Introduction –
How do the buyers with the biggest budgets decide which LSPs to work with? What criteria do they factor into this decision? You don’t have to wonder any longer because Nimdzi has asked over 100 language service buyers for you.
If you are an LSP, the information contained in this report will serve as a valuable resource to make sure that you are prioritizing the areas that matter to top buyers. If you are an LSB (Language Service Buyer), you can get an idea of where your colleagues are and benchmark your own vendor selection process against what others in the industry are doing.
Information contained in this report:
- TL;DR
- What is being measured?
- What individuals want
- What companies want
- Difference between companies and individuals
- Summary
We know you are busy! That’s why each of our reports are formatted so that information can be quickly and easily digested. For those in a hurry, we provide the TL;DR (Too long; didn’t read!) section in the beginning of each report. At the end of each report we also summarize key points with our own Insights.
For those that think the devil is in the details, we have you covered, too! In the body of the report we go into as much detail as possible about each topic discussed. Still not satisfied? Never hesitate to reach out to us directly to request additional information. We’re here to help!
No time to read the full report? Watch and listen! –
TL;DR
What is being measured?
Nimdzi has gathered responses from over 100 decision makers at language services buyers about the importance of various factors when choosing a language services provider. Each buyer was asked to rate the following criteria as either irrelevant, relevant, important, or very important.
As we know, individual preferences can vary widely from person to person. Likewise, the view and opinions of individual decision makers within an organization can also vary from the view held by the larger organization itself. Each respondent provided information about what was important to them, personally, as well as what was important in the eyes of their company.
Quality
Quality of translations
Reputation
Brand recognition and perception
Price
Pricing of services
Languages
Number of languages offered
Service
Responsiveness and customer service
Referrals
Recommendations from colleagues
Relationship
Previous or existing relationship with vendor
Production centers
Location(s) of production centers
Account Management
Location of account manager
Facilities
Number of global offices
Size
Number of employees
Speed
On-time delivery
Technology
Language technology used
Client portal
Dashboard for project tracking
What do the individuals want?
As the well-known saying goes, people buy from people. Whether or not you agree with this well-known cliché among salespeople, you can’t argue that it is not useful to better understand the personal motivations behind buying decisions. We will start with a general review of the data collected and then look at some other ways to filter and analyze the data.
General
Let’s start with the unfiltered data. In the below dashboard, we look at how each of the above criteria ranked for individuals when making decisions around buying language services.
The results are ranked in order of importance, with the factors that were rated “Very important” by the most number of respondents is at the top, Most strikingly, we see that the top three factors of quality, on-time delivery, and customer service are the most widely viewed as “very important”, by a significant margin. Price comes in sixth place, when viewed as the top “very important” factor, though this moves up to five place if you consider all respondents who ranked it as “very important” or “important.”
Now we look at which of these factors had more than 50 percent of respondents ranking as “important” or “very important.” These are the areas where LSPs will want to focus their attention, as they will be the most relevant to winning new business from clients.
Factors with over 50 percent of buyers ranking as “Very important” or “Important”
- Quality of translation
- On-time delivery
- Customer service
- Technology
- Number of languages offered
- Price
- Brand reputation
Factors with less than 50 percent of buyers ranking as “Very important” or “Important”
- Pre-existing relationship (barely under 50 percent)
- Referrals
- Client portal
- Location of account manager
- Location of production centers
- Number of offices
- Number of employees
Other filters
TO analyze for any other meaningful trends, Nimdzi has also looked at several different factors and the influence they have on buyer behavior:
Country
Size
Gender
A closer look at gender
In the below dashboard we see the differences between male and female buyers. The figures below represent each gender’s likelihood to rate a particular factor as either “very important” or “important.”
Most noticeable factors (those with more than a 10 point difference) are as follows listed in order for largest difference to smallest difference. Note that factors with a difference of less than 10 points are not listed below:
- Size (number of employees) – female respondents more likely to see as high priority.
- Location of account manager – female respondents more likely to see as high priority.
- Number of offices – female respondents more likely to see as high priority.
- Number of languages offered. – female respondents more likely to see as high priority.
In all categories except one, females were more likely to view as either “important” or “very important.” The only factor that men rated as more important than women was dashboarding and data visualization, but only by a 4 point difference.
It is prudent to note that all respondents identified as either male or female, although additional gender options were included as options in the study.
What do the companies want
The motivations of individual buyers can be very different, even within the same company. it is not uncommon to be dealing with multiple buying influencers within the same company and each of them have different priorities. This also means that individual motivations can also vary from the motivations of the overall company. Often times, individual buyers will have to forsake their own prioritize in order to meet the needs of the company.
Now that we are finished looking at the preferences of individual buyers, we turn our attention to what the companies look for when making buying decisions. We present this information in the same format we have already used for individual buyers.
To more easily view the differences between individuals and companies, in the next section we look at these side by side to see the results.
Difference between companies and individuals?
The below dashboard shows the delta between the individual data and company data. On the left we see the factors with the largest discrepancy (those over 5 points), and a full list is available on the right.
As can be seen, the factors that are more important to individual buyers are, in order of decreasing importance:
- Brand/Reputation
- Number of languages offered
- Customer service
- Client portal/dashboarding
- Technology
- Location of production centers
Those factors that are more important to the company than to the individuals are:
- Price
- Pre-existing relationships
Summary
Getting inside the head of the buyer allows LSPs to better understand where they should focus their resources. There are two practical approaches to this: long term or short term.
- In the long term, strategic decisions can be made to best align service offerings to the needs of the client.
- In the short term, this information can be used to know which points are more likely to be important to buyers and where to focus attention when crafting proposals and closing deals.
If you are interested in discussing any of the information in this report with the Nimdzi team, we are happy to talk to you. Remember that, as a Nidmzi Partner, you have full access to our team. Do not hesitate to reach out. You can schedule time directly on our calendar as easily as clicking a button!
