Comfort is the enemy of growth

Igor Afanasayev 00:00
Hi, David, you're here and we see your screen already.

David Utrilla 00:04
Hi, how are you?

Igor Afanasayev 00:06
Doing? Good, how are ya? So? Well, this stance of that the comfort is the enemy of growth can be applied to pretty much anything. So I would really love to see how that applies to localization space. And I know that you are going to share some interesting stories from your, like, professional and personal life. So I'm, I'm all ears and the microphone is yours.

David Utrilla 00:31
Thank you, Igor. And thank you smartcard, for putting together these lock from work. From Home event. It has been fantastic. It has been I have been hearing the other speakers. And all of them have been wonderful. And I'm very grateful to Kate, for helping me with this. And I'm helping us all to connect, as well. Let me talk a little bit very quickly about myself. i My background is in International Business and Economics. I founded us translation company in 1995. I'm the current CEO of the company. During these 25 years in business, we have received multiple awards, including the Inc 505,000 work for fastest growing companies in America, we did receive these six times, which is something very, I'm very proud of. And as well, I also serve in multiple, international, national and also local boards, within universities, NGOs and corporations, I am also the according Honorary Consul of Peru in Uganda. So let's go to the topic of the of comfort the enemy of growth. This is a personal topic that I have experienced myself and my goal here is to share my experience with this and also share some stories that you can relate with is taking risks to create a path to success. And I want to emphasize a word path because it's not like a You do one thing and you get success. And then that's the end of the story, I feel like a success is more like a journey. And it's a path you have to walk and in that path there is challenges there is failures and there is there is a lot of changes changes on your on the people around you changes on on many customers that you'll be working with or changes in your strategy. So, um, those changes that happen to you by design or by by by way of life is that way if it can create discomfort, and I wanted to discuss that with you about what what what is that is that is happening there. First of all, one of the things that can create this discomfort that we have been talking about is technologies. And technologies can become your best friends or in many cases in order to adapt this technology can be very painful. However, the rewards can be great rewards, you may not see it at the beginning because technologies in order to adopt them. It requires you to invest, invest time and invest money and invest into motivating and convincing the team to also adapt this and to work and make the changes. You have to be curious enough to explore how your business can improve and be more efficient and be more productive. The next item is on the on the importance of challenging yourself and your team. Many times we feel like let's do one with let's bring this super amazing person that can be a salesperson, and then all of a sudden after hiring this person, we are going to be very successful in sales. And we are going to be become all very rich. That is really not a realistic strategy or approach and The truth is that you have to be very good multiple things. And that doesn't happen by you doing that yourself. What I'm trying to say is that you personally can be great, perhaps one or two things, and be probably okay, oh, good, I'm ready for other or six other things. However, when you put together a team, you and the team is diverse, you can have an in like a team members of your team. And they can do one or two things very great. And now you're having a team and a group of people that are doing 10 or 20 things at a very high level of greatness. So is is a team really what is going to take your company or your organization to the next level, and to add to help you to grow in many ways, of course. And the next thing I want to say is that success is achieved through your team. Again, this is not all about you, every every year, at the end of the year, we we we we update what we call our strategic plan. This is a strategic plan that goes for for three years. We do their changes. And some of the things that we discuss very often as part of these changes, is about potential challenges, potential things that can go maybe wrong for us. And if those things that we identify, go wrong, what do we do? How do we mitigate the challenge? How do we overcome these, this challenge that we have in front of us, and he's now all about talking about challenges, also, it can be a challenge can be what happens when we grow outside our capacity, what do we do on that regard. So success can be painful, too. And you have to plan for the for that as well. It doesn't come free. And I just want you to know that you can you can overcome all of these challenges easier if you do it as a team. To to illustrate some of the things I have been talking about, I would like to talk about this, the car industry is a 100 year old industry, that that hasn't evolved very much in the 100 years, except for the last five years. And the last five years, they have been the introduction of the electric vehicles. And the LED this electric vehicles have become a commodity and you have they have to receive a lot of traction. A lot of people have decided have been going after those cars for multiple reasons for environmental reasons. Because it's more cost effective. You name it. But it has created this, this market that desires, that type of vehicles. And yes, this is not something that is going to be here with us for the next few years. But it's going to be for the next many years to come. And as you can see here in this graphic, how, what was the demand in 2015 versus in 2020. And versus what is going to be in 2025. We also wanted to talk about within this car industry is that it's stepping outside your comfort zone. Because that means the car manufacturers outside Tesla, now they have to adapt, and they have to accept that this is the future. And they have to ask themselves a question can I survive? If I don't accept this technology change? Will this cannibalize sales for gas cars? What does this mean for the future of my company? Those are the questions that these car manufacturers are asking themselves. And here's a sample of some of them. Those companies are making these a big difference in the electric car manufacturing. Like Tesla, for example. Nikola the some of these cars, you may be familiar with Europeans. So as I was saying that, like cars, for example, like Ford Motors, they have invested $4.5 billion dollars into the tech to build this technology. We have also their Mercedes Benz $2 billion. So they can remain competitive, both buying and has done something similar to and of course General Motors to all of them have made a significant investment. They have made significant changes in their business model, and all so they can be remain relevant and they don't become so they don't become obsolete to the mind. Yes. That is something that I would like to share with you that happened to myself. I created this technology of remote simultaneous interpretation, would you have you have heard about that, during this conference, I did this technology three years ago, our good portion of our business was focused on, on doing on site live interpretation events. And we were doing that everywhere, not just here in the United States, but around the world. But we thought, uh, you know, what, there may be a need for some people to do this remotely, not all can go and make this flight to this event. Not all can be in multiple places at the same time. So we we created this remote platform. Three years ago, we did that we were very excited. And this, we started to offer this to our customers have no traction, what was the reply for our customers, they say, No, we all we this is we only do things in a remote way, I'm sorry, in a live on site way. And it's not going to be the same for us to do things virtually or remotely. So this great idea, these guys investment, basically, we encompass very much. We we actually geologists call with our what we were doing before, and we will consider these maybe not the right timing. But then COVID came, as you know, life events, they, they stop because we because of the population intolerance. And then that's why I thought, Oh, my goodness, this is the perfect scenario now for to have our our remote simultaneous interpretation solution. And, of course, within we need to make some changes within the within the platform, and we need to re do a branding. And we did all of that, for sure. And it took us about 90 days to do all of his work that he was needed. However, as a result of adapting to the circumstances that we were living, and we actually were able to complete and to is to see a 760 3% growth in your company, as a result of just offering that rather than basically being debt as a company. So this is something that I'm very proud of that we were able to adapt that quickly to the demand and the needs of our of the market. Something happens similar also in the translation industry. When I started this company 25 years ago, that was the big thing was translation memories. And I remember our translators, they were pushing back very hard, saying, Oh, this is not what we want. This is not what we need. And it was a it was a trip for them. And that's one thing we can see even today in the machine translation or with the with other other technologies, where we are kind of pushing back. The funny thing is the other amazing thing was that translation tools, like a translation memories and groceries became the best friends of translators, they were able to be to be to be more profitable, they got more work. And he was something that they really helped them a lot. There are some emerging technologies like speech enabled. Headless devices, semantic English content, machine generated content, here are many things that you have here to this conference that are there. What I will suggest to you is to be curious, be if you see something that you can implement, go for it be an early adopters, there is big rewards for those that are adopting technologies into their business model. Very, very, very quickly. embracing new technologies, challenge yourself and successfully achieve your team. Thank you very much. I hope to answer any questions that you may have.

