Transcription
Max Morkovkin 00:00
I'm going to introduce our next moderator of the second panel discussion today and Marie and Maria with us. Can you hear me? Well?
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 00:23
I can hear you very well. I just need to start my video.
Max Morkovkin 00:27
good long time. No. See, how are you doing?
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 00:30
I'm doing very well. Thank you very much. Considering every the craziness going around us. I'm still doing very well. Thank you
Max Morkovkin 00:38
stay stay positive always. Okay, so I think that our panelists are joining us right now. Right. Okay, I'm joined. Yes. Hello, Christoph.
Krzysztof Zdanowski 01:01
Hi there.
Max Morkovkin 01:04
How are you doing?
Krzysztof Zdanowski 01:05
I'm doing okay.
Max Morkovkin 01:08
Good answer. Okay, more people teach you. Hello. Hello. Yes. Okay, so we're waiting for Diego Diego is here.
Diego Cresceri 01:23
I am. Yes, I am. Hello.
Max Morkovkin 01:29
Hello, Diego. And Gotcha. Yeah. Great. So all the panelists are here with us. And, Marie, I'm giving the virtual mic to you. So you can start the second panel discussion.
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 01:47
Thank you very much, Max, I hope all our listeners and participants are well and safe, and that you can care for your nearest and dearest in a safe manner. Regardless of what that might entail. We live in a crazy world for sure. And the world has been impacted in different ways. And this panel is about talking a little bit about the challenges and opportunities that we see now in this time of COVID-19. In case you don't know me, my name is Enrique underlain. I'm the owner of increase. It's a management consulting company based in Sweden, that assists companies in the language industry primarily in the growth and growth and development strategies. Some of you might also recognize me from the conference circuits, as I'm deeply involved in block world, and also the NTF, Nordic Translation and Interpretation forum. As you can imagine, the ladder of my business line is severely impacted by the situation that we currently have. But despite that, and busier than ever, and that's one of the things that I think we can bring up in our panel today. How How, how is that? How is that happening? That business might decrease, but we are all super, super, super busy. I have four distinguished panelists from the European language industry here with me today, and I will start by introducing them in how I see them from my left. I don't know how you see them. But I'm going to start with Christoph sudden offski Chris for short, makes things easier. Owner of sublingual technologies based in beautiful Krakow Poland Hello, Chris, how are you?
Krzysztof Zdanowski 03:49
Hi, Anna Marie. Thanks. I'm doing okay. I hope you're all okay. And thank you for hosting me.
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 03:57
Can you tell me a little bit about your company? In very short
Krzysztof Zdanowski 04:00
bursts? Yes. So we're a medium size. Multilingual data management company originally from Poland, we provide localization services, managed services and beta services, serving our customers in across four verticals, it e commerce elearning and life sciences out of nine offices, and we're about 250 people with a run rate revenue of about $25 million.
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 04:34
Thank you, Chris. second panelist somewhat closer to me geographically. See, let me I'm back owner of translator Scandinavia in Stockholm, Sweden. How are you today? Celia, I'm fine. It's a lovely spring day here in Stockholm at least so I've been out I don't have any socks on for the first time which is fantastic. Tell us a little bit about your company and We are I would also say a midsize Swedish LSP. But we've much smaller than Chris. So we have about 3 million euros in revenues and employ 15 people. We are have one office in Stockholm, our customer base is mainly for is half half for translators, translation companies and have have have for their end clients. And we also do have a lot of diversification in our offerings. So we do life science, we do marketing, we do ecommerce, we do. Whatever our clients want us to do a lot of educational or editorial materials. Very well served panelists here, Diego kousseri from Italy. And I'm sorry to say that I don't know which city you are based on. But I know your company is creative words. How are you today, Diego,
Diego Cresceri 05:56
and we define Thank you very much. We're making genuine by the way. And I'm actually in the office today.
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 06:04
So you had to commute today, or you have to
Diego Cresceri 06:07
commute today. Yes. Yes. I was forced. And yeah, we are getting words. We are a very small position company, basically 1.2 million euros in revenue. We do localization, we do a lot of machine translation, post editing, which is what I always talked about, and in different industries, ecommerce, it and many others. And we do other services as well. We don't do interpreting. For now.
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 06:38
Are you also a hybrid company, meaning that you serve both and clients as well as Emily's
Diego Cresceri 06:46
probably 80% of our business comes from my maybes and 20 from customers. Okay,
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 06:53
thank you very much, Diego. And Katya. How are you today? You are the only Well, we can hear you very well. You are the owner of the lingua based in Helsinki, Finland ketchup username. And please tell us a little bit about your company.
Katja Virtanen 07:09
Yes. So hello, everybody. Greetings from Helsinki. So the lingo is a midsize company. But actually, it's one of the largest in Finland, really, this is a small country and a small, small LSPs as well. And we have a revenue of around 5 million euro. And we only serve into customers in translations interpreting a little bit of language training. And I'm also here in the office right now we have an open space office, and I'm here with two colleagues, the rest of the people are working from home. And in this open space, we are basically, you know, sitting really, really socially distancing from one one another.
