Shouldn't you have an in-house team?

Here's an interesting client-education article on the issue of translation quality.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nataly-kelly/ten-common-myths-about-tr_b_3599644.html

I like many of the points but disagree wholeheartedly with Myth 2:

"However, when projects are more complex - involving multiple languages, content types, or file formats - an agency is often a better solution."

Wrong! An agency will never look after your brand image as well as keen, well-rewarded in-house translators (offering as many language pairs as are needed).

This afternoon I was on the phone with a client and he was telling me that the main financial-services group that his Swiss bank is part of uses only agencies, and the quality of the English translations produced is often poor and there is inconsistency with terminology. (The Swiss subsidiary has a fantastic in-house team and you can see that in the quality of the documents.)

Speaking at the Financial Translation Summer School in Spiez this year, Christian Jacot-Descombes made an excellent point about why he has a strong in-house team within his communications department at the Banque Cantonale Vaudoise. From his presentation:

Advantages of having an in-house translation team

- Cost effective: nope
- Faster turnaround times: nope

Real added value comes from the translation product itself:

- more authentic
- better at communicating the message
- more entrepreneurial approach to translation (don't know what this means as I wasn't at the talk but I like the sound of it!)
- improved buy-in from clients

If companies in Europe kept their in-house teams (or re-created them as the case may be), the level of communication in foreign languages would benefit greatly. And so probably would their top line, too.