The demand for translation services is growing due to industry globalization and increase amount of data generated, among other factors. Only in Europe, we have 24 official languages, holding 50% market share of the total translation industry market. The translation industry is dominated by Language Service Provider companies, that match clients with suitable translators, relying heavily on freelance translators. However, the industry is facing several challenges: 1) difficulty to find adequately qualified translators, 2) increase pressure to deliver high quality translations, and 3) need to cut down on costs and time of job delivery. Despite improvements on automated computer translations by software tools, human translators are still necessary to provide high-quality work. To solve these challenges, our company is developing VAL (Virtual Assistant for Language Translation), a SaaS-based marketplace platform that directly puts in contact clients with the most adequate human translators. VAL is a self-learning platform that analyses and classifies the text to be translated by keywords and matches the tasks to the most qualified translator for that particular job. VAL links the customer seamlessly to the translator and makes an instantaneous best value offer thanks to a dynamic pricing algorithm. The customer therefore enjoys a faster process of higher quality, with lower costs and better transparency on the VAL platform.
Our key objective for this Feasibility Study was to verify technical, commercial and financial viability of our solution.
1. Commercial feasibility: We have carried out a full market study by revising target regions, market trends, customer segments, and competitors landscape. We have defined our business and revenue model after obtaining feedback from customers, as well as our commercial strategy for international deployment.
2. Technical feasibility: We have confirmed that VAL is easy-to-use and answers customers’ needs. We have detailed final VAL specifications and prepare a series of technical maturation and verification tasks. We have also engaged with key partners for performing these tasks. Finally, we have prepared a work plan for the Accelerator project, including technical and commercial activities.
3. Financial feasibility: We have updated our cost and pricing model and prepared a financial forecast to demonstrate profitability of our product. Then, we have revised the total investment needed to bring our solution to TRL9 and prepared a budget for the Accelerator project grant and post-project equity investment.