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 07:50
Very well, thank you very much all four of you for joining us today. Thank you, SmartCAT for for giving us this opportunity to tell the world a little bit about our situations. So I wanted to start with a little statement. I mean, we had a conversation, me and the panelists last week discussing what we wanted to get out of this panel. And we have all seen the surveys going around from different research companies in our space, we see predictions high and low. But most of them shows that the other species suffer. But when we discuss that you didn't feel the same. So why don't you shed some light over the current situation in your respective companies? Would you like to start cutting?
Unknown Speaker 08:44
Yeah, well, I don't know if it's because of the what we focus on. But we don't we haven't seen yet so much difference. Little bit slower days, some dropping in orders. But actually, especially in the beginning, we did a lot of crisis communication. We have also had interpreters in the press conferences of the government. So basically, first there was a lot of work, it actually reminded off us a little bit of the GDPR points. So it was good. So what we don't know is where this is all heading, how long this is going to last. And what's going to be there in September. But basically our biggest problem at the moment is that we have we have charged that around 20% of our customers because we only work with into customers and our end customers are in marketing and in well in private sector basically. So they are laid off temporarily. So that's a bit of a problem because when your customers are not there, they don't bring you orders but we want to keep you know could contact them. Yeah and try to keep those customers so that once they will be back they will come back to us.
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 09:59
So Va Va. Italy was hit. First, I would say here at least in in Europe, how is the situation for you, we have a little bit of a longer perspective of the actual crisis.
Diego Cresceri 10:13
As Scott said, some of our customers are closed at the moment. So they're not really working. And we had actually some customers, which diminished their volumes towards us. Really specialty product companies. I mean, the MLS worked with companies, I would say, and a couple of other clients as well. Other than that, we haven't seen any decrease any huge decrease. I think we are in line with last year's last quarter. So it's pretty good. I will say, of course, I want it to grow badly. We are not moving that much as I wanted to. I will think we are I think we are stable, which is, I think very good compared to other industries or other companies. I know the language industry. So it's quite positive. I also don't know where it's heading. But then positively, it will end very soon. I can say
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 11:12
Celia has what is the situation in Sweden, it's very depends on if you're an interpreting company have lost quite a lot because there are no community interpreting, especially because that's the big thing in Sweden. For us as the company we still have not had. We've seen that people are not ordering that much the phone isn't ringing anymore. But it doesn't matter because it's here by me at the office, switchboard. But we have seen, we've received a few new clients. And we also, but we have not lost any jobs as far as we can see. I think though that what they are ordering are as Christ as courteous and are more crisis related information. That's what we are seeing a lot of that it's like the GDPR, two years ago. And so I'm not sure how we should interpret the situation. So we are sort of sitting calm in our boat at the moment and not doing anything. They are monitoring very closely what is happening. And also, of course, seeing what our customers give the information they give. But yeah, it's it's it's hard to know where things are going. But I talked to the media localization companies in Swedish that do subtitling and they are busier than ever, because they have a lot of more. What do you call them that when you sign news texts, when you type for text news, texts, for instance, and also when a lot of series coming, people spend more time looking at videos, and they want to have them subtitles, so they are quite busy. The interpreting companies as I said they have lost, but they have not they had gained. I talked to one of the companies and they started last week it was up again. So I don't know. We'll see what happens. Chris in Poland, how does it look like in Poland when it comes to your company at sublingual and what do you know about your peers in the in the country? Yes. So
Krzysztof Zdanowski 13:38
I I don't want to be this optimistic. I think the industry will suffer a delayed ignition effect. Because I think that's the nature of our services. There are other pre booked I think the Billings in q1 have been booked prior to, you know, prior to COVID. Mainly, unless you're an interpreting company or you're mainly in in, you know, conferences and things like that. But I think we also had a very good quarter we have our numbers are public, we've posted 35% year on year growth, which is which is good for us, especially given the two acquisitions we've closed in December. But I don't want to be optimistic, I think. I think I would rather Brace for impact and be positively surprised. I think that that will be the nature and I think that pattern is also similar to other larger LSPs you've we've seen our ws dress perfect posting, we saw as the Elsa comment to their financial statements or financial results. I think that pattern is somehow repeated there. So we're also lucky to be in the what I would say COVID Good verticals, I would say you know it Life Sciences elearning we We virtually do. No interpreting Inc, we also work with blue chip customers rather larger programs. So not not so much a long tail of smaller accounts, most of our revenue, almost 60% of our revenue is in the US. I think we do six 7% of revenue in Poland. A significant chunk and Scandinavia, but only ecommerce are mainly ecommerce as well. So I think I think we're on the safe side. But again, I would wait till the end of q2 and see where where the industry is happening and what the habits of the buyers will be in May, June, July to actually judge the effect.
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 15:44
Yeah, that's the same thing. I think we see everywhere that that you can't do any things now. And it's also guessing, of course, educated guesses, depending on where you come from. But of course, it's it's challenging for us all, I would say, yeah.
Diego Cresceri 16:01
What I forgot to say is that we work with many communication agencies. And I find that some, some companies are taking the time to, to revamp the website, for instance, and this is getting as much for the moment.
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 16:18
And catch me comment from you. I mean, I know you have a diverse set of language services spanning all the way from from translation to interpretation, have you seen a shift in the balance or the revenue where it's coming from?
