3 questions to Sebastien Chochois - Sales Director at Powerling

Boasting 12 years' experience in the translation business as a sales officer and agency manager, Sébastien Chochois is now at the helm of the European Sales Department, monitoring key accounts and sales development strategy.

He took a few minutes to answer 3 questions on the state of our industry:

Q1 - You started as a sales rep 12 years ago and are now running the sales department at Powerling Europe. What would you say has marked the evolution of the translation field in the last 30 years?

I would say that, today, the expectations of our clients regarding the work of translators are much higher than they used to, from a linguistic, technical, as much as from a technological standpoint.

First, from a linguistic standpoint, good style has become a lot more important. Indeed, we don’t just ask translators to stick to the source document; the quality of their writing and style, as well as their respecting a specific terminology, are now essential aspects of their work.

From a technical standpoint, a good translator has to be tech-savvy. Besides being comfortable with common, essential applications from the Office package, or software such as In Design or Illustrator, mastering the web technology and its formats are advantages that make translators more flexible and quick to adjust to clients’ needs.

Last, from a technological standpoint, being able to use at least one -often several- CAT tools is a must today to increase translators’ productivity and competitiveness on the market.

Q2 - Would you say that the translation market is blooming?

Yes, the translation industry is growing every year. Political changes (in Europe), the growing power of the Internet, as well as the fact that translation is now vital to the expansion of organizations from all sectors has great leverage on the market.

While a decade ago translation was a forgotten discipline in the communication field, it is today a widely known art.

Q3 - Powerling is technologically advanced, especially thanks to the creation of the translation software Déjà-Vu; can you please tell us more about it?

Indeed, we developed the Déjà-Vu CAT tool (No. 2 worldwide) and we have in-house developers and programmers. It is a huge advantage since besides having skillful in-house project managers, translators and project assistants, we also rely on an extremely responsive IT team!

We are also able to provide specific clients with customized solutions, thus optimizing the overall linguistic management process.Today we provide services such as Workflow system setup, ROI optimization, transparency in translation memory management, which greatly benefit our clients.