| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] > | Selling a translation memory - feedback needed Thread poster: infactglobal
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| They might already have that in mind | Oct 4, 2012 |
Samuel Murray wrote:
infactglobal wrote:
They are also asked to buy my translation memory with 80.000 segments and about 800,000 words.
First, remember that if you sell your memory and glossary to them, they can stop working with you without any penalty, and simply hand your memory and glossary to a cheaper translator.
Maybe they already have this in mind. In every merger you find a whole bunch of VPs who desperately need to make themselves useful by cutting costs... at all costs. In due time, their cuts will mean that the end quality of their manuals, advertising, and legal documents is not what they really wanted, and they might come back to the original translator.
Personally I would calculate the price based upon the time needed to align the documents, and would show a cooperative attitude in general. After all, a translation memory, no matter how good it is, does not make a good translator. What they have been paying so far is the translator's skill and reliability, and very probably they will not find that at a lower rate.
And this is for the original poster: If this is an strategic, big customer for you, ask your usual contacts to help you get in touch with the people who will manage translations from now on, or with the person who has decided that they need to have the TM (surely to obtain some comparative quotations). If they are at a reasonable geographical distance, invest some time and money to visit the customer and make yourself known to the new people, and to discuss how well the cooperation has worked for such a long time. This way they will have a "home position" --i.e. your services-- they can return to when trouble with the new translators begins.
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Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:
Anna Spanoudaki-Thurm wrote:
If I were the client and given that I had all the documents translated by you, I would be willing to pay for the TM the money that it would cost me to reproduce it through alignment plus a significant percentage of it for the time it would take me to find the files, learn to use the alignment software etc. and for the fuss.
Estimate how much it would take you to align the files, multiply by a decent hourly rate, add a 10-50% (sepending on the overall sum) and see what happens.
The only reasonable way to go if you ask me. This is clearly what I would do.
So, does this mean that if alignment was technically impossible or it cost 100,000 EUR to do, you would refuse to hand over the TM or ask for 100,000 EUR? Just wondering.
I would approach this from the "how much trouble was it for me to generate/maintain" angle, not the "how much can I ask based on how much it would cost for them to get around me" angle.
Any estimation of how much time it would take to align 80,000 segments will have an uncertainty of at least one order of magnitude, anyway. I can generate a reasonably good autoalignment in a day, and a fully manually checked alignment in perhaps a week or two. For someone with crappy tools and inefficient methods, it could take several months. It's hard to tell, as I (and most people) never aligned this much material manually, and never will.
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FarkasAndras wrote:
Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:
Anna Spanoudaki-Thurm wrote:
If I were the client and given that I had all the documents translated by you, I would be willing to pay for the TM the money that it would cost me to reproduce it through alignment plus a significant percentage of it for the time it would take me to find the files, learn to use the alignment software etc. and for the fuss.
Estimate how much it would take you to align the files, multiply by a decent hourly rate, add a 10-50% (sepending on the overall sum) and see what happens.
The only reasonable way to go if you ask me. This is clearly what I would do.
So, does this mean that if alignment was technically impossible or it cost 100,000 EUR to do, you would refuse to hand over the TM or ask for 100,000 EUR? Just wondering.
And if elephants could fly, I would buy a steel umbrella.
| | | | | a good tm doesn't make a good translator... | Oct 4, 2012 |
Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:
Maybe they already have this in mind. In every merger you find a whole bunch of VPs who desperately need to make themselves useful by cutting costs... at all costs. In due time, their cuts will mean that the end quality of their manuals, advertising, and legal documents is not what they really wanted, and they might come back to the original translator.
Although this is true in general, having worked with this client for almost 10 years, I think I know pretty much how the gears work, and they are well aware of quality problems with automated translation, since one of the partner companies has been working like that and my client is the one paying the price of poor translations that they need to translate into their language... it's complicated, but they know the worth of a good HUMAN translator!!!
