Swiss Export Risk Insurance, headquartered in Zurich, insures exports by Swiss companies and helps them to obtain export financing. It plays an important role in providing jobs within Switzerland and in allowing the country to compete internationally.
Tools and timing: the keys to a multilingual annual report
In September 2018, SERV went on the hunt for a long-term translation partner. After an initial test phase, it selected Supertext. The first big project came not long after, in February 2019: SERV’s 55-page annual report needed to be translated into English and French. Supertext followed up this successful process with plenty of smaller translation and proofreading jobs for SERV’s website, social media and advertising materials, adding Italian to its repertoire as well.
February 2020 rolled around, and with it, the second annual report. Supertext already had an efficient process in place based on careful scheduling and early reservation of the necessary specialists. In practice, that means SERV let Supertext know the timing of the report the previous fall, allowing the dedicated project manager to reserve one translator and one proofreader for each language well ahead of time.
Modern CAT tools offer significant assistance throughout the process. Before the translation phase begins, the project manager carries out an alignment, which means the translations from the previous year are collected in a company-specific translation memory, allowing the translator to reuse identical segments of text. The advantages for companies such as SERV are clear: guaranteed consistency in all languages, lower translation costs and quicker processes. If necessary, multilingual glossaries can also be imported into a termbase and integrated into the translation software.
“The overall package is fantastic.”
Viviane Gnuan, Communications Manager at SERV, has now overseen the translation of two annual reports with Supertext and is convinced by the quality of the collaboration:
“The translation of our annual report is always a technically challenging project. Supertext has now translated the whole thing on schedule for the second year running – and the 2019 report even exceeded our expectations. We’re impressed by Supertext’s technological, linguistic and specialist expertise. The Supertext portal allows us to submit our orders quickly and easily while maintaining an overview of all our projects. In short, we value this straightforward collaboration very highly.”
Cover image via SERV