Dr. Rachel Herwartz has headed the company “TermSolutions – Terminology Solutions & Services“since 2004. The company advises customers from the industry and mid sector on the management of terminology and translation. Dr. Herwartz is a professor at the Danube University Krems and the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHW). She conducts seminars at the tekom annual convention.
This is a translation of a German article published in 'technische kommunikation', tekom's professional magazine for technical communication and information development. For more information visit www.tekom.de
When does terminology really pay?
With the help of interviews and a table calculation it is possible to calculate the costs incurred by a company when there is no terminology management. It is also possible to determine how the benefits of technology can be increased through a combination of personnel and software.
For translators, the answer to the question “Is a translation memory system worth it?” appears to be pretty simple. The return on investment, ROI in short, can be calculated from the rate of reuse and translation volume for the software with which the already existing translations can be reused and specified terminology can be displayed. “Is a terminology management system worth it?” – this question doesn’t have an easy answer on the other hand. If one also enquires into why a company requires a separate employee for terminology management across the company, the matter becomes even more complex.
Although questions regarding the costs and benefits of terminology work cannot be answered easily, it is still possible to find answers – even in figures. Thus, a company can use a cost-benefit analysis to calculate the position of a part- or full-time terminologist. And the cost that incurs every day due to a lack of terminology management is compared with the benefits gained from a centralized terminology management.
Sample calculations from the industry
The costs for a terminology expert working for half a day could already be substantiated in a larger company through such an analysis. It was offset against cost savings from the language service. Even a full time position would have been justified on extending the terminology work to cover the entire company.
Engagement can count even in a smaller company that is just introducing terminology work: One employee takes over the task of a terminology expert for 25 percent of the time. Costs are added for the management system and for working on the contents through terminology extraction. Furthermore, existing lists are revised. The costs are recovered, as many terminology errors can be reduced.
From an unmonitored current situation to a monitored target situation
In many companies it is assumed that the costs for a terminology management system are completely newly incurred and are recovered only over the years as benefits of terminology. This is an incorrect estimation that decision makes often insist on. The next sections present some arguments that are helpful in case of the translation tasks for terminology work.
No company communicates with customers and employees through pictures alone. Rather, communication is primarily about language. Having “one company language” means developing and applying terminology. To that extent, the company is not faced with the decision about whether terminology work is carried out, but about how effectively it is managed.
If the terminology content of a company is not monitored, the pain curve goes up – see image 1. But if the terminology process is managed, the curve drops down to zero. The pain curve can be transferred to the effort put in for terminology as well. An unmonitored status in fact leads to ongoing costs.
Image 1: “Pain curve” as by Keiran Dunne (2002)
The costs from the current status can be compared with the savings from a target status reached through monitored terminology work, and can justify the personnel and software costs. Unlike in image 1, the monitored terminology work doesn’t immediately move towards zero after the initial effort, since the content needs to be developed first. Later, the value settles at a specific maintenance level.
Sensitization and interviews
More often than not, a company already has problems with their corporate terminology. It is therefore advantageous to obtain “allies” for interviews and create awareness of problems specific to departments.
- Example from language services: The translation quality is impaired due to extension from three to ten foreign languages with undefined terminology
- Example from marketing: Loss of public image due to false product names
- Example from development: Redevelopment of already existing components, since false names in the product information management do not allow finding out about those same, already existing parts
- Example from technical documentation: Manuals use wrong brand names, since technical editing was not informed about change in supplier
- Example from spare parts department: Wrong components ordered due to unclear terminology
Performance indicators through interviews
The actual times for the current status of the company terminology are established during an interview. In technical writing for instance, efforts for reviews, proof-reading and the time for coordination/approval of terminology are taken into consideration.
In case of foreign languages, we need to include terminology research by the translator, queries and coordination with editors, reviews and proof-reading.
Even the integration of new employees takes time, which is incurred for the most part on terminology work or the clarification of concepts.
In addition, other performance indicators such as rate of reuse of texts can be collected. A sample list with parameters/ performance indicators for the cost-benefit analysis is provided in the table “Cost-benefit analysis, list of sample questions”.
Even the basic performance indicators of the company such as working hours and cost of work must be obtained from the responsible department, as shown in the following table.
Example for the calculation of the average hourly rates of a company | ||
Working hours, hours per year and employees
| 1,500
| hours
|
Working hours per day in hours
| 8
| hours
|
Actual costs per hour
| 100
| Euro
|
Days per week
| 5
| days
|
Weeks per year
| 45
| weeks
|
The actual cost rates defined by the company form the basis for the calculation of hourly rates in the table, on the target-state and actual-condition side.
This means, that usually the pure annual earnings of a terminology expert employed full time are not applied. Rather it concerns the annual working hours multiplied by the hourly rate of the company. The hourly rate is often determined from all salaries, from the board level to the messenger, and is updated continuously.