Unknown Speaker 16:33
Well, yeah, of course. I mean, we all know that on site interpreting is basically basically called off. But like I said, that there are press conferences where we can help. But really, I know that a lot of, you know, migration meetings, court hearings, they've been canceled. So a lot of interpreting is basically gone. Or at least on hold. But in in, in translation, I think my company does a lot of investor relations, for example. And that's, that comes from the legislation. So basically, those will be done anyways. So maybe long, like bigger projects will be put on hold, but I don't think they will be cancelled, necessarily. So I think it's, it's actually for us, it's pretty much business as usual. But I know from other LSPs, that I've spoken to that, for example, those LSPs in Finland that have larger contracts with the EU, for example, they have suffered in that sense, at least. And then of course, those that have only interpreting for example those have suffered. I don't know really well, if they're doing if they have managed to organize the remote interpreting, you know, instead of the on site interpreting but but yeah, it's very nice, depending on your focus.
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 17:54
Yes. So, to the audience, I had decided to try and take questions during the panel conversation instead of waiting until we exhausted our our own experiences. So I will jump in with a question that we have received from an excuse me if I don't pronounce your name correctly, but also DeMars from Helio co translations. Asking the panelists in this case, you catcher involved in the interpretation sector? Has any of you started receiving and remote interpretation requests? And have you tried marketing remote interpretation in the last month, I really wonder about the clients approach to remote interpretation in different countries as a general opinion, and as a means to see the sector's future a little bit. And I know from Sweden, that I mean, governments typically move very slowly. It's not, they cannot shift overnight, they have contracts in place already for one type of interpreting. So in that sector, things move very slowly. Have you have any other insights? Catcher to share with Bozo? Yeah, well,
Unknown Speaker 19:04
the thing is that what happened with customers is that when because we do a lot of conference interpreting, like large conferences and seminars, and it's really interesting, because in those usually the customers, they don't want to use remote interpreting. They don't trust it, they're not used to it. They don't like it, whatever. And also, the interpreters are not so keen on using remote interpreting. But what happened now is that obviously everybody is forced, either to cancel the meeting, the conference, or you start looking at these new possibilities. And I can see in both customers and interpreters, all of the sudden there is a huge interest in remote interpreting. And of course, for customers that's not so they can't organize it that quickly. They don't know the systems. But of course, we have also looked into that I know I'm gonna you're going to ask us later, if there's anything we could have done to prepare for This, I guess they we could have probably done more marketing for remote interpreting. We haven't done that. But however, we are coping now and I know we have already solutions ready for that. And I also know from customer side that some of some of the, for example, annual meetings, they've all cancelled also, because the legislation said that you can't have meetings like this. But those annual meetings of listed companies that were canceled, actually, now a lot of them are back to our calendars. And instead of maybe remote interpreting tools, what they do is that they have like an empty room where they only have the company people. And shareholders are not there they are remotely. And so they have always accompany people and the interpreters there in the booth. So that's not strictly said, That's not remote interpreting, really? Because the interpreters are there. They're not sitting remotely, but at least they are approaching our site.
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 20:55
Yeah, it's an adjustment to the situation. One question for us to Celia. Just jump in with that one as well. It's from no area, I gotta say, bitch, I know she's based in Sweden, she has she's asking, have you seen a change and the government? Have you seen a change and the government's adapting their messages and communication to more languages? Or not? Yet? Do you think there will be an increase in assignment in order to adapt Swedish communication to an increasingly multicultural Sweden? Thanks from a translator based in Sweden, as you can see, and I would say to Noah that I hope so but I don't know. Because we do very little governmental information. So we don't have that type of conflicts. But I know that people have been, there's been a frustration among quite a lot of language people saying that, that why aren't there some coordination between how they communicate? Why are they sharing links to pages that are not working and sharing information to, to maybe another language that's not relevant for this kind of thing? But I hope you're right, I would love to see a more diverse Sweden with more multilingual communication, especially for the for the immigration languages, and why not take this opportunity of doing it now. During this time, I hope so. But we have not seen in my business that much higher demand for translations into the other languages, some some into Arabic, but that's mainly Arabic. Yeah, and there, I know that this is also a lot of volunteer work going on, in Sweden, which is, which is absolutely amazing that the community steps up and help but it's also something that sometimes we we probably wish that they turned into professional translation agency instead of Yeah. People would. And we've also noticed, especially in the Stockholm region, where there is a large group north of Stockholm that has the following immigrants and they they have the information have not reached them about this in their own languages. So it's a disaster I would say it can human catastrophic for them to to not be able to find the information needed and also to be sick and not understanding what's happening and don't know when to get the right treatment because of language problems. So it's they might not even be allowed to have an interpreter in place No. For you to be pissed off. I have a question that is related to sales and I do know that you have quite a large sales team in your company how do you approach direct business with the current climate? How do you sell Do you sell
Krzysztof Zdanowski 23:56
Yeah, so we continue or all our sales initiatives we have not stopped probably targeting well marketing I would say sales are not so affected I would say marketing is slightly affected because we've really shifted communications some of it we've stopped as we saw there's just little point in targeting certain groups of companies or verticals at the moment so sales are rather like I said the major of our business you know, mainly based on on periodical RFQ larger RFQ so these are if they're postponed we just can't submit an RFQ but it's rather a longer cycle anyways, so all our all our sales initiatives are ongoing. We don't we barely do any you know, cold calling and an org business. But yeah, there's certainly a focus on on our existing customers, and making sure we even over communicate with them and try to forecast and print Take their pipeline of projects and, and these larger programs, it's we're quite dependent on them, it is important to understand or where customers are going. We do track what we call a lost revenue, or postponed revenue. So we have a tracker of all projects that were somehow affected by by COVID, we do track their value, and we want to follow up and see where where they end up, some of them will be reinitiated. Last or this week, we've actually seen first project that got around unfrozen it was a project by one of our largest customers in the US, that was put on hold a few weeks ago, and now they've decided to reopen this initiative, we've we've placed two resources to, to manage it. So yeah.
