Some of the most useful ideas begin with a conversation between people working through similar challenges. How are others responding to pressures you recognise in your own business? What have they tried, and where does their experience differ from yours? With ELIA’s Industry Articles 2026 series, we invite you into those conversations, to share knowledge and bring fresh perspectives back to your own team.
Developed by the 2026 Content Creation Committee, Anu Carnegie-Brown (ACB), Ursula Steigerwald (US) and Stéphane Hue (SH), the series explores five questions facing language businesses. The articles draw on focused online conversations in which the committee compared practical experiences and explored one another’s ideas.
We begin with a familiar pressure: becoming leaner. When the services we deliver keep changing, it can be difficult to judge what greater efficiency would look like. How can we identify changes that improve delivery and leave the business stronger?
1. Can unfamiliar work become repeatable?
A useful starting point is the value a change creates. Better customer service could be an improvement even if the volume of translated content stays the same. Yet years of word-based pricing have concentrated attention on production costs. As prices fall, the work involved in developing and delivering a service deserves closer examination.
Ursula’s team had recently struggled to prepare a quote for AI dubbing. There was still a tangible result to deliver, but the assignment differed from conventional translation. Anu questioned how easily a company can become leaner when unfamiliar services repeatedly require it to work out a new approach. Similar assignments allow processes to be refined; diversification can interrupt that pattern. Ursula saw an opportunity within the workflow:
US: “We need to define where the repetitive steps are. So that we have workflows that at least can be adapted easily.”
Ursula’s team was already identifying similar steps across assignments and working to standardise them. This gives the discussion a practical direction: build on the parts of a workflow that are familiar while allowing time to develop the parts that are new.
Look back at one recent new-service proposal. Which steps could you use again on the next request? Which required a new approach? Recording the reusable steps could save preparation time without rushing the work that still needs developing.
2. What capability does your business need?
A new service may require expertise the company does not use every day. Stéphane envisaged an internal team able to assemble a solution with external specialists, rather than employing every kind of expert it might need. As the range of services grows, assessing potential partners becomes part of the company’s capability:
SH: “And you need to qualify, because you want to rely on them if you want to have a real business with them.”
A proposal therefore depends on knowing that the external expertise can deliver what is promised. Inside the company, Anu asked whether the core should include both the people able to sell a solution and those able to build it. Ursula saw those responsibilities as connected.
In Ursula’s company, that capability rested with two or three people who had worked extensively on workflows. Stéphane also pointed out that access to external expertise depends on maintaining the relationships:
SH: “That comes at a price as well, because you have to maintain this relationship”
The economics of retaining linguistic work in-house can be different. At Sandberg, Anu described more than 60 in-house translators supported by concentrated demand in five core languages. At around 90% utilisation, their salary costs compared favourably with freelance rates for that work. Ursula’s German-language team increasingly contributed specialist expertise; translation charged by the word was no longer expected to cover their salaries on its own.
For one service you provide, identify the expertise you need regularly and the expertise you bring in occasionally. When comparing internal and external costs, include the time spent finding suitable partners and coordinating their work. That gives you a clearer basis for deciding which capabilities to keep in-house.
3. Where does the effort actually go?
Having the right people does not guarantee a smooth flow of work. Small assignments repeatedly interrupt linguists’ momentum as they switch clients and instructions. Anu connected this with pricing: when project management is absorbed into a word rate, fewer words mean less margin to cover coordination, even though each job still needs organising.
Automating work allocation can reduce administration, but the person doing the work still needs to prepare and research the task. Anu also described freelancers moving between clients’ translation environments: outsourcing puts that lost productive time outside the LSP’s immediate view, while the supplier still experiences it. Effort can accumulate before productive work begins and reappear after delivery through corrections.
Anu described machine-generated content receiving limited human editing before reaching a separate reviewer responsible for protecting the client’s brand. The reviewer’s requirements for style and terminology may exceed what the editing budget allows. Keeping the parties separate can support the objectivity of the review, yet leave them working towards incompatible expectations.
ACB: “Is it possible to reach the result that the reviewer is happy with, with the process that the linguistic work has been squeezed through?”
