One company that has recently taken up residency at the Rubicon Centre is headed by female entrepreneur, Sinéad Healy. Sinéad began her business, Nova Language Solutions, in her spare bedroom and now works with up to twenty translators serving large software companies from all over the world.
Since she came to the Rubicon Centre, she says, “I am overwhelmed by the support that I have received in starting my own business from the management in the Rubicon Centre. The information available, the mentoring from Paul and Denise, the opening of doors -all has been fantastic.” The manager at the Rubicon Centre has an open door policy for clients. He offers advice, sound boarding and access to a vast external network to help start-up companies in every way he can.
Sinéad’s first introduction to the Rubicon Centre was the Enterprise Start Programme. She felt that the training was extremely helpful and allowed her to think seriously about starting her own business. From there, she was accepted on the Genesis Programme, which she completed in April 2009.
One of the main advantages to the Rubicon according to Sinéad is the ability to network with peers. “It takes the isolation out of starting your own business and allows you to bounce ideas off people who know what you are going through”.
Sinéad feels the facilities are second to none and provides both a curb appeal and a credibility that is needed when dealing with large multinationals. Facilities available to Nova include a fully fitted office space, reception area, meeting rooms and a board room. The reception area is manned from 9 to 5, Monday to Friday. The receptionist “meets and greets” visitors and organises refreshments etc as required for visitor meetings and other functions.
Background
George Bernard Shaw once described America and England as two countries separated by a common language. For Nova Language Solutions, this difference in language is an opportunity for its localization and translation services. The company, who is resident in the Rubicon Centre, is in a rapidly expanding market. E-business and internationalization in all industries from software to financial services is on the rise. Organizations are aware of the need to respect their customer’s differences and cultures and this is what is driving the growth of the industry.
Localization is the process of adapting software and all of its support material to the language and culture of the target market. Typically, this includes software, online Help, training material, sales support material, websites as well as marketing and communications material. Whether it’s French, German, Arabic or Chinese, the challenge to multinationals is clear. This is where companies like Nova Language Solutions become critical to a smooth globalization policy.
The Company
Nova Language Solutions has been trading for two years and currently works with a team of three in-house project managers/reviewers, a software engineer, graphic designer and a team of up to twenty approved external translators. The business was started by Sinéad Healy, who has over 14 years experience in the industry. Sinéad has a degree in applied language from Trinity as well as masters from the University of Ulster. When she left college, the industry was in its infancy and the need for translation of foreign language software into English was limited. However, she began working with a German software company in Ireland and when the company left, Sinéad saw a great opportunity for localization services in a rapidly expanding industry. Nova Language Solutions specializes in the IT sector and the adaptation of marketing and communication material.
Market Background
The language business is a small but rapidly growing industry sector spread around all developed markets in the world. the need to localize products first emerged in the high-tech sector in the 1980s, but it has now expanded into other vertical industries such as the automotive, communications, medical and financial service industries. Almost no sector is excluded from the drive towards e-business and internationalization. Language business is embedded in multiple markets, each with its own specific terminology and culture. Convergence, the dominant trend in the current economy, alludes to the melting of Internet and chip technology into practically every product that consumers need and use every day. The language business faces the challenge of facilitating fluid cross-lingual communication in an increasingly collaborative and technological world.
Services
Localisation is quite complex and includes many areas other than language. The direction of the writing for example, left to right in German, right to left in Arabic; Government assigned numbers such as social security numbers and e numbers; weights and measures; the different use of commas and decimal points in formatting numbers; date and time formatting. These are things that we all take for granted but each element of difference must be changed from region to region. The experience and trust of the company providing these services are critical because of the dependence of the customer. Nova Language Solutions works with all of the main European languages in addition to Chinese, Japanese and Arabic. They also specialize in adapting content from US English to UK English.