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 25:54
You mentioned something here, really important. And that is, I mean, you even do more. And this is an impression that I have that in these times, we tend to need to do more for less. I mean, this is not only in business, but it's also for, for our neighbors, for people around us. When we go to the zoo, we need to put that extra effort into things and it doesn't have to be less monetary value or more monetary value, but we have to deal with overdeliver. Do you agree with that? Diego, how do you see that? Well,
Diego Cresceri 26:31
of course, everybody is experiencing longer working hours, even if someone has stopped. So I fully agree that we need to do more we do more time management, we talk about more customers with freelancers, vendors. So it seems the the basic period, even if somebody said drop, we are doing a lot of more than than before. So from a from one side, you fear that you might lose some revenue. And but I wish it could provide more people other than like, stay as we are, it's difficult, it's very easy
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 27:10
to see Do you agree? Do you do more for less? Yes, we work a lot. So. And I also think you have to go that extra mile for to get the job or to make the customer happier. But but it's also easier as we when we had our pre chat. It's also easy to contact people, it's also easier to to get to contact them and say you always start with how are you? Are you? Well. And that's sort of personal note, which gives a lot of extra thoughts at the moment. And I think it builds relationship and something good can come out on that as well. Yeah,
Diego Cresceri 27:55
I forgot to mention that we work more but for the moment being we don't work for less. I mean, we have not received any decrease in price from customers, just a couple of them. And it's nothing would have happened in any case.
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 28:10
Yeah. Going to come back to the price pressure in a little bit. We have a question here from Gaitan. six continents in France? Are you considering taking the opportunity of your team? Being less busy to either diversify your services, train your team to new technologies and T automation etc? or new marketing sales strategy techniques? Or ask them the team members to change the role within your company? How do you reorganize and prepare for the future? And potential upcoming peek? was a long question, but I think very relevant to the topic. Any ideas? How about you cat? Yeah? Are you are you looking into new services or reallocating your team members to become or learn new skills to become something that they are not already? Yeah, well,
Unknown Speaker 29:02
of course, there are always development plans. And of course we have those, nothing has changed. Because when you are, you know, a company that all the time things are going on we all the time developing ourselves. It's so we are not all of the sudden in a new situation. Really. Those development plans are still there, whether we have no time to do the carry them out. That's a different question because we really are busy, but maybe what I wanted to say something to the to what you were talking about earlier about, you know, I believe positive vibes come out of concrete measures, really. So you have to do more, but it's not about really the quantity that you you know, bombard your customers with with emails and marketing and send them out, you know, newsletters about remote working tips and stuff like that, that everybody's doing. The thing is that how do you really stand out? And another thing is also how do you build trust what Cecilia says Now it's really about quality of, of, of doing things. Because when you have less time and less possibilities, then you have to concentrate on the quality. And this also actually applies to guidance question that that was a long question with a lot of measures. So basically, now it's not the time, in my opinion, to do all kinds of things, and you know, all kinds of, you know, get involved in all kinds of kinds of activities and development plans, but really think, what is it that that you can do to get you out of this crisis even stronger? What will help you to be stronger after this is over? And how can you build trust during this time? That's what I think.
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 30:42
Because we all want to be there. We want to be to stay alive. I mean, it's stay healthy and stay alive. That's what we want to do. And we want to keep our people as well and and the freelance community and the partners and the clients, of course, so we need to be there for each other. Yeah, that was one of the questions that I wanted to ask you. I mean, how do we secure the talent that the talent will still be there? I mean, if business goes down and volumes go down, because I listened to another presentation yesterday and out of I think it was almost 1300 freelances 46% reported that they had a loss in revenue and a significant loss in revenue and in volumes. So how do you how can we secure that this talent will still be around when the peak comes? Because it will come? I'm convinced of that. And this relates both to internal staff and your vendors and freelances. For for if I can start them with for freelancers we've decided that we should do. It's not it's not we should do a spread, we should sort of see where we put our eggs, and we should distribute them. And not just to put everything on the same vendor that we always do, because of its practical reasons. But we want to have them all there when we go back. So maybe one gets a little bit less, but it's more evenly distributed. And it's the same with with the staff in house we tried to distribute because some work like health still, and they have so much to do. But then when someone else has a little less than just say, what can you do in the time that you're not fully occupied? How can you help your colleagues? Can you do TM maintenance? Can you do checking whatever things that needs to be done for your clients? Can you do checkups with vendors? Whatever. So be creative. Chris, do you agree? Or do you have? Do you have a different?
