Time for a Translation Database Clean-Up

It is so easy for a translation vendor’s database to get out of control. Unlike other industries, the database of a translation business, big or small, changes every week. Considering that perhaps 80% of a translation business’ success is based on how good the vendors in the database are (combined with how well your PMs can match them with the right clients’ request), the database is one of the main factors for your company’s success or failure.

Unless you outsource or have a very good automated process, you really need a staff member looking after the translation vendor’s database in order to keep it under control. The fact is that cleaning the database can be a mammoth task which can make any Vendor Manager feel like a monastic scribe from the Middle-Ages. Hopefully these guidelines will make you feel like a master organiser instead, and help you take ownership of the task ahead.

Let’s pause for a moment and think:

• What does your company need from the database?
• What is the purpose of the database clean-up?
• What is the current status of the database?
• Once you have answered these questions you can start creating your clean-up master plan.

For example, let’s say that some of your current issues might be that 30% of your vendors haven’t been used for more than two years; you are lacking vendors who provide certain language combinations, or subject matter; your most trusted vendors are always busy and rarely take any of your projects or 5% of the profiles in the database are empty or are missing crucial information. On the other hand, some of your goals could be to have at least 20 good/reliable vendors for your top 10 language combinations, ensure 50% of the profiles are ISO compliant, or that all the profiles have got at least one working telephone number.

To rectify these issues, create a list of the actions you need to take in order to achieve your objectives. The actions need to be detailed enough so that you do not misjudge the time they will take to complete, and if you will need help from other departments (maybe Quality or Finances). Make sure you don’t drift off the main objective of the clean-up while drawing up all these actions, and remember that the data in the database has to be useful, effective, valid, accurate, complete, consistent and uniform across profiles.

Next, create a timeline with all the different stages and assign an estimate deadline for the completion of each step. If your database is bigger than a few hundred vendors, I would suggest dividing the profiles into smaller groups by language, client, subject matter, on-boarding date, or even location. This way, tracking the status of each vendor will be easier. Always keep your goals in mind as you are at risk of ending up with too much information (do you really need to ask for all of the vendors’ fax numbers?) or too little (you definitely need to know where in the world your vendor is located). I estimate it would take a single Vendor Manager around six months to finish the clean-up process for a database of 1500 vendors, taking into account that this would be a task to be combined with the rest of their daily job requirements.

As I mentioned before, the task might need some input from other departments depending on how many different teams work with the information in the database. Communication with colleagues as well as upper management should be fluent and regular, so that everyone is up to date on the status of each profile, or vendor group. You might also consider sharing the timeline with everyone during monthly company meetings, for example.

It is advisable to create (or update, if you have got one already) guidelines for the processing of data, as well as the recording and managing of data in the future. This will help to standardise the information, and avoid creating a future mess of the database. If the clean-up involves the change of software or any structural change in the general vendor management processes, it is also advisable to create written documentation of the new procedures so that everyone will follow the same steps when modifying data on the database. Needless to say, this process should be within the company’s guidelines. Taking into account the ISO and GDPR regulations, the recording of the data should be duly compliant where necessary, and observed when writing down the stages of the database clean-up and future database management processes.

To round it all up, a clean-up follow up date should be added in your vendor management processes to make sure all information in the database is accurate as time progresses. I have seen suggestions which consider an annual re-work of the database, segmenting the vendors into three main groups: preferred/approved vendors, useful vendors when in trouble, and general vendors. This will help you see how balanced the database is, and would help to identify which vendors are not being used.  

I hope this article has showed you the importance of the planning stage when starting a translation database clean-up. Do not hesitate to put these tips to work on your own database clean-up, and let me know if they worked for you!