email, or we have fax numbers on various continents to which you can fax the documents and where the service automatically converts that fax to an image and sends it to us by email. We can then forward this document by email to our transcribers.
Alternatively, if the scanned document is of sufficiently good quality, it can be uploaded to our central server, where our project managers can OCR it (Optical Character Recognition), meaning that a special program interprets the image text and converts it automatically. A transcriber or translator could then proofread the text, using an automatic spellchecker to bring it to perfection, and one of our DTP experts could convert the document into any format you like. The moon is possible with KENAX!
Programming
Email us to ask for a full list of all the programming languages we offer. For your project, we can subscribe the use of the many programming companies we have in our database and who have their own inhouse staff. Otherwise, the programming work can also be performed externally, as we have accomplished ourselves for our virtual office. For a demo of our virtual office, please email us with your enquiry. For such a method of externally farming out a programming project, different programmers could be assigned different tasks of the same project. After all, a customer paying to develop certain software might not want the entire development in the hands of a single programmer. This is how we have developed our virtual office. The advantage to this type of system is that, as with our translators, project managers and other staff, the programmer can work in their rural community or in nature, needing only an internet connection. In this case their costs are lower, they are happier that they can work in such an environment, and therefore offer us a better price, the savings which we can pass on to you.
Programming
We have been busy compiling a database of programmers located all over the world and who offer every type of programming language, such as mysql,
php, C++, and visual basic. For a full list of the languages click here [ . Many of the programmers are located in less expensive countries like India, the Ukraine and China. Since they work from the comfort of their home they can offer an even more attractive rate, such that we are able to offer their services for as little as 10 dollars an hour. They are highly qualified programmers who simply prefer to work at home so that they can spend more time with their families. Others already have full time jobs and work for us on the weekends.
So far we have only used them for our own projects: to develop our websites, set up our virtual office, and help us automate our entire system in order to be the leanest and most efficient translation agency on the net. You will find a brief explanation of our virtual office at the bottom of this page, or you can write to us for a web demo and more detailed presentation.
Graphics Design
Whether mastered on the computer or drawn by hand and scanned into the computer, all such art work can be transferred over the internet and used for developing websites, or any of the diverse needs of our customers. Once scanned in, some of our graphics experts can process the work further, after which it could be implemented into a website by our designers. Anything is possible with such a robust resource of globally placed personnel!
Data Collection and Data Processing
These are just some of the many jobs one can deliver to a customer over the internet, and one must exercise one’s imagination to think of all the possibilities. Need to collect some research on a particular subject? Let one of our Rumanian or Chinese surfers collect this for you. Have some offline and tedious accounting work you’d rather farm out to someone else? Let us help you prepare it for someone else to do, as almost all our work is farmed out in this fashion. The internet makes the world a small place, so take advantage of lower costs in other parts of the world to bring employment to those regions and save something for yourself as well. It is a global world, and both parties benefit with such an exchange. Since we are used to farming out such work and you might not imagine how a particular task can be given to someone else over the internet, feel free to come to us with your problems and let us exercise our imaginations for you. We have lengthy experience in it!
Logistics Consultation
And now to bring this on a more personal level. I have developed my translation agency from a small office on the outskirts of Prague to what it is today. I had in-house staff, but because I value my freedom and prefer to work on my own schedule, in the comfort of whatever environment I choose, I tended to farm out whatever work I could externally. Or better yet, when an inhouse secretary got sick or found employment elsewhere, being forced to do her menial work annoyed me to the point that I most often started developing scripts to do much of her work automatically. This continued until it became routine to develop scripts and streamline any task which needed to be done. Gone are the days when I would sit at a desk, telephone in one hand and a pen and paper in the other, to jot down details of an applying translator and which I would later have to punch into the computer. An online application form took care of that. Gone are the days when I would have to manually update an offline database based on new contact details sent to me by a translator. The translator can now log into their account themselves and change whatever information they need. Including how we pay them. While online in their account, they can see all the jobs they ever performed for us, see how much we still owe them, and selected from many choices how to get paid. On our end, we can download the database, save certain records into a particular file, and with that file hook up to our bank through super secure means and make a mass payment to an unlimited number of translators, with only a few minutes of work. Or make mass online payments through one of our many other payment methods, such as Moneybookers. When there is an active project, selected translators are assigned to it, after which they can log into their account, have access to the files, upload their completed work to set folders (to which they alone have access), after which an email is automatically sent to the next person in line (be it a proofreader, vettor, project manager or other), who can then download it and continue working on it. The uploading and delivering of work is automatically logged and easily viewable and understood by a project manager who might log into the various projects and have special rights to communicate with the variously assigned translators and staff. This, of course, while not being able to view the contact details or full names of any person they are communicating with. It was designed this way on purpose. Divide and conquer they say. If I want to enjoy my freedom and farm out all this work externally to others, I cannot allow them the luxury of establishing direct contact with one other, otherwise I could make myself entirely redundant. So all communication can be downloaded and inspected by yet others. Or still others could be in charge of communicating with customers only.
The point is that I have spent half a decade automating what processes I could using the various scripts I wrote myself or hired one of my many programmers to help me with, and set up a system to be able to farm out to others what work could not be automated, through this virtual office. This is the type of work I enjoy the most, and I would enjoy helping other businesses streamline their operations. I understand many programs, I have a rich resource of external employees to help me where needed, and I have been streamlining operations my entire life. No matter what job I had. It is something which is simply natural to me and which I feel I am very good at. And I very much enjoy this type of work.
This can all be done externally, or may require that I come physically to your premises to see how you actually operate. Whatever the case may be, I have the resources at my disposal and feel I can streamline your operations at a very competitive rate. My proposal would be to work on some minimum initial cost level and to be paid the rest, over time, based on a percentage of what I actually save you. Anything is possible and the rest requires negotiation.
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