Krzysztof Zdanowski 32:50
I would say that, first of all, it's very difficult to predict nowadays. So I would really focus on what is really important rather than, you know, planning and strategizing on on futuristic ideas, because we just don't know, I think the shanty town will not be rebuilt the same way. So I think that's, that's really difficult to predict. But I also think that we really have to be careful because everybody will be will remember how we reacted these days. So I think these these trade offs, like, you know, letting people go or, or some cuts that we need to take, we just have to be very mindful and cautious about this, because people will remember, on the other hand, I think it's it's one of these times that you know, I'm just in awe of how ingenious and creative mankind is. I mean, we're literally, you know, we've completed initiatives that we couldn't complete three for three years, we've completed them in two weeks, right? Or we now have huge factories and IT companies run out of kitchens, right? And where we're, you know, huge universities going elearning stuff that they couldn't achieve in years. So I'm just in awe of how the situation is reinventing us and I think we'll be the world will be very different. It will be better I pick and do doing more with less frugality, one of the principles of innovation that's so close to me. I think that's the that's the way to go.
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 34:29
I will shoot another question a few. Chris. Since you are added money as Sydney is asking. Well, it's for everyone. But I think I'll start with you. Don't you think this crisis is an opportunity for the AI and automation system rather than human human being?
Krzysztof Zdanowski 34:47
Absolutely. I absolutely think so. And we see some of the large corporations putting more money than ever into two initiatives. One of them is climate change. I'm really impressed by BP, for example, BP have doubled their commitment to fighting the climate change. These times, they've actually reduced some of the folks salaries and flows or hikes, and yet they've doubled their commitment to climate change. So I think that's, that's impressive. And I also think AI and technology automation in general, I don't think like I said, I don't think all these folks who've been sent home will return to work, because I think AI will replace some of these labor, heavy jobs faster than ever, we see Samsung putting 250 $25 billion into a new automation fund one of our largest customers as well. We're, we're closely following this initiative. So I think I think that's amazing. And, and I would also, we've seen this surveys that, you know, this industry or this vertical will be affected more, I think we're all we're all gladly not infected by the virus, but we're all affected by the virus. And, and I think these verticals or industries that will come out stronger, it's not really vertical specific, I would say it's company specific, we've seen the codecs and the night end, and the Nokia is going out of business virtually overnight. And it wasn't related to any virus. So now obviously, that stimulus is a little bit from the outside. But I think these are the companies who can reinvent themselves who can automate, who can be creative, I think, be it from the automotive industry, you know, or, or marketing or conference industry very affected by the outcome of COVID. Doesn't matter, they will come out stronger, we'll see some some new leaders coming out the other side of the tunnel.
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 36:46
Thank you very much, Chris. That's very white. Yeah. I wanted to ask you, then the question that cuz you're already a little bit mentioned already. If there's anything in your companies, any developments, investments, precautions that you have done in the past that you can really now sense paid off? And I'm thinking about you, Diego, because you said initially that you do a lot of machine translation and post editing, which is closely related to the previous question. Is there anything that you have done that you stand make you stand stronger? Right?
Diego Cresceri 37:24
I know, many things that I wish I had done, but no, for instance, we were not very far away, not working, which sounds really basic, but we were not waiting. Because this is something I had in mind for long, but I didn't implement anything. So we did it overnight, basically, even before there was the lockdown in Italy, but we weren't employed for that. Machine Translation. And automation has been in my vision since the start of my company. So we were ready for that. We do a lot of that. But it was not playing any part of any contingency plan at all. So I would say remote working. And I wish I was more prepared for that. Because it's I don't think it's really true that it's like working from the office. It's not for us. And not talking only about technical issues. I think it's you need to get used to it. And I wish we were used to it before. This is why we're thinking of going back to the office very soon. How about you, Cecilia? Hi.
