Cost of Quality

To continue my previous entry on quality: what, after all, is the cost of quality? When I was a localization service vendor, customers always emphasized the great importance of good translation quality - and yet most sales negotiations always boiled down to "What is your lowest price per word?"

Finally, a few customers actually measured ALL their translation-related costs, including the hours they themselves spent on checking and re-checking the translations they received. That, of course, should be the real cost to be used when comparing vendors, not just the price per word or per hour.

Getting the translation right the first time improves quality and reduces cost through less iterations needed for checking and re-checking. But getting it right the first time also requires good translators who know the subject matter and the required style, good background materials, terminology lists, style guides etc. - also called preparation, a step often overlooked due to great urgency of having the translation done asap. "There is never enough time to do the thing right, but there is always enough time to do it again." Ah well.

Getting it right the first time naturally also requires my favorite, favorite topic: a well-defined PROCESS. Something I will keep returning to in this blog...