Since COVID-19 arrived in early 2020, the past few years have been rather unpredictable, especially for the translation industry. We are only a few months into 2022 and, like every industry, we are all still trying to deal with the impact of the pandemic. But what trends will define the translation industry over the next few months?
Collab tools: Are you team Zoom or Microsoft Teams?
The past few years have been a learning experience for many businesses in how to work remotely. However, some would argue that the translation market was already streaks ahead, with thousands of freelance translators and linguists having worked remotely for years.
However, that’s not to say that the pandemic hasn’t led to some interesting improvements in how we work together remotely. Video calling has come on leaps and bounds, as have a range of collaboration tools and platforms.
We’re likely to see this trend accelerate further in 2022, with tech firms that dived into developing tools for remote working maturing their product ranges and expanding usage.
Those of us in the translation industry will need to keep on top of these changes, looking at them not just from a language perspective but from a project management and customer service viewpoint. From more efficient project planning to swifter collaborations, there’s likely to be a lot that these kinds of tools can enhance in 2022 and beyond.
Demand for business translation – EVERYTHING is online!
Wouldn’t you agree that we’re all online a lot more since the pandemic? (I can’t even remember the last time I went clothes shopping, physically, and went to a changing room – I buy everything online now!) A lot more, in many cases, and businesses are looking at what this means to them. In some cases, it means that companies have rethought their scope of delivery, as serving customers online can remove previous geographical limitations.
This shift in mindset has led businesses to think global instead of local when it comes to their service delivery model. In 2022, the translation and localisation industry are here to help them with this approach. From the translation of websites and podcasts to the provision of online interpreting for video calls, the language services industry is ready to step up and support businesses to achieve their goals.
Demand for AV localisation. What’s that?
AV localisation is the process of taking creative media content, for example from podcasts and adverts, translating it and making it culturally relevant to audiences from different target markets. With localisation it is vital that nuances, references, word play and jargon all work in the target market as well as they did in the original source.
Our hunger for audio-visual content shows no signs of slowing down over the next few months. It’s at no surprise that companies are actively looking at how they can use TV show formats and radio-style presentations to connect with both their existing customers as well as new prospects. With many firms now thinking global in terms of their business goals, the need to localise their creative content has never been greater. As such, this is likely to be a major trend for the translation services market in 2022.
The Evolution of E-learning
As we mentioned earlier, everyone is doing so much more online these days. Doing so was of necessity when the pandemic first struck. Despite now easing out of the pandemic, many people have chosen to continue working, shopping, and meeting online due to the convenience and easy accessibility of doing so. (I personally enjoy and prefer working from home; what are your thoughts?)
E-learning gives us the opportunity to to learn a new skill online, whether to advance our careers, pick up a new hobby or purely for entertainment. Training providers have done much to satisfy this eager new audience, including delivering their course materials in multiple languages.
The translation service market will, of course, be there to support those companies looking to expand their training materials to reach new markets, ready to enrol a whole new generation of learners in 2022.
So, which of the trends will impact the way that you approach your work or run your business over the coming months?
Here at Dialogue, we offer several translation services mentioned in the article above that could be the icing on the cake for your business this year. Contact us today to discuss in more detail.