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 38:32
We talked about this. This morning, actually, my my partner Karolina and me. And we said that the best thing that we did was actually getting ISO certified in two years ago, ISO 9001. That is because we were there we had thought about not the COVID crisis. But we've had done a lot of things in crisis management and crisis predictions and checking out possibilities and opportunities and potential threats and everything like that. So so we we were I mean, at the time, we didn't think it was necessary. But now seeing what how prepared we got out of it. We're very happy we did it. I clicked so that was our bad thing, I think. But you do have to update the the instructions on where to meet if there's a fire, right? Yes. Because it's not relevant anymore. Have you? Have you encountered any other problems apart from that with your whole team working remotely? Yeah, maybe that we can't we can't reach everyone. I mean, we have chat discussions every with the people over my teams and we also have a cyber Coffee Break scientific every morning, but not everyone is interested in joining that. So I actually have a A few people that have not been visible since ninth of March. Which is a bit sad. I mean, I checked with them, but I have not seen seen them, which is, so I really liked the camera. I'd really like to see what they're doing. And but they are not. So that's something I, I wish maybe we could have had that type of thing in our crisis management plan or whatever it's called that we should have had that structure for online meetings, but we don't. So we are actually taking out at the moment. And I know you mentioned to me several weeks ago that you also made an initiative that your staff members could bring whatever equipment they wanted from not everything, but I mean, anything that can ease your, your working position. And did they do it? No. Okay. It gave them the opportunity to Yes. And I think that was a very smart move. Because what we don't want now is that people don't back with pains and tennis elbows and no, but I actually asked a few days ago just also sort of preparatory for this talk that what they most missed, and it was the desks that they can, but they call them the rising desks Yeah, that they can do stand up desk. So that's actually what they're most missing. How about do you cut down? Yeah, actually,
Unknown Speaker 41:30
I wanted to come back to what Chris said. And to your question about automation, which was while back, it's difficult to ask for a floor here. But anyways, no, you know, over the three recessions that have occurred in the past 30 years, we know that pace of automation has increased in each or after each. And we all know that. Anywhere you go, now you see new inventions, it's like really the time for new inventions. But one thing that I haven't heard today, maybe I wasn't listening to or all sessions earlier, but I think what we're going to see is like a huge re appreciation and read Bible of human interaction, because there is such thing as too much technology. So if we have platforms, automation, technology everywhere, people are really going to need that personalized service. And I think those that will be who will be winners, out of all of this are those who combined invest.
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 42:31
And this is very much aligned with what Sarah Maria said in a very early presentation this morning. Very good one. She was talking about that the relationship building is so important. And this might be I mean, you all represent translation interpreting companies of a certain size, you're not the biggest, you're not the smallest, you're somewhere there in the middle. And the companies that can build the strongest relationships are the one that probably will stay stand stronger when we come out on the other side, because you have put a lot of effort. And maybe we'll come back to that, again, that we have to do more to deliver and to overproof our our importance in the relationships.
Unknown Speaker 43:18
Yeah, I think you're saying, Sorry, go no, no, please. Yeah, I just wanted to reinforce that I think that there is even a niche for those companies that are not so technological. Because that's, you know, with so much technology, it's, the more there is, the more, you know, humans are needed. I believe. That's just my prediction.
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 43:43
And also, some, some of the clients aren't ready for all this automation, either. So they are happy with emails and sending files and stuff like that. So don't forget those clients. That's a very important remark. Cecilia, we actually have a question on that note, Mario Chavez is asking, admits to talk about automation. Do you see niches of old fashioned manual translation or localization not so heavily dependent on the latest technologies? Because I work in one of those niches? And I guess, and I think that you can do whatever you want, with automation, of course, but I mean, yeah, we help everyone. I assume that's for our soul. I mean, but it depends on, on also how your company looks like. I mean, we're not really techie one, we have all the solutions that you can have, and we can do all the techie stuff, but I mean, my staff can do everything, which I assume everyone can. So I just want to talk a little bit to the audience. Again, I hope you will be patient with the fact that we cannot answer all the questions we have currently 552 listeners and plenty of questions coming in. So I'm trying to find the most relevant one. So if I miss any, we will be able to answer these questions afterwards. We do have a question from Francois version in France. Leon, if I'm not mistaken, she writes, I believe that like in other crisis is before translation will not be over affected companies that are already international will continue as they will not want to lose this chunk of revenue. And when domestic market slows down, companies will look for increased revenue abroad. Do you share this approach or opinion?
Diego Cresceri 45:38
I do share with John Francois to share with completely I can see the many companies are thinking about going in foreign countries opening other markets in order to where different session of risks. It's, it's been, there's a lot going on in that direction. I think. So absolutely. In marketing communication. For that is I just saw coming up with my name was distracted sorry. efforts for internationalization. These kinds of things, companies are looking about in order to differentiate risks. Yeah.
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 46:22
How about you, Chris, any comments on that?
Krzysztof Zdanowski 46:25
I think going back to the previous question, I think human will always want to buy from human and, and we will want to talk to humans. So So I think we'll be some sort of a hybrid solution, I think we'll use our life's will be argument, it's not that they will be replaced, we will not enter the super AI era where everything is, is AI, we will be argumented to a larger extent I'm I'm already one of these guys who cannot find the the way to my office without using a Google map right on my smartphone. So I think it will just go towards but I'm still driving the car. Right. I'm still the brain. And I think that will just be emphasized. And it those two things that will stay at home and you know, continue, I think they're mistaken. As far as our industry is concerned, it is more or less by nature. So I think and to a large extent localization is a must have service, right? Like I said, my company does other provides other services like data services and data services, mainly data collection, data annotation, we've invested close to $10 million last year in into a data collection company and in Canada. I think this is booming. I mean, most of our revenue growth is now driven by the demand for data collection data annotation. Obviously, a lot of these infield projects get postponed and affected by by COVID. But remote collections are just you know voice first interaction tools, all the series and big beasts and the like are just booming. So I think and it is borderless by nature, many languages, people will want to communicate people do want to communicate human with human it is argument that I think it's not that is one is replacing the other so and Hi, Francois.