US: “You see the MT output, and then you really would need to give feedback. And then it would need to have been implemented for the next project”
Agreeing the required result before production, then using review feedback on the next assignment, should prevent repeated correction rounds. That is an opportunity to improve the whole service, rather than save time at one stage and spend it again at a later one.
Choose a recent job that took longer than expected. Ask where the extra time went: understanding the brief, switching tools or making corrections? Identify one avoidable difficulty. You may not control the client’s workflow, but you can raise that specific issue with the people involved and discuss a change for the next job.
4. How would you know the change helped?
That fuller view of delivery matters when measuring efficiency. Revenue per employee as an efficiency measure divides revenue by employee headcount. Outsourcing translation can improve the ratio because fewer people are counted, regardless of what the outsourcing of the work externally costs. The figure changes without necessarily demonstrating a better operation.
Anu challenged comparisons on that basis. Stéphane suggested gross margin per head, which takes account of costs, but still divides the result by a headcount. Anu’s concern was that this can still exclude e.g. PM contractors doing the same work as employees:
ACB: “Margin per head as an efficiency measure has still got, in my view, the same underlying problem as revenue per head.”
Ursula approached improvement through operating profit and what she could see happening in projects. A chaotic first assignment for a new service signalled that the process needed attention before it was repeated. Anu also highlighted the time needed to rebuild capability when staff leave: recruiting replacements is followed by training before they can work independently.
ACB: “With a mature workforce, I can do new things because the baseline is solid, and it’s been sorted”
Experienced people provide a base for development, even though maturity doesn’t mean that productivity can keep increasing indefinitely. To check whether a change has improved efficiency, compare the total cost of delivering similar work before and afterwards, including the hidden costs. Ask the team whether it now takes less time or requires fewer corrections. If revenue per employee has risen only because work moved to contractors, the higher figure alone does not show a saving.
5. What should efficiency make possible?
A business developing new services needs room to learn. Some effort will lead nowhere before a workable approach emerges, making the timing of an efficiency exercise important.
ACB: “The times we live in necessitate experimentation. And that comes with waste, doesn’t it?”
Anu distinguished a business with investment funding from one developing out of its own profits: their room to spend before a new service earns money may differ. Stéphane questioned whether becoming leaner necessarily leaves less room to invest:
SH: “If you go lean, you might think that you don’t have the money to invest. I don’t think so.”
His point was that efficiency could leave more money available for development. Later, he raised a different concern: a system stretched towards efficiency can become less able to adapt to unfamiliar work. The two ideas can coexist. Reducing avoidable effort may fund development, while cutting the capacity needed to learn could make it harder.
Anu also pondered on whether some functions are worth retaining because they support the company’s people or supply network, even when their benefit to the client is less evident. Good internal company structure, for example, helps an LSP cope with fragmented client communication. Before removing a function, identify the work it enables and check who would take on that work if it disappeared.
There is a commercial condition too. The conversation closed on LSPs being asked to become more efficient while the resulting financial benefit remained elsewhere in the supply chain:
ACB: “We have been asked to be more lean. But it hasn’t necessarily meant more profit for us.”
SH: “And without any profits, you’re fragile as well.”
For your next proposed saving, estimate how much time or money the business would retain after any client-requested price reduction. Decide what you would use it for. Then check whether the change would remove expertise or working time needed for that development.
What could becoming leaner make possible for you?
The discussion points to a constructive opportunity: reducing avoidable effort can give a language business more room to develop. Reusing parts of a workflow can make a new service less demanding to organise. A dependable network can put a wider range of expertise within reach. Where improvements leave money available, that could support the next stage of development.
The question to take back to your team is: what would you like greater efficiency to make possible? Choose one improvement and name the benefit you want from it. Then check whether the change delivers that benefit across the whole service, including the people outside your company who help provide it. That connects becoming leaner with a purpose worth pursuing.
Has a change in how you work created room for something valuable? Or are you still trying to find that room? Share your experience or question on LinkedIn using #ELIADiscussion. What you have learned could help another member take their next step.
Stay tuned for the next article, Rethinking roles and routes in language services, as we continue exploring what these changes mean for language businesses.
Acknowledgements
Developed through the ELIA Industry Articles 2026 series by the 2026 Content Creation Committee: Anu Carnegie-Brown, Ursula Steigerwald and Stéphane Hue.
