Case studies

Commission for Africa - Aplomb to the rescue

In early 2004, the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, established the Commission for Africa which aimed to find long-term solutions for the African continent. A website was set up, and it was translated into French by another UK translation company.

Unfortunately, this first attempt was unsatisfactory. Following a recommendation, Aplomb was invited to retranslate the site. This we did, translating the Commission's website to a tight schedule, completing translations as new content was being written and modifying them when consultations required updates.

The website translation was succesful and The Commission entrusted us with the French translation of their final special report. Once again, timing was tight as the deadline for the presentation of the report was close at hand. Aplomb completed an average of 7,000 words a day (including week-ends) for over a month to meet the printer’s deadline.

The job was complicated by the need to cooperate with the in-house revision team and incorporate feedback as we progressed with the translation.

To ease the printers' workload, we delivered the translation section by section so that text could be typeset as soon as the final version of each chapter was completed.

The translation was delivered on time and to the complete satisfaction of our client

Exxon Mobil - a long term relationship

Aplomb has worked for Exxon for a number of years, translating documents produced following marine incidents.

Exxon needed a translation partner with specialist knowledge of shipping and of marine terminology and Aplomb was able to provide this expertise. We agreed advantageous terms to take into account the volume and regularity of the work, a convenient method of identification of documents, and a simple invoicing system.

Over time, we have been able to compile terminology databases specially tailored to Exxon. This makes for more efficient translations, as does the fact that we can incorporate Exxon's feedback.