Word360 Language Services
Julia Dodoo
Our translation, interpreting and localisation services have been used and relied on by companies and Government since 1991. We operate in more than 250 languages and dialects across many different industries with our broad experience and quality showcased in our case studies.
At Word360, we have the experience, knowledge and resource to ensure that your project receives the level of skill and professional expertise delivering solutions that would conform to international standards and cultures. Originally started in Birmingham, West Midlands, we now offer our services across the UK including places such as London, Manchester, Bristol, Brighton and Essex.
Earlier in 2022, we were pleased to add Word360 to our roster of trusted suppliers. Word360 provide real-time and scheduled interpreting for in-person, over the phone and remote video conferencing, as well as wider translation and accessibility services. The team is made up of interpreters who collectively specialise in a staggering 350 languages and dialects including British Sign Language, which we know will provide real benefits to our member organisations.
Indeed it's partnerships like Word360, who join our existing interpreting supplier LanguageLine, that we place great emphasis on here at Helplines Partnership, as we work to continually deliver the best service possible to our member organisations.
We are pleased to foster this new relationship with Word360, after they were named Best Global Translation & Interpretation Services Agency 2022 at the Business Elite Awards, along with holding a number of other accolades and awards in recent years.
Kavita Parmar, Co-Founder of Word360 said, "We're delighted to be working with the Helplines Partnership to support their members in providing equitable access to service users. No one should feel like their voice isn't being heard, so our technologies and systems provide instant access 24 hours a day to over 350 languages via our national network of professional interpreters.
"All of our interpreters have enhanced DBS checks as standard with sector specialist experience, from mental health training through to crisis management. We're also excited to be introducing our Accessibility Toolkit that enables members to review their inclusivity needs and offer more equitable access through our range of services supporting those with spoken and non-spoken communication barriers."
At Helplines Partnership, have been committed to supporting organisations that provide non-face-to-face advice, support and information to improve general wellbeing for over 20 years. We champion the interests of our members and help them to build sustainability and deliver the best service they can for their users.
In 2025, we can expect a number of changes to telecoms services. Our Trusted Supplier Your Co-op provided some brilliant information ahead of our Annual Conference panel discussion on this topic. So just what can we expect with these upcoming changes?
Word360, headquartered in Edgbaston, took home the overall Greater Birmingham Business of the Year crown, having also won the Excellence in Contribution to the Community and Excellence in Customer Service categories.
Co-founded in 2013 by husband and wife team Tiku Chauhan and Kavita Parmar, Word360 is a language technology company which works with public, private and not-for-profit organisations to help them deliver access to services through its own tech platform 'Wordskii'.
They added: Word360 demonstrate a high level of flexibility and responsiveness to customer needs, use their data and understanding of communities to target provision and find out about emerging needs.
The main community languages spoken and used in Wolverhampton are; Arabic, Czech, English, Gujarati, Indian Punjabi, Italian, Kurdish Sorani, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Romanian, Russian and Urdu. This is taken from the Census 2021 and data from our interpretation and translation services.
Word360 has a comprehensive range of language services including telephone interpreting, face-to-face interpreting (including British Sign Language interpreters), video calls and document translation services.
Word360 is a Birmingham based translation and interpreting agency delivering language solutions on a global scale for over 20 years.We cover over 250 languages and dialects including European and Eastern European, Asian, African, and South American languages. Underpinned by technological solutions and software to drive efficiencies and deliver consistent high quality, Word360 is trusted by companies including ARUP, Parcelforce, BBC, Charlotte Tilbury, and many more.Our ISO:9001 Quality Assurance, ISO:17001 Translation management and Cyber Essentials certifications offers operational excellence across all our services including translation, interpretation, multicultural marketing, website globalisation, subtitling, voiceovers, multicultural marketing, training and learning.
Chances are the information you came here for is the ranking of interpreting providers, which is presented in the table below. The ranking is based on revenue and lists the top 35 largest interpreting service providers worldwide.
