Véronique, a seasoned executive in the translation industry, will lead Global Sales and Marketing.

She worked at Lionbridge in production and business development roles before joining the executive team as Vice President Sales, a position she held from 2003 to 2007. She then moved to the Czech Republic, where she joined Moravia as Chief Sales and Marketing Officer.

With Véronique on board, Alexander Ulichnowski will now focus on Xplanation’s corporate development, such as new business services and partnerships. Jurgen Goens remains in charge of Operations and oversees our technology development.

Véronique is highly recognised in the translation industry. Her thorough knowledge and experience will no doubt help spur on the growth of Xplanation as a global translation company.

On 22 March, DUOdag was held for the third time. This initiative by GTB (a specialised careers advisory service for people with disabilities) aims to bring together employers and job-seekers with a disability.

The concept is particularly simple and is based on the Job Shadow Initiative in Ireland: for one day, a company opens its doors to a disabled person seeking employment. They team up with one of the employees and accompany them in their daily tasks.

Xplanation highly values its corporate social responsibility and supports this initiative. We welcomed Xander Nicaise, a qualified translator, who wanted to join our ranks for a day. Under the supervision of reviser Annelies Geens, Xander was exposed to several aspects of everyday life in the translation industry. “This is my opportunity to see what I have actually been studying for,” he explained. “You can learn a lot from books, but applying that knowledge in a real working environment is a totally different thing.”

Xander and Annelies working on a revision together

For job coaches and people who guide those with disabilities, this day offers a unique opportunity. Every year, more and more managers and employees seize the chance to appreciate the talents of people with disabilities.

According to project coordinator Wannes Marivoet, the key to the success of DUOdag is the win-win situation. “On the one hand, applicants want to get an idea of a certain work environment. Now, they can finally test their capabilities and competences in the business world. They hone their skills by working together with an experienced employee,” he states. “On the other hand, participating companies gain a better insight into the abilities of the applicant, as well as the organisations supporting them.”

Annelies Geens also felt the day was a success for all: “At Xplanation, we look forward to taking part in the DUOdag initiative next year.”

At Xplanation, we aim to build long-term partnerships with our clients based on trust, reliability and, above all, quality. However, each client has their own requirements, needs, and definition of the term quality when talking about translations. This is precisely why we need as much feedback from you as possible in order to meet your expectations.

Why feedback?

It is Xplanation’s goal to offer our clients as customised a service as possible. Receiving feedback is essential to achieving this goal.

• Keeping materials up to date for increased consistency

Submitting feedback allows us to update your translation memories with the changes requested. We can also create terminology lists and update the client’s personal style guide. On top of that, we pass on all relevant feedback to our translators, who in turn take everything into account for the next translation.

This process ensures that, for future projects, translators have the latest information available, enabling us to deliver what you need!

• Maintaining brand integrity and feel

Feedback is one of the most important ways for Xplanation to find out what our clients want and expect from us. It allows us to update all relevant materials, thereby ensuring that future translations already reflect your preferences.

• Acting as a true partner to our clients

Even if you are very satisfied with the quality of our translations, letting us know about it confirms we are on the right track. In the case of local validation, it can even offer us a new insight into your procedures.

Sending feedback is as easy as 1-2-3!

Xplanation has developed its own feedback module. After a project has been delivered via Tstream^® Portal, you will receive a link leading you to a secure area where you can fill in a Quality Assessment form. There are four criteria for evaluation:

• Delivery date
• Client service
• Quality of the translation
• Layout

In just four clicks, you can assess each criterion and there is plenty of room to insert questions, corrections, comments or suggestions. Once you have finished, the Xplanation Quality Manager automatically receives the report and acts upon the feedback.

Another way we receive feedback is local validation. Once clients have sent us the validated documents, our Project Managers assess the inserted corrections or remarks and make the necessary changes in the translation memory, update the terminology and finalise all the translations.

Efficiency gains through registering feedback

Registering feedback not only helps us, but our clients, too. With each new translation, you spend less time on corrections and local validation, which ’translates’ into reduced costs and time.