Personally I would calculate the price based upon the time needed to align the documents, and would show a cooperative attitude in general. After all, a translation memory, no matter how good it is, does not make a good translator. What they have been paying so far is the translator's skill and reliability, and very probably they will not find that at a lower rate.
Like I said, I think they are just looking to reduce costs in the 100% match documents (and there are many... almost all of my translations come up with at least 50% full matches). Of course, when you get files that are all 100% matches, I understand the client when he says that he could do them in-house.
And this is for the original poster: If this is an strategic, big customer for you, ask your usual contacts to help you get in touch with the people who will manage translations from now on, or with the person who has decided that they need to have the TM (surely to obtain some comparative quotations). If they are at a reasonable geographical distance, invest some time and money to visit the customer and make yourself known to the new people, and to discuss how well the cooperation has worked for such a long time. This way they will have a "home position" --i.e. your services-- they can return to when trouble with the new translators begins.
Fortunately, I know many people in the company, in different departments that spread all across the board... and they know me and the quality of my work. This is why I'm seriously thinking about how to make everyone happy, on both ends of the deal...
Thanks for your input, this is getting me thinking
C
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| Alignment tools | Oct 4, 2012 |
FarkasAndras wrote:
I can generate a reasonably good autoalignment in a day, and a fully manually checked alignment in perhaps a week or two. For someone with crappy tools and inefficient methods, it could take several months. It's hard to tell, as I (and most people) never aligned this much material manually, and never will.
So this makes me ask two questions:
1/ When you give your "1-day" limit for an autoalignment and a full manual check at a week or two, are you considering my TM with 80.000 segments? If not, how many segments or words are you thinking about?
2/ What alignment tool do you use?
Thanks for your input, again, food for thought!
C
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infactglobal wrote:
FarkasAndras wrote:
I can generate a reasonably good autoalignment in a day, and a fully manually checked alignment in perhaps a week or two. For someone with crappy tools and inefficient methods, it could take several months. It's hard to tell, as I (and most people) never aligned this much material manually, and never will.
So this makes me ask two questions:
1/ When you give your "1-day" limit for an autoalignment and a full manual check at a week or two, are you considering my TM with 80.000 segments? If not, how many segments or words are you thinking about?
2/ What alignment tool do you use?
Thanks for your input, again, food for thought!
C
Yes, those very rough ballpark estimates are for 80,000 segments. Again, these tasks could easily take an order or magnitude more time depending on who is doing them with what method.
I use my own aligner (thread) and I have a fair bit of experience with large alignment projects. I expect the job would take longer for most people.
| | | | Bruno Depascale 
Italy
Local time: 16:12
Member (2009)
English to Italian
+ ...
| If I was the agency... | Oct 4, 2012 |
Hi Cynthia,
I just wanted to make a little contribution to this topic.
Personally, I think that 80,000 segments are not really an enormous translation memory.
This amount of segments should be translated in 1-3 years of work. Am I wrong?
For this very reason, and given the fact that the agency that is asking you for the TM is the same for which the TM was created, you should take this into account when selling the rights of your translation memory.
Personally, if I... See more Hi Cynthia,
I just wanted to make a little contribution to this topic.
Personally, I think that 80,000 segments are not really an enormous translation memory.
This amount of segments should be translated in 1-3 years of work. Am I wrong?
For this very reason, and given the fact that the agency that is asking you for the TM is the same for which the TM was created, you should take this into account when selling the rights of your translation memory.
Personally, if I was the agency I would have a business-like approach and I won't pay more than 5.000 euros for the TM. I think this is a fair price, given the fact that they already paid for your work in these years.
Obviously I would also try negotiating, asking firstly for a higher price, let's say 10.000 euros, and then "accepting" a lower price.
This is my humble opinion in this matter.
Good luck!
Bruno ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Ballpark figure | Oct 4, 2012 |
80,000 segments x 10 words (an estimate, but you can take a sample of 10 segments, count them by hand and extrapolate) = 800,000 words.
I align and verify (not in detail) 3,000 words per hour.