The Watchlist consists of companies that should be in the ranking but are not listed because they do not disclose, publish, or otherwise reveal their revenue. We provide visibility to such companies on the Watchlist to highlight their impact on the industry.
The reason it is important for us to track these companies is that even though they might not compete for clients, they compete for talent and resources. They also represent opportunities for technology providers and investors.
During the course of this market analysis, Nimdzi uncovered interpreting companies that have previously been invisible in market reports because they do not participate in surveys and are reluctant to disclose their revenue. Nimdzi has employed an investigative approach and invested hundreds of hours into intense research, data collection, and analysis in order to present data that have previously been unavailable.
Given this whirlwind of events over the last 18 months, it was high time to take stock and examine the state of the interpreting industry. This report analyzes the latest trends in interpreting (services and technology), separates the wheat from the chaff, provides an estimate of the size of the global interpreting market, and aims to forecast what the future of interpreting will look like. Put simply, this is the go-to guide for anyone looking to provide, sell, buy, or invest in interpreting services and interpreting technology.
It is worth noting that this edition of the Interpreting Index heavily focuses on VIT (although not exclusively), for the simple reason that remote interpreting has been the theme in the interpreting industry in the last year and a half.
LanguageLine Solutions, CyraCom International, and AMN Language Services have made it into the top three positions of our ranking. If we consider that AMN Healthcare acquired Stratus Video (now AMN Language Services) in 2020, this means that the top three leaders in interpreting have retained their positions from the last ranking we published in 2019.
That being said, the next two in line fared very well, too. CyraCom International reported a total interpreting revenue of USD 163.6 million for 2020, bringing their growth rate up to 16% over the last two years. AMN Language Services reached an estimated USD 119.7 million from interpreting services in 2020, which is an increase of close to 20% from the interpreting revenue Stratus Video reported for 2018.
On the other side of the spectrum, VIT companies and language service providers (LSPs) who already had remote solutions in place emerged as the clear winners of the pandemic. Here, people were also running around like chickens with their heads cut off, but for completely opposite reasons: they were too busy (a good problem to have). Providers operating on this side of the industry reported record growth over the last year. Especially the demand for VRI in the healthcare sector and remote simultaneous interpreting (RSI) for various types of multilingual online meetings and conferences has gone through the roof, and VIT providers in this space have been busier than ever. For one RSI provider, demand has increased by almost 3,000 percent since the onset of the pandemic. VIT providers have significantly expanded their teams (and are continuing to do so), with reports ranging from 400 to more than 1,000 percent increase in staff since March 2020.
Prior to March 2020, remote interpreting was largely regarded as a solution in search of a problem, and although the technology existed, in the majority of countries a much higher percentage of assignments were performed onsite (roughly 80/20 split). However, once in-person events and gatherings were forbidden or restricted, remote interpreting stepped out of the shadows and became the solution to the problem.
When calculating the addressable market for their services, commercial providers should limit the opportunity to 60% of the total figure. Firstly, not everything is outsourced, as a significant portion of the overall volume is performed by in-house teams on the buyer side. For example, large institutions like the European Union and the United Nations, as well as some hospital systems, work with staff interpreters as well as freelancers rather than LSPs. Secondly, the market size calculation includes revenues for both interpreting companies and their suppliers, i.e. a part of the revenue is counted twice.
Nimdzi has been tracking the evolution of gross margins tied to both interpreting and translation services for a number of years and they have remained relatively stable over time. Average gross margins for translation are in the 40-50% (a well-run LSP would have gross margins in the high 40s), while in interpreting it has historically been between 30-40%. However, in 2020 we have seen the gross margin range for interpreting widening, to 30-50% depending on the company. It is reasonable to assume that this increase is tied to the boom in remote interpreting services, which generally enjoy higher profit margins. This is because the scheduling and management for remote interpreting assignments is generally far less time-intensive than for onsite assignments and there is also no need for travel costs.
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