Now this article by Paul Sulzberger published on The translation business has been making the rounds in the translator community, proposing a completely different approach to falling prices – namely to raise them?!
It is kind of long, but very interesting to read, and it makes some very valid points well worth thinking about in my opinion.
The final two paragraphs sum it up nicely:
The disruptive players, with their lower-cost business models, will
ultimately dominate the “low end” of the market and as their performance
improves, they will continue to move up market.
With the lower ground gone, the traditional LSPs* will have to
scramble to find a niche higher up the “quality” ladder where they can
serve customers who are prepared to pay higher prices. But delivering
the goods to the industry’s most demanding customers is no easy
matter—access to quality resources becomes a critical factor and a
matter of survival. This implies intensified competition to attract and retain human resources that are already in short supply—the best and most talented translators.
So the real challenge then is not raising the prices (although that can be challenging enough, I know), but rather becoming one of “the best and most talented translators” and then making sure the right people know it!
* LSP = language service provider