Translation Back Office
Intern #8143
Córdoba, Argentina
November 18, 2010
I. Discussion of self-selected book. Emphasize and evaluate specific examples of how
you used, or will use, some of the concepts (career planning, job performance, or
developing expertise) from the text in your chosen field of work (Remember to cite
book and add reference page)
The book I read is called A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the
Future by Daniel H. Pink. Pink illustrates the hypothesis that those who will be
successful will be those who think with a different kind of mind, those who use their
right side of the brain more and therefore are more creative. He explains that we
have entered into the Conceptual Era and that the workforce that will succeed in
this era will be right-brain thinkers.
Described in one section of the book, is the vital use of the right side of the brain to
design. In business, in order to create new markets, the tactics of design is applied. A
business can design a new product or service. Also what goes hand in hand with
design is the atmosphere. When marketing, a large part of branding has to do with
the image of the company. For example, the company website needs to have an
aesthetic feel that emotionally appeals to its clients. When I was doing research for
the Competitive Executive Summary, I noticed that one of the competitors websites
was designed to personally catch its audience. It had many pictures of people
together smiling, including families.
Pink explains the power of story writing “story is high concept because it sharpens
our understanding of one thing by showing it in the context of something else. It is
high touch because they almost always are packed with an emotional punch (103). A
great example of the power of storytelling is the story of one of our clients, Toms
Shoes. An American man travelling in Argentina was surprised to find many children
without shoes. Inspired, the man decided to create a business in which every pair of
shoe sold, the company would donate one pair of shoe to a child around the world.
The emotional appeal to the story is one of the main reasons for the company’s
success. Not only in Internet marketing do I have to apply storytelling, I have also
realized the importance of understanding how powerful storytelling is and how to
use it to my advantage. For example, Translation Back Office’s CEO told us to
importance of leveraging stories. Because the inspiration of Toms shoes came from a
boy from Argentina and our company is Argentinean, our company has an
advantage to create a better relationship with them, as we have that connection.
The concept of the “boundary crosser” is mentioned in the book. It is said that
creativity generally involves crossing boundaries of domains, which involves seeing
relationships others never notice (Pink 134). This is why having wide backgrounds
such as speaking different languages, being multicultural, understanding different
industries can be extremely beneficial in business. For example, working in
Translation Back Office and having experience in the marketing industry has its
advantages in such that it will help me understand better the needs of clients in
need of translations for certain kinds of marketing campaigns, what markets to
enter, and more. Therefore, it is important for me to be as knowledgeable as I can in
multiple disciplines to bring a more diverse and rich source of ideas to the table. This
entails reading different sources of magazines and newspapers, as well as being
involved in different activities such as dance or sports. This wide background
knowledge also helped me in creating new niche markets for the company to target.
It is also important to think metaphorically. I saw this first hand from the President
of Translation Back Office who constantly used metaphors during pipeline meetings
to further explicate certain ideas and concepts. Pink says that Metaphorical thinking
helps us understand others and that marketers are executing brainstorming projects
to reach the metaphorical minds of their customers. The marketing method consists
of subjects bringing in pictures that describe their feelings toward particular good
and services—and then fashion those postures into a collage. This technique
presents the metaphors customers use to think of products—coffee as an “engine,”
a security gizmo as a “companionable watchdog,” and so on (139). This practice can
also be applied when brainstorming the needs of clients as well as creating new
services.
II. Your internship Company and your specific Job Description: Clearly state your site’s
function and products, including its location of operations. Then explain personal
tasks: daily operations, examples of tasks performed, people you met and/or
worked with. Sample pages from daily journal are acceptable for this portion of the
paper.
The company I am interning for is called Translation Back Office. Translation Back
Office provides translation and localization services. Their services encompass
Multilanguage Document translation & localisation, Creation of glossaries, translation
memories and style guides, Editing & Proofreading, Quality Assurance, Website
localization, Software localization, Desktop Publishing Services, Typesetting, Project
Management, and Language Consultancy. Translation Back Office provides language
services in different areas of expertise from Business to IT, Legal to Medical, Education
to Video games, and more. The location I work includes 80 in-house staff including the
CEO, Operations Manager, Administration, Human Resources, Linguists, Project
Coordinators, Project Managers, Vendor Managers, Language Technology Specialists,
Quality Assurance Analysts, Business Development Managers, Business Development
Researchers, and Desktop Publisher Officers. The in-house staff interact with a pool of
over 350 freelancers & localisers across the globe; carefully selected language
providers, project managers, engineers and technicians that work on projects for the
company on a daily basis.
