Capita Translation and Interpreting (Capita TI) is a large UK-based international translation services provider. Capita TI is part of the larger Capita Plc Group, a FTSE 50 business process management organisation that employs 70,000 staff. Unlike many of its competitors, the company supports all business verticals, rather than specializing in specific business sectors. It offers translation services in over 150 different languages, and is able to call on the UK’s largest pool of registered linguists for various projects. How to place an order online is less obvious for first timers as the company’s website landing page has no call to action. The key inner pages of the site contain a ‘contact us’ from where orders can be placed, however the company’s main objective is to set up customers with logins to its online translation portal called MultiTrans.

Specialties

Capita TI advertise the fact that it doesn’t specialize. It is a generalist that offers services in every business vertical. While this does open it up to work on more projects, many customers prefer the confidence that working with a specialist provides. The services on offer across the market verticals are diverse: many are standard, while others that we will look at here are unique.

Transcreation
An artistic version of localization, transcreation adapts material to a target audience rather than just translating it. This unique service is ideal for marketing, advertising and retail sectors. The process includes image selection, font choices and copywriting to ensure the right mix for the target location.

DTP (Multilingual Typesetting)
Formatting text, images and page layouts is something we take for granted in English and other Latin languages. Foreign languages can present some unique challenges, for example Thai doesn’t have spacing between words and Russian translations can be 30% longer. Capita TI’s DTP service means companies can leave the formatting to the pros to remove the headaches at the back-end of a project.

Methods and Pricing

First-time customers can submit inquiries through the website’s ‘contact us’ form. This is a very basic aesthetically, though the main objective for Capita TI is to set up all customers to use its custom portal MultiTrans. MultiTrans is a complex system that allows customers to create and track requests, create profiles and many more features. All orders are submitted, quoted and allocated to translators through this platform: it’s a piece of technology that is aligned towards repeat customers, and one-time users will not find this suitable for ad hoc work.

Capita TI offers primarily human translation services, but it also integrates machine translation. For scaling purposes and to reduce costs for volume customers, it offers machine translation at the front end, with final human editing to increase the quality levels.

Translators

The exact number of translators employed is not made obvious and neither is the company’s actual company size, however Capita does boast the highest quality and security measures possible thanks to the group’s wider corporate governance.

Conclusion

Capita TI offers the peace of mind that comes with dealing with large corporations. The ordering system is not fluid or flexible, and it’s more corporate and rigid than many of its competitors. The group has a strong reputation and its staff are generalists who can work on any job. Customers that prefer to work with more flexible specialists won’t choose Capita TI, however it is an excellent choice for large corporates.