Reliable, specialized translators and localizers are hard to find, expensive, and often busy. More than 90% of the people who claim to be translators would not pass the selection process of a good agency. And even excellent translators can miss deadlines, or perform inconsistently if their work is not proofread. A team adds capacity and services, and offers quality consistency and coordination, often at a lower cost.

A common mistake when first evaluating localization costs is to consider external rates as the determining factor, instead of measuring the overall cost of the project, and considering both external and internal costs (selecting, training, coordinating, and supervising the professionals, buying equipment and tools, etc). What is more important, the return on the investment is what really matters from a business perspective, and time-to-market plays a basic role here, as you know well.

Software and web localization are technical tasks requiring the cooperation of different professional profiles. Not only linguists, but also engineers, testers, graphic designers, internationalization experts, project managers... It makes sense to outsource that to a specialized team to make sure that project goals (budget, schedule, and customer satisfaction) are not missed.

Translation and localization are very dynamic industries. New tools and practices quickly outdate the existing ones. Professional advice can save you a lot of time and money through automation, workflow optimization, and customized solutions.