As we set key performance indicators, feedback allows us to make sure we are on track to meet your goals regarding turnaround time, quality and responsiveness. We are closer to your brands and products and can act as a true partner to deliver the right content and message in each and every market around the world.

It was a cold and bright December morning, when Xplanation Sweden moved into newly-converted offices on an industrial estate in Varberg. Located at the heart of the expanding Halland County, linking the Öresund region of Copenhagen and Malmö with Gothenburg and Oslo, Varberg has been the home of the Swedish branch since it opened in 2004.

- “It has been quite a journey,” says Anna-Karin Josefson, Branch Manager at Xplanation Sweden. “Back in 2004 it was just me on the phone, and today there are fourteen of us.”

The tenth anniversary of Xplanation saw substantial growth for the entire group, and several branches, such as Denmark (featured in the previous newsletter), Switzerland and France have invested in people and office space.

- “2011 proved to be a year of tremendous growth for Xplanation Sweden,” continues Anna-Karin. “We doubled our revenue and extended our operations team to make sure we maintain excellent client service.”

Xplanation Sweden used to be located in a building in central Varberg that also housed a few local businesses. Given the expansion in 2011, it made sense to move. Now, with the new office building, we are ready to keep on growing.

While the team at Xplanation Sweden is happy with their new workplace, they are still on the look-out for new talent. Anna-Karin and the rest of team are also looking forward to welcoming their clients and partners to the new office:

- “Oh yes, please do come and visit,” adds Anna-Karin cheerfully. “We will be happy to show off the office and, of course, the beautiful surroundings in the coastal town of Varberg.”

Part of the Xplanation Sweden team enjoying the sunshine.

If you need to translate a brochure, a manual, a specification sheet or any document with images or a defined layout, you will need to use DTP services to ensure the document integrity is maintained.

Xplanation knows how to keep your documents in their original formatting, and make sure the translated documents will correctly reflect the source documents.

Experience over a wide range of sectors

Xplanation has been providing DTP services for the past eight years and covers the following industries:

• Finance, banking and insurance
• Government institutions
• European institutions
• Medical
• Manufacturing
• Energy
• Automotive
• Human resources

In recent years, Xplanation has seen an increased demand from our technical clients. Joost Stuyven, a DTP specialist at Xplanation, attributes this increase to two factors. “Firstly, we work upstream with our clients to fine-tune the process and avoid unnecessary cycles and re-working. We know our clients well, and they trust our capabilities and delivery quality. Secondly, our technological expertise has enabled us to create a converter for a wide range of file formats, including InDesign, QuarkXpress and FrameMaker. We process the files using Tstream^®, our translation tool and workflow, avoiding costly, time-consuming import and export steps.”

Xplanation DTP skills

• Working with markup languages such as HTML, SGML and XML, as well as online documentation formats such as Acrobat PDF
• Formatting and page layout
• Creating and editing graphics (generic graphics, screen captures, illustrations and diagrams)
• Converting and producing output of translated material in multiple formats (creating PostScript files and PDF files)
• Post-DTP quality checks

Xplanation can handle everything from DTP for documentation to multimedia projects.

Xplanation's DTP coordinators: Annelies, Joost and Sofie

Quality checks and client feedback

Xplanation has DTP specialists and coordinators in Belgium and Denmark.

“We can handle all European languages in-house,” says DTP coordinator Annelies Van Aerschot. “For Arabic, Hebrew and all Asian languages, we rely on our in-country partners and coordinate the work with them. This set-up eliminates the risk of introducing errors in the translated text such as incorrect truncations. This is also a good set-up when it comes to local client validators. It is not uncommon to receive their feedback in their native language. At the same time, we make sure that all client-specific procedures and requests are respected and implemented.”

Our reviewers do a final proof of document and graphic files before they are printed or published, to ensure that the content has not been modified during DTP and that the final version closely resembles the source material.

At Xplanation, we care about your words… and their layout.