I work in the Business Development Department, which including myself is a team of
six, four Business Development Managers and two Business Development
Researchers. My title is Business Development Researcher. The general job description
for my job includes generate leads, market research, assist Business Development
Managers, and update marketing tools including social media and blogs. I perform
various duties, often pertaining to the current projects that come about on a daily to
weekly basis.
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I do a large amount of lead generation. I have been assigned to help the Business
Development Manager who handles e-learning accounts, therefore, executed an
extensive amount of research and direct marketing to target e-learning companies
who have international offices or provide Multilanguage e-learning products. I also
was assigned to the Business Development Researcher who handles the legal industry
and was seeking to schedule business meetings with current and prospective clients
on the East Coast. Therefore, I generated leads by contacting the international law
firms in the New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Washington DC areas. This involved
heavy amounts of searches and contact using websites, business contact directories,
and social media. It also required a great amount of organization of which I created
excel spreadsheets as well as used CRM software such as Salesforce.
Market research is also a big part of my role in the company. I have been given
research projects from the company President to generate an investigation on the
threats of machine translation on the Translation Industry and the commodization of
translation services. Another project that I completed was an Executive Summary of
Translation Back Office and eight industry competitors, using the following channels
of communication: Websites, Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, Jigsaw, Wordpress and
other company blogs. I analyzed their differentiators, products/services, price
offerings, market specializations, locations, and more. I produced a twenty-page
summary, which also included implementing a Porters tool, SWOT Analysis on
Translation Back Office. I prepared a list of marketing suggestions in order to
improve online content and market for direct clients.
I was also very involved in the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) project in improving
the company’s Internet marketing. I executed the creation of fourteen new page
content to correspond to search engine key word phrases (for example: English to
Chinese marketing translation services), in which I incorporated the need for
translating and localizing content for local markets. This included ample research on
languages and cultures including English, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, French, Arabic,
Japanese, and German.
Being a part of the Business Development Team also involved weekly Pipeline
meetings which included my department (Business Development), the CEO, the
Operations Manager, the Officer Managers, and Language Specialists. In these
meetings we would go over won and lost projects, client leads, figures, and more.
The benefits of participating in these meetings were abundant as I was able to
experience first hand detailed business operations as well as interact with some of
the most executive and experienced people in the company and industry. I
personally found the meetings exciting and enriching as I always learned and took
out so much from every meeting from operations to thought processes and more. I
was always left very motivated after each meeting.
III. Application of your Major in International Business: Discuss how your studies in
international business helped you in your job; for example, how Business Soanish
improved your productivity with clients. You must specify atleast three courses.
Global Marketing Strategy (MKTG 376), which I took at SDSU, and International
Marketing, which I took abroad in la Universidad Siglo 21, both helped abundantly
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on the job. In the classes I learned about globalization, global branding, the
importance of positioning, and market segmentation, which I applied in the
internship when completing the Competitive Executive Summary, which included
suggestions on company repositioning. In these classes I also learned about the need
to do a great amount of cultural analysis of each target market, including elements
of language, religion, values and attitudes, customs, education, social institutions,
country image, and family. This served on the job as I performed a complete
language and cultural analysis when creating the SEO keyword content. Economic
and political environments were also studied heavily in both classes and helped a lot
when studying prospective clients.
The course International Business Strategy and Integration (SDSU MGT 405) served
as an excellent basis for many business concepts I also learned in Spanish in my
Services Marketing class, of which I took abroad in Universidad Siglo 21. Some
concepts included Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and the importance
of identifying clients and developing relationships with them. The understanding of
these topics applied when analyzing current and prospective clients at Translation
Back Office as well as when generating leads and using CRM software such as
Salesforce. I also applied the terms competitive advantage and unique selling
proposition (USP), especially in the Competitive Executive Summary. In the
Competitive Executive Summary I used Porter’s business management concepts
such as value chain analysis and Porter’s 5 forces including the SWOT (Strengths,
Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis to analyze Translation Back Office and
its competitors.
In the Services Marketing class, I had to complete a group project, which included
choosing a local company that offers services, and perform a case analysis. My group
chose a restaurant called Salvatore, in which we did an in-depth analysis of its
services as well as offered suggestions on how Salvatore can improve its services.
This is very similar to the company analysis I carried out on Translation Back Office.
This also included applying the creation of new services for example, the addition of
consulting services.
The Services Marketing class as well as the Introduction to Commercial Spanish class
(SPAN 307) served me extremely well during the internship as on the job, we
communicated majority of the time in Spanish. I learned a bountiful amount of
Business Spanish and terms in these two classes, of which were also constantly
spoken on the job. Some of these terms were leverage (apalancamiento),
profitability (rentabilidad), portfolio (cartera del cliente), positioning
(posicionamiento), and service contract (prestacion de servicios). Learning these
terms in Spanish were critical to my understanding during business gatherings such
as the Pipeline meetings and the Business Development Team’s discussions.