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 48:27
Thank you very much, Chris. So why don't we bring the elephant into the room here. I don't know if any of you listening to the panel this morning. It was a great panel. And it was with representatives from from Asian companies and language services providers. And grant striker was one of them. And he said that he assumed small LSPs will sooner or later run into cash constraints and might stop paying their freelances. Do we have any comments on price pressure? Where the forces are coming from and should we or should we not push that pressure potential pressure down the food chain? Maybe I should rephrase, rephrase the question to make it easier for you. Have you experienced any price pressure as of now? Due to COVID-19 Kacha. Why don't you start?
Unknown Speaker 49:28
No, we haven't we are we think some some companies will go that down that road. Probably those companies that have like large procurement units. Those will probably go down that road. But I still compact my trust and personal human approach. I believe customers will be willing to pay for that service. They want the technology they want the AI they want the automation, but they want a trustworthy human Approach partner who they can, you know, really rely on. And I think that is what we are what we have done previously, we have aimed to get those customers and I think we are going to continue that. I don't I don't think I think it's really, you know, some companies, they think of the near term survival thing and they accept those discounts or, or customers want discounts and other other hand some LSPs give them discounts, because they think of the near term survival only. But if you want to keep the steady cash flow, keep your customers improve your service. Don't lower your prices.
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 50:45
Diego, you work a lot for mlvs. And I recently got information about that Scandinavian based MLB. Reducing the prices at least it's it sounded as if it was only temporarily but have you any experiences from your customers? Are they putting that pressure on to you?
Diego Cresceri 51:05
Well, actually, no. I mean, some of our customers have asked us to maybe to lower the minimum fees, maybe for COVID related projects. But this is the direction the market would have taken. In any case, the talking about the minimum fee being lifted. Summit. Well, Sam's trying to do that. Usually what we do is we'll try to maybe to work on the processes rather than asking for a rate reduction or with our finances. We don't do that. So yeah, we maybe we try to work more with the now staff because we need to keep them busy. Yeah, our linguists, but we don't do the question. Wait to our finances, we don't do that. I am to say that we didn't get so many requests, other than really specific requests for specific projects. We didn't get many requests to lower rates, I would say. I'm lucky maybe but I have good customers probably.
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 52:06
That's, that's good to have good customers to see there. Chris, any comments, any experience from price? I've had? I would say it's one direct and two masked price reductions. So because they say it's something else, but actually it's a price reduction. And they all say it's due to the COVID Christ. And I think it adds bullshit, because it doesn't matter that we will get paid less for doing the same type of service. And so now we we will not accept it. And because I'm saying that now, but I think those are that, as you said before that it's not. If you start to lower your prices, you will never get them back again. So I don't think it's possible for us to to be the same type of company if we start to accept all the defaults. So they are very well said, I see many comments here that they applaud your your answer. Cecilia, we also have a direct question, which is related to pry from Jeff Weiser. When should you be willing to lower prices? And when should you hold firm? Maybe that's the more question in general, what do you think, Chris?
Krzysztof Zdanowski 53:25
I think we're all in this together. And I think these types of it is okay to say that we have a problem. And it's okay to talk to our partners, including vendors, including, you know, again, the nature of our industry multiple and the very many freelancers that we've worked with. And I think as long as we communicate and are transparent about this, it is okay to talk to them. We I think it's the way we handle it. It's like I said everybody will remember the way we reacted to the situation. So these trade offs, we do have to be very careful about them. I think it is okay to to ask your your partners if you know we're suffering, we have a problem here be very transparent. Can you help us it is rather that we all suffer a bit, then you know, that somebody has to suffer a lot. So it is okay to talk to them about this. It is not okay to impose anything like we've seen these. I don't want to, you know, drop names, but we've seen one particular example in the industry which went viral by you know, asking and will actually ask him imposing great cuts in a very not done kind of a way. dismissive, so I wouldn't do this. I think we did talk to our largest providers, we did talk to them about a voluntary temporary cut in the rates. We said that okay, if you help us these times, we will compensate in q3 and q4 by what is really important to them, that is early payments. So I think and some of them have agreed some of them have not agreed and it's okay. We're and all companies are taking different measures. As far as our client base is concerned, we have not seen price reductions per se, they're mainly you know, we mainly work on on MSS with, with larger customers. So that is not that easy to change, although we did have a number of customers asking for late payments, temporary late payments, we've just recently, this week, I've spoken with a large German customer, whom we've read or prolong the payment days from 30 days to 45 days, initially, they asked for 120 days, but we did have a discussion with them about this and convinced them that 45 should be okay for for the two of us. So I think that's that's the right way to, to approach this. But I think, you know, again, case by case is very specific. I would rather not give advice. It's more about experience sharing these days rather than giving, giving advice because it's just very difficult to, to, you know, predict and and be very, you know, taking case by case, right?
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 56:15
Yeah, I agree with you, Chris, because it's also actually being open, taking the responsibility you can and then also try to be open to your vendors or to your partners or to your clients, whoever it is, I mean, you need to it's, as we've talked about before, it's about all about trust.
Krzysztof Zdanowski 56:33
And I think it's the these times it is about, you know, cash over profits, right. So companies are fueled by cash. And if you run out of cash, the vendors that, you know, they won't get anything if you go out of business soon. So I think it's about thinking about this and putting cash over profits and making sure you manage your cash flow very well, which might be challenging for the smaller companies who do not have a lot of cash buffer who don't have the force to, you know, controlling and finance and admin teams to manage this who don't have enough relationships with the banks, I think it might be a challenge for them. It is. And it's something that we're also here to help with, I think it is our responsibility to give back to the industry that is so fragmented and made out of very small companies, I think that the larger customer, the larger LSPs. Like ourselves, we now have the duty and obligation to actually help others.