800,000 words : 3,000 = 266 hours x (say) € 30 = € 8,000.
Does this help?
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| Calculations, calculations! | Oct 5, 2012 |
Bruno Depascale wrote:
Hi Cynthia,
I just wanted to make a little contribution to this topic.
Personally, I think that 80,000 segments are not really an enormous translation memory.
This amount of segments should be translated in 1-3 years of work. Am I wrong?
For this very reason, and given the fact that the agency that is asking you for the TM is the same for which the TM was created, you should take this into account when selling the rights of your translation memory.
Personally, if I was the agency I would have a business-like approach and I won't pay more than 5.000 euros for the TM. I think this is a fair price, given the fact that they already paid for your work in these years.
Obviously I would also try negotiating, asking firstly for a higher price, let's say 10.000 euros, and then "accepting" a lower price.
This is my humble opinion in this matter.
Good luck!
Bruno
Hi Bruno,
Just for clairification, it's not an agency asking for the memory but the final, end client.
Let's see, I translate an average of 2700 words a day, 22 work days a month, 12 months a year. That makes up a little less than 800,000 words a year. But how to do you come up with the 5,000 euros? I'm really trying to find a mathematical, or verifiable if you like, way to justify the cost of the TM.
Thanks for the input!
C
[Edited at 2012-10-05 04:42 GMT]
[Edited at 2012-10-05 04:43 GMT]
[Edited at 2012-10-05 04:44 GMT]
| | | | | Aligning math | Oct 5, 2012 |
christela wrote:
80,000 segments x 10 words (an estimate, but you can take a sample of 10 segments, count them by hand and extrapolate) = 800,000 words.
I align and verify (not in detail) 3,000 words per hour.
800,000 words : 3,000 = 266 hours x (say) € 30 = € 8,000.
Does this help?
That's actually interesting for two reasons:
I actually hadn't thought of taking sample segments to average out the number of words per segment. So I will do that today.
Also it's very interesting to get your aligning rate. I never actually timed my aligning process, so I have no idea whether you are fast or not. Like I asked Andras, which alignment tool do you use?
Your calculation is logical and justified. Now whether the client will be willing to pay a price based on it is another story!
Thanks!
C
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5000 euros? 8000 euros?
Honestly guys, neither an agency not a direct customer will pay such figures for a translation memory containing their own translation jobs. Count your blessings if you can squeeze 1000 euros from them for this. If you do not show a cooperative attitude, they will dump you altogether, your chances of future jobs from them will be doomed, and they will ask for an alignment by people like Farkas who can do it in a single day and will surely not charge 5000 euro... See more 5000 euros? 8000 euros?
Honestly guys, neither an agency not a direct customer will pay such figures for a translation memory containing their own translation jobs. Count your blessings if you can squeeze 1000 euros from them for this. If you do not show a cooperative attitude, they will dump you altogether, your chances of future jobs from them will be doomed, and they will ask for an alignment by people like Farkas who can do it in a single day and will surely not charge 5000 euros for it, I reckon.
Just my opinion!
Edited to add this: To me, the value in the translation memory consists in the fact that it contains everything. They can easily find and align (or have aligned) their larger and generic documents (manuals, online helps, boilerplates, legal terms, white papers...), but it will take them much longer to find all the little bits and pieces (press releases, letters, email templates, invitations, slides, campaign materials...).
By purchasing a memory, they will have all the translations in one place at a reasonable cost, but rest assured that if you ask for 5000 or 8000 euros, all of a sudden searching for all those little documents in two languages will sound like a reasonable thing to do.
[Edited at 2012-10-05 05:18 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Aligning is a real task | Oct 5, 2012 |
Whenever I read "they can just align it" I really start to laugh.
We regularly run alignment projects with 50 - 500 k segments. These tasks require special knowledge, specialized tools (don't even think about using WinAlign) and a lot of time and work. The output is never complete. In my opinion a rate of EUR 0.01/source word in the resulting TM is definitely the minimum you will have to charge to cover your effort. Don't worry, aligning your work is not really an option for your customer.... See more Whenever I read "they can just align it" I really start to laugh.
