Have you ever worked with databases? Tricky things they are. I read an American analysis that said that three out of four expensive management software projects fail (just ask the UK Post Office about Fujitsu’s Horizon). But of course some don’t, and they can be terrifically useful.
When we started working with translation back in 2008, we kept track of our work with an excel table. Over the years, this developed into a colossally sophisticated interlocking system of tables, made possible by a process consultant who is an absolute genius in the field. But with an ever-increasing workload, we decided that a more secure system was needed.
What does a small company do? We examined the market for translation management software. There seemed to be a couple of prominent ones, at least they were prominently advertised. I wrote to both of them. One did not answer, the other was a tad more customer-friendly and gave me a couple of week’s access so I could familiarise myself with its charms. Now, without being a specialist I am a pretty tech-savvy dude, but after two weeks I could make neither head nor tail of this system. No problem, they said, customers just take our 3-week (well-paid) training. That sealed it for me.
Fortunately we work with a well defined system of procedures, ever since we began with ISO standards in 2012. So with a certain, if rusty, background in IT, I could do the systems analysis myself. At the same time, we work with a highly competent soft- and hardware engineer, who builds and maintains our in-house servers. We decided to build our own program.
In working together, I learned how to create a database and connect the various tables, and all about the other files and functions needed. The result is just being taken into use. It took a year and a half, but now it is in the beta phase, being rapidly de-bugged and the final major functions coupled on. Once fully functional, we will tackle the formatting so it looks nice too.
For me, the greatest satisfaction is that our project managers could immediately see how to use it with no particular explanation (and no course). Sure, they have beta-gripes that will be solved, but to a translation project manager it is intuitive to use. It’s exactly what we need. What’s more, it will come to cost us less than half the price of hiring and being forever dependent on someone else’s stuff. We can even offer it to others at an even lower price, as we have the whole infrastructure in place.
Maybe we’ll call it Zenith – the opposite of Horizon.