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 57:37
Very well said, Chris, I was so happy I saw a tweet. Last week it was not from from someone in the US it was someone from the UK, a fellow industry peer and he said since we have not yet any problems with our cash flow, we are actually paying all our freelancers earlier than what is stated on the invoice and that that was very nice to read. Any other comments of? Well, I had one of my clients actually said that this situation has given them an opportunity to separate the wheat from the chaff. I think that was more related to employees that some Excel and some maybe followed with behind. But is this also an opportunity to do that with our customers?
Unknown Speaker 58:27
Gotcha. I think so. Yeah. I mean, but that's something that we we should think all the time on, are the customers profitable for you or not, then doesn't make sense to keep them? If it's not profitable business.
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 58:44
There was also a direct question here for you catch from manual sending again, I read your article about the marketing trends 2020, published on January 15, of this year on LinkedIn. Do you confirm? Do you have an audience? Some fans? Do you confirm this prediction? Or would you add up a new main dot afterwards?
Unknown Speaker 59:12
Did this person mentioned one prediction in particular? Because there were many? No, no.
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 59:18
Do you confirm this prediction? Because,
Unknown Speaker 59:21
yeah, when those those marketing trends that I wrote about, I think I can't remember the exact ones that they were, but I would probably add the work. First of all the trust thing and personal approach. I think that's important. I think that's that will be even more important. But then the other thing that we actually spoke about in our pre meeting pre panel was that I think you all know that this is happening probably also in your countries that there are strong campaigns about support your local, you know, state of nationalistic approach I would have liked to I don't want to talk about nationalism, but we see it everywhere. So, that's a fact helped us more support your local. So now, this is actually this goes out to all smaller companies have you thought about, you know, this using this yourselves because you know very easily when when when we have constraints and when we have problems we start, you know, no involving ourselves in maybe trying to find solutions, how do we how do I spend my time to should I learn something new, but why don't you just come out as yourself as a small company, you know, approach human approach, you are a local company you are doing well, you would like to continue your service your company, so, probably the customers, if you are genuine, they will want to help you. And we all know that big companies, this is not against big companies. But we all know that those companies, they use the slogan on their website and everywhere, like we are the largest service provider in Finland or in Europe or in America and work wherever. So this is the time for the small companies. This is the momentum for them, actually, I believe.
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 1:01:06
And then I actually went down to the local bakery that I have in my own little neighborhood here. And I said, I'm so pleasantly surprised by all the cars that are on your driveway and it says well, we have doubled, yes, sale of pastries and cookies, whilst the big cafe in the city center, they closed shop. So when people work from home
Unknown Speaker 1:01:33
or for cafes, and bakeries, it can also apply for LSPs. And I really think that the moment local is trendy, offshoring is not trendy. And I feel that way.
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 1:01:49
We have only three minutes left of our time I see Max is in the picture now trying to need to wrap up. But I we have we have so many interesting questions and we will try to answer them in the chat. One that is close to my heart and Sicilians is what plans for conferencing events is njf going to happen? And we will have to say we don't know. But we are preparing. We're hoping for the best preparing for the worst. So we will have a solution in place one way or the other might be a hybrid. Who knows? I've asked all my panelists to think about some words of wisdom so that we can summarize this panel conversation on a positive note. Diego, what's your word? So with the
Diego Cresceri 1:02:40
somewhat IV, I guess, I think, I really think I'm optimistically, always, but I really think it's going to end. I think in q4, we'll see a recovery for an hour from all of these. So stay strong. I would say it's gonna feel Yeah.
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 1:03:00
Yeah, I must say that. Thank you, guys, for helping me seeing this already a year ago, but constant change is the new normal. Chris.
Krzysztof Zdanowski 1:03:13
But I would say it's teachers appreciation day, every day. And remember how complex and interdependent we are, and manage your cash flow well?
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 1:03:25
And how but you can't Yeah, yes,
Unknown Speaker 1:03:27
I would say also that I believe actually our, our industry will rebound from this because we are a strong, resilient industry as a whole globalization will continue, there is still going to be work for us. Obviously, some will hurt more than the others. Those that do not have a strong balance sheet or good cash flow. Obviously, that should have been done already earlier. Now it's maybe too late. But anyways, I think, to end in a positive note, I think if you haven't now taken technology automation on board, do that now and then combine it with human approach and I think you will rise like a phoenix.
Anne-Marie Colliander Lind 1:04:08
I would like to thank you all for, for putting in all the time to prepare for this panel. My last words would be that if we live as if there is no tomorrow, there will be no tomorrow. So I think we have to be brave enough to to have a forward thinking approach so that we will stay strong when all this is over. So again, thank you, SmartCAT for hosting us. And I think we guessed on time.
Max Morkovkin 1:04:42
These were amazing words. Thank you very much Christoph. Cecilia Diego. Katya. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for moderating this panel discussion and taking care of questions as well.
