Recent Work - Executive Languages

We were again selected in 2008 by competitive tender by a major automotive company based in Slough to deliver language training services on-site.

Following initial evaluation of all learners by us, we grouped them according to ability, and have been running a combination of intensive, group and 1:1 courses for all levels of learner within the company. We introduced external examinations to provide objective proof of progress achieved, which has been around two times faster than the national average - thanks mainly to some really good tutoring and materials selection. An important factor in this has also been the company's own commitment and enthusiasm.

Sophisticated on-line control and reporting techniques are due to go on line towards the end of this year.

We were selected by competitive tender process by the UK's largest mobile telephony company, based in Newbury, to be their on-site language services provider.

This involved us in the regular delivery by our tutoring team of total immersion, intensive, group and one-to-one language courses in 8 different languages over a period of five years.

During this time we also developed and implemented some uniquely sophisticated diagnostic techniques as well as monitoring, control and reporting systems to ensure that the company derived the maximum benefit from the language services provided.

The MD of a Slough-based British subsidiary of a American multi-national was asked to transfer know-how to the sister subsidiary in Germany. He decided that the job would work much better if he could speak German.

Due to pressure on his diary, he decided to take our 2 week total immersion course at our preferred language centre in Belgium, followed up by a 6 month course on his return designed to consolidate and expand on what he had learned.

From a start of some very ancient, rusty, schoolboy German, he is now coping well with his colleagues in Germany, many of whom have no English at all, especially those at a senior level.

The British subsidiary of a US software firm had installed a highly sophisticated stock control programme in a leading Spanish supermarket chain. Minor faults can be diagnosed and rectified from the UK via the telephone line.

At night, warehouse staff in Spain spoke no English. Help-desk staff on duty in England spoke no Spanish.

The company used us to train a 4 man team to speak Spanish by means of a 6-week accelerated course, in their offices in Bracknell, at times that interfered least with normal working patterns.

After 80 hours’ intensive tuition, the team took the LCCI (London Chamber of Commerce International) exams and achieved 1 distinction, 2 credits and a pass. None of them spoke any Spanish at all at the outset.

Case history 5– Languages as a team-building exercise

A main UK call-centre of one of the UK's major banks decided to offer its employees free 1 hour drop-in language sessions at lunchtimes in 3 languages. The firm came 10th in the FT's list for firms delivering employee satisfaction, and the languages' programme was cited as one of the major contributing factors. It delivered a high degree of value to the individual employee at a very low cost per head to the company.

A major multinational IT firm based in the Thames Valley runs a 24 hour global help-desk operation. Call centre staff in UK receive calls from anywhere in the world and are recruited partly because of their linguistic skills, which they are encouraged to develop and diversify by learning other languages. Language learning is hence very much part of their on-going responsibilities.

All staff in the unit are regularly audited to ensure that progress continues to be achieved, as is true of all students learning with us.

The HR director of a major company in the telecommunications sector, with a substantial British operation, decided that he needed to improve his already good English and also achieve a better understanding of British business culture, management styles and working practices. Over a period of 18 months this enabled him to negotiate and implement some sensitive major changes within his organisation which he said would not have been possible for him without our training and briefing.

The company offers high-tech, short-cut solutions to manufacturers world-wide, and perceived a major market opportunity in mainland China. Selected members of its sales team were given intensive and extensive lessons in Mandarin (spoken and written) and were able to achieve significant penetration in their chosen market over a 5 year period. Often, commercial advantage was derived merely from the team's ability to understand what their opposite numbers in China were really talking about – in Mandarin !

Case History 1 - New world-wide employment terms and conditions - and fast !

We won this 16 language, 100,000 word job by competitive tender with a world famous US telecoms and systems giant who needed to get new terms and conditions of employment out to its employees world wide quickly, as a result of ownership changes. We finished the entire job in 5 working days from winning the contract, including having all the finished target language versions checked, which were then uploaded to the company's own intranet.

Sometimes the best way to tell people how to use a new suite of IT programs world-wide is by an email-able audio visual presentation, as was the case with our world-wide IT client. We translated and localised the target language back-up texts, using translators with expert IT knowledge because of the technicality of the subject-matter, for each PowerPoint slide and then provided the voice-overs for all 8 languages involved.

Our plc client works very successfully in the outsourcing business throughout Europe. Each year, representatives from top management and the works' councils of each national operation meet to hear the company's results for the past year and plans for the years ahead. We have provided the ad-hoc interpreters and the multi-lingual translation service for the ensuing papers for a number of years.

Sound booths, audience head sets, multi-lingual sound loops, full speaker and roving mike systems and, of course, simultaneous interpreters working in pairs gave this local authority's multi-national, multi-lingual conference a considerable boost and quite definitely improved its standing and image in the subject field of the conference. We provided the whole catastrophe and did all the conference paper translations following the event.

Our client had sold a very high-tech high speed coastal patrol boat to a Middle Eastern police authority via a dubious local intermediary, and the deal had gone badly wrong. We inserted our translator and interpreter into the conversation loops by email and by phone, and the matter was very speedily resolved, to the satisfaction of both parties, thereby avoiding our client having to make costly visits to sort out the mess.