If a company already has a software for managing and reviewing terminology, then these costs have already been included in the average wages. Unlike in the case of new procurements, the costs for software, hardware, licenses and maintenance cannot be posted on the cost side once again.
While calculating the number of employees, only those employees dealing with terminology must be considered.
An overview of the sample questions is compiled in the table “Cost-benefit analysis, list of sample questions”.
Cost-Benefit analysis, list of sample questions |
1. General performance indicators of the company
|
– Working hours per day/per year in hours – Number of working days in a year/in the week – Hourly rate of the company – use actual value rate – Number of employees dealing with terminology work, classified by departments |
2. General questions |
– For which functional areas do you create or translate texts? – What kinds of texts? – What is your estimated rate of reuse of text components in the system? |
3. Question on the use of already existing content (= benefits of terminology work)?
|
– Who creates/maintains/reviews the content, e.g. terminology experts or trainees? – Which existing contents do you know? Which do you use? – How meaningful are these entries, the status of the terminology databases (TDB) or even lists? – From which TDB do you have the most matches in term recognition? – How often do you refer to the TDB for something? – Is there something lacking in the TDB/List? |
4. Questions about own research (= effort for terminology work)
|
– Which departments/ specialist departments /persons research and review? – Where else do you search? – How long does the research take? How often per day/week/month do you do that? – Do you maintain your own terminology database, glossary or a list? – Do you make your own entries in the central list or the database? – Which fields do you fill out? How long do the entries take? |
5. Questions on editing and proof-reading times
|
How much time is spent on – the terminology in case of two- way editing? – the proof-reading of initial texts, even in editing system? – the approval/coordination or discussion of terminology among group of colleagues? – queries from translators? – proof-reading of the translations? |
Optional
|
– What problems have you already face due to inconsistent/uncoordinated terminology and what were the repercussions? – Would you work together in a terminology group? – Do you believe that the rate of reuse in TMS, PIM, ERP or CMS increases significantly with terminology work? – Would you prefer to refer with focus or use a review tool? – Do we require terminology experts, in your opinion? And what tasks should they fulfill? – What should be the time effort of the terminology expert? |
Recording the performance indicators in a table calculation
The data specific to the company must be collected first as a basis of calculations. The calculation of existing costs and the expected savings is then based on this data.
In our initial example of a smaller company, which is just introducing terminology work, the newly incurred costs for software and the time for working on and coordinating/approving the terminology, the damages that have already occurred and the savings to be expected can be contrasted against each other. The costs for terminology work include the hosting of the online terminology database, a full time trainee and a person responsible for the terminology in the company – consolidated in image 4. The person responsible monitors the entries for twelve hours every week and leads the coordination/approval process.
The benefits of the terminology work result from the damages that have already occurred due to false orders and the expected savings, lesser research and reviews and also lesser need for discussion among employees.
In another example that deals with justifying a position in a terminology process that is already running, the ongoing costs actually increase at first due to the terminology position to be newly created – see Image 5. However, the time for coordination/approval and review is reduced significantly. The new position can therefore be covered by the savings.
Targeted management and optimization
Performance indicators based on experience values and estimations can be determined through interviews with employees. Both can be checked using the real performance indicators. An online-based terminology database counts access for instance, and enables drawing conclusions about the use of data by the various departments with this function. The benefits/use can be increased by connecting as many company divisions as possible.
Terminology management is supported by informative measures. This includes a newsletter that regularly informs about new content and plans. The link to external internet offerings, e.g. leo.org should also be exchanged on the intranet, with a reference to the internal terminology database.
The costs for terminology work can not only be offset, but can also be reduced. The time for the terminology research can be reduced if not all data categories need to be filled, and only categories like “Definition” and “Graphic” need to be approved for the core terminology of the company. Furthermore, the person responsible for the terminology can assign the work of entering or revising terminology content to other employees or trainees.
In industrial enterprises, only the project or model related terminology needs to be added after entering a basic content of about 6000 to 9000 terms with the related nomenclature in the different languages. Already existing content of standard organizations such as DIN-Term can be used here.
Summary
Introducing terminology work without a comparison of the costs and benefits convinces no one in a company. It is therefore advisable to create an instrument with which these parameters/performance indicators can be collected and continuously monitored.
In the tekom study “Successful terminology management in the company”, the result of a company survey states that the match rates during translations with TMS can be improved through terminology work. While some companies speak of 50 percent savings, others unfortunately see an increase of a mere five to ten percent. The study therefore recommends a benchmarking with companies that have already introduced a terminology management.
However, experience shows that even companies from the same sector with a similar number of employees and languages differ due to the programs used, so that a direct comparison is no longer possible, unless really comparable performance indicators are used.
A cost-benefit analysis through interviews with employees and the representation of possible stages of development of terminology work in a table calculation offers all interested parties a quick and simple option of working out the advantages of terminology management and using them as an aid for argumentation towards the decision makes in the company.