We regularly run alignment projects with 50 - 500 k segments. These tasks require special knowledge, specialized tools (don't even think about using WinAlign) and a lot of time and work. The output is never complete. In my opinion a rate of EUR 0.01/source word in the resulting TM is definitely the minimum you will have to charge to cover your effort. Don't worry, aligning your work is not really an option for your customer. If they want to go down this route, they will find out in no time that it will cost them a lot more to produce acceptable results. ]
[Edited at 2012-10-05 08:02 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:
5000 euros? 8000 euros?
Honestly guys, neither an agency not a direct customer will pay such figures for a translation memory containing their own translation jobs. Count your blessings if you can squeeze 1000 euros from them for this. If you do not show a cooperative attitude, they will dump you altogether, your chances of future jobs from them will be doomed, and they will ask for an alignment by people like Farkas who can do it in a single day and will surely not charge 5000 euros for it, I reckon.
Just my opinion!
Edited to add this: To me, the value in the translation memory consists in the fact that it contains everything. They can easily find and align (or have aligned) their larger and generic documents (manuals, online helps, boilerplates, legal terms, white papers...), but it will take them much longer to find all the little bits and pieces (press releases, letters, email templates, invitations, slides, campaign materials...).
By purchasing a memory, they will have all the translations in one place at a reasonable cost, but rest assured that if you ask for 5000 or 8000 euros, all of a sudden searching for all those little documents in two languages will sound like a reasonable thing to do.
Completely agree. 5000+ EUR sounds unreasonable to me, and I can't imagine anyone would pay that much. A couple of hundred, maybe 1000 is what I would consider realistic. Perhaps they would cough up 5000 if they really need this TM (i.e. they have a lot of texts with 100% matches)... but only if they don't know about alignment - and then they would probably proceed to find another translator immediately. Asking 5000+ EUR for translations that they have already purchased from you in a different format, when they know that you more than likely already have them in the format they want now - that can't do much good to mutual trust in a working relationship.
Siegfried: do you mean that it costs upwards of 0.01 EUR/word to align text (i.e. about 0.1 EUR/segment pair, bringing us back to the 8000 EUR figure for 80,000 segments)? What tool do you use for alignment, if you don't mind me asking?
[Edited at 2012-10-05 08:13 GMT]
| | | | | choices, choices | Oct 5, 2012 |
Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:
To me, the value in the translation memory consists in the fact that it contains everything. They can easily find and align (or have aligned) their larger and generic documents (manuals, online helps, boilerplates, legal terms, white papers...), but it will take them much longer to find all the little bits and pieces (press releases, letters, email templates, invitations, slides, campaign materials...).
By purchasing a memory, they will have all the translations in one place at a reasonable cost, but rest assured that if you ask for 5000 or 8000 euros, all of a sudden searching for all those little documents in two languages will sound like a reasonable thing to do. [Edited at 2012-10-05 05:18 GMT]
I can only begin to imagine how many documents this client has in stock ... this is why I don't know whether to count the time it would take me to align their documents or whether to just "sell the technology of the TM" all together... Hard to choose, really
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Siegfried Armbruster wrote:
Whenever I read "they can just align it" I really start to laugh.
We regularly run alignment projects with 50 - 500 k segments. These tasks require special knowledge, specialized tools (don't even think about using WinAlign) and a lot of time and work. The output is never complete. In my opinion a rate of EUR 0.01/source word in the resulting TM is definitely the minimum you will have to charge to cover your effort. Don't worry, aligning your work is not really an option for your customer. If they want to go down this route, they will find out in no time that it will cost them a lot more to produce acceptable results. ]
[Edited at 2012-10-05 08:02 GMT]
I tried using winalign once... it was so annoying I came back down from the "aligning rush" and decided aligning wasn't that great an idea. But now I'm wondering...
Like Andras, I wonder, what is your alignment tool?
Thanks!
C
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