| Q: | What kind of service does XTRA provide? |
| A: | XTRA's focus is on providing first-class translations and services for demanding IT projects. From our office in Böblingen/Stuttgart we tailor the best solution to a client's needs, including issues such as process, preparation, planning, translation technology, and quality assurance methods. In many cases, we start with German as a pilot language, and use the experience gained there to further streamline processes before handing over work to our in-country translation partners for other languages. |
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| Q: | What is XTRA - an MLV or an SLV? |
| A: | For seven years XTRA was a single-language vendor for German. In an industry that today works mostly with external freelance translators, XTRA's team of ten experienced German in-house translators and proofreaders continues to be the partner of choice for sophisticated English-to-German translation projects.
Having recognised that many clients were looking for one provider who could relieve them of the organisational details of multilingual localisation, we decided to expand our language offering in early 2001. Our plan was to set up partnerships with leading single-language vendors in all key markets. Finally, after a very stringent evaluation process that took a year, XTRA was able to offer multilingual localisation services for a number of languages. Only then did we begin actively marketing multilingual translation services. Since that time we have handled a number of very successful multilingual projects. |
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| Q: | What are the benefits of choosing a German translation company like XTRA as our MLV? |
| A: | With about 100 million speakers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, German is the language of the primary market for many companies when going global, which is why many choose it as a pilot language in their globalisation efforts. German consumers are widely held to be especially meticulous when evaluating the quality of a product. Consequently, starting with German often means mastering the biggest challenges at the very beginning - which is tough, but eases the later encounter with other languages. |
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| Q: | What is XTRA's policy on translation and project management software tools? |
| A: | Our policy is very simple: Always choose the tool that best fits a client's needs. We feel that a client should own translation assets. If a client ever feels there is a better choice for the next project, he or she should be free to change vendors. If a client does not have a preferred software, we will be happy to make a proposal to jointly find the best solution. If the client already has a preferred software tool, we will definitely support it. |
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| Q: | Why is XTRA rarely seen in media advertisements? |
| A: | Money spent on advertising is money someone has to pay. We prefer to use earnings to provide good working conditions, pay reasonable translation rates to our partners and charge acceptable rates to our clients, rather than adding costs that our existing clients would have to pay for in the end. |
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| Q: | What about XTRA's global presence? |
| A: | Many of our competitors maintain subsidiaries in several countries to achieve a global presence. We do not. Instead we feel that centralising operations in our headquarters has many benefits. Maintaining several offices is costly and often inefficient. The type of clients we work with do not feel the need to talk to sales people in local branch offices. They prefer talking with the company management and project managers who know their requirements and can provide solutions to their problems. Even so, XTRA is a "global" company. With a network of associates in more than 20 countries, we have access to a complete infrastructure of leading localisation experts in the various target countries. Therefore, as a client, you benefit both from a unique infrastructure made up of specialised translation firms and a consistent, centrally administered project management approach. |
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