Service Expansion Key Growth Priority for LSPs, 2024 ALC Survey Reveals

Change can be hard — really hard. So when a business decides to change, there must be a compelling reason.

Indeed, the 2024 edition of the Association of Language Companies (ALC) Industry Survey, carried out by Slator, found that 33% of the 127 language services providers (LSPs) surveyed consider developing new service offerings a top priority. (The No. 1 priority for the vast majority — 83% — of respondents was growing revenue.)

Why? The strategy can include leveraging existing resources and maintaining resilience. But more specifically, 29% of respondents said “the specific needs and requirements of our existing customer base” are the main driver of service expansion. One in six (15%) mentioned risk mitigation as a factor.

More than half of respondents have expanded their service portfolios in the last three years alone, though the services added are not the same across the board, and tend to differ based on whether the LSP is, broadly, focused on translation versus interpreting.

Translation-focused LSPs expand most frequently into interpreting, subtitling, and desktop publishing (DTP). Interpreting-focused LSPs, meanwhile, tend to add on translation, sign language interpreting, and conference interpreting equipment. 

Across all LSPs, however, the most frequently added services over the past three years have been content creation; transcription; subtitling; SEO; and voiceover.

Nearly 20% of translation-focused companies reported already having expanded into AI services, compared to 3% of interpreting companies. 

One-third of LSPs plan to add new services in the next three years. The most frequently cited services that LSPs plan to add? AI services, unsurprisingly, tops the list, along with machine translation post-editing (MTPE), transcription, sign language interpreting, and, for interpreting-focused businesses, translation.

Time will tell how LSPs commit to expanding their service offerings, and which new services hit the mark with existing clients — answers that could change from week to week, considering the pace of AI innovation in the language industry at large.