IV. The Student Intern’s Role: Describe the perfect person for your job, assuming future
interns would like to explore your field. List assets and skills that would be useful
(such as computer skills, writing skills, educational background) as well as various
personality characteristics (such as salesmanship, enthusiasm, highly organized, etc.)
In this section, include FORM #6: your Evaluation of the Internship. This will be kept
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on file for future interns who may want to do an internship in the same office or a
related field.
Marketing experience is highly beneficial in this position, as market research and
lead generation including direct marketing are two of the most key duties to this
position. Being that this job involves a heavy amount of marketing, proficient writing
skills are needed. Internet marketing includes a lot of copywriting, therefore, it is
very beneficial to know writing techniques, headline strategies, language styles, and
more. The person should be at least in their last years of college taking upper
division business courses including International or Global Marketing. It is extremely
useful that they can manage Spanish fairly well but especially understand business
concepts in Spanish. The ability to use various software and programs such as
Microsoft Excel is a must.
Personality characteristics are big decision-making factors in the process of getting
the job in Translation Back Office. One of the three interviews I had for the position
involved an interview with a Psychologist, which involved me drawing specific
scenarios as well as answering various questions such as, if I were to be an animal,
what would I be. My responses were carefully measured and analyzed to make sure
my personality would compliment the company environment, which is quite casual
and very friendly. A person who works really well with others and is friendly is
desired. It also helps to be someone who feels comfortable being involved in the
company in terms of expressing ideas and opinions.
V. Career Potential in this Field: Using a broader perspective, provide information on
what you have learned about long-term career possibilities through your office or
agency. Talk about with people in your office and do some library research on what
sort of job openings might be available in the near future, and discuss what sort of
preparation is necessary for full-time work in this field (for example, educational
background like graduate degrees, technical skills, training as an intern, etc.) In this
last section provide the best advice you can, based on what you’ve learned, to other
students who are interested in obtaining a job in this particular field.
I feel very fortunate to have landed my position in the company. If it were not for
me getting this job, I maybe would not have discovered how much I enjoy working in
this industry. This job helped me to solidify some of my long-term goals. I am
passionate about International Business and Marketing and have always been
interested in global marketing and global branding. I did not know much about the
localization industry but now that I am in it, I realize how much I like it and how
much it applies to global marketing and global branding. My goal in the next five
years is to be in management working for a company that specializes in helping
companies become global, which consists of global branding as well as localizing
content, or to be working for a global company in which I am the Global Product
Manager or Localization Manager. I have done some research and found this great
program called The Executive Certificate in Web Globalization Management at the
Saint Louis University John Cook School of Business. Some requirements to be
considered a qualified participant include being an Executive or Manager in
International Business, Marketing/International Marketing, or Ecommerce, and/or
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Managers in localization firms. I thought this fit me effortlessly as my major is
International Business, my specialization is marketing, and I have experience in a
localization company, as Translation Back Office is one. Although I am not yet a
manager and obviously have a lot to learn and work for, I am determined and
enthusiastic to work hard in order to reach these goals.
In addition to this, after a few years of work experience, I would like to go to
graduate school and obtain my MBA, preferably in a program that specializes in
Global degrees. This MBA will definitely help me to land that Global Manager
position I seek. I also realized the advantage it is to speak a second language
fluently. It opens me up to more opportunities. I know that a proficient level of
Spanish will allow me to continue working for a company in a Spanish speaking
country, yet also, if I decide to work for a company back in the U.S, I will have the
advantage of being chosen to handle accounts with clients who are located in
Spanish speaking countries. It is my goal not to leave South America until I have an
advanced enough handle of the language to work comfortably in a Spanish only
speaking company. To prove my skills, I am considering taking the DELE, the diploma
for Spanish as a Foreign Language certification test.
Some advice I can offer for those seeking a similar career path as I is to get as much
work experience as possible and be involved in school and/or the community. It is
very helpful to have worked in a business prior, especially doing Marketing. I highly
suggest doing a marketing internship while in still in college. Even if the job or
internship is unpaid, the experience is extremely beneficial when applying to other
jobs later. Being involved in business organizations, community service, or other
group organizations is also very beneficial. Landing an officer position is even better
as one can gain an abundant amount of experience, skills and network growth. Being
an officer in the International Business Society for two terms helped me become a
better leader, speaker, and businessperson. It also expanded my professional
network greatly. Working and being involved in an organization also helps one get to
know other industries and will in turn benefit on the job as it will encourages a
better understanding of different markets and customer needs.
Reference Page
Pink, Daniel H. A Whole New Mind: Why Right-brainers Will Rule the Future. New
York: Riverhead, 2006. Print.
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