Igor Afanasayev 14:17
Thank you so much, David. This was really insightful. We'll be waiting for questions in our q&a tab. Please, everybody, don't be shy and ask your questions. We have one which is not very serious, but still it was asked by two people simultaneously say already anyways. The question is, how in the world did you get the name like us translation company?

David Utrilla 14:45
Oh, that's a good question. Well, as I told you, I started this company 25 years ago. Where I was I was one of those I wanted to come up to be creative with a name and to I just did it and I time we have a domain name that nobody was taking it. Everything was there. So I wanted to be people in that in the United States to feel like, identify with us. And like that's how it is then, of course, we were part of this globalized world and I wanted to become more global. And people were telling me, I thought, actually, maybe I have to change my name now, because it's not about the US anymore. It's about the third world. But many people told me you know what, that's a good name. Keep it that we will like it. And that's how we will stay there. Hopefully you liked the name. I like it.

Igor Afanasayev 15:39
I love it. I love it. Don't don't change that ever. Okay, so. And everybody, everybody's like in the chat. Everybody says they love the name. So yeah, you're spot on. So you were talking a lot about technology and technology is usually is a disrupter right? So, you have some important events or some new technology emerges, and you are forced to do the like the next step and reshape your, your business and your like, focus on something else. Right. So what do you see as some like next technologies that can be such disruptors? What what are we have to be curious about, like right now to step out of our comfort zone and do some important steps to prepare for a future?

David Utrilla 16:30
Yeah, there is some technologies that doing automatic, like for example, captioning, and, and in multiple languages in simultaneous, I think that's a very important technology, especially in the world where we live, where we do everything like we are right now virtually conferences, where we are speaking and communicating, I think that is something that I will, I would like you to be looking into and be more curious about it. There is a need, there is a big demand out there. I think that's that's one that comes to my to my mind. Another one is that the things that has to do with the creation of content and using neural machine for that, or whether machine is learning how to create generate content to begin with, in the past, it was exclusively something that was done by a human being. And then you can use technology to translate that now there is there are things that are actually create a machine that is creating the content himself. And that is fascinating to me. So I will be curious on that those are the two things. But there are many other things not just in the language industry, it can be also applied in marketing, which is something we can use a lot marketing nowadays is being automated. Basically, the machine is doing it for you. And the machine is doing it even better and faster, and more effectively the person. So I would also think look into that how to market yourself and using automation for that.

Igor Afanasayev 18:12
Awesome, thank you so much. Before we go to the next question, can you please stop sharing the screen so we can see you? Yes, in full frame. And I think we have more questions here. So P people I don't know the full name of the person asks, voice localization is an emerging nursing service. I guess, like there's type of emerging service requests across industries. Is your company involved in that yet? David? Maybe?

David Utrilla 18:43
Yes. So I will say this, this is part of the capturing, I was talking to you about where there is a person speaking, it can be life, or it can be pre recorded. And then there is the the automatic translation on it. Now it's not 100% accurate. But it's getting closer, is it can get it can reach out to to a 95% depending on the language, but that's something that yeah, we are we are working on that. And we are seeing a lot of traction and our demand for that. More than ever, especially at this particular time where we are leaving because of the pandemic and because of the need of doing everything spiritually. Yes, that's something that you can intuit. That's the oh, this is exciting. That means more opportunities for all of us. That doesn't mean that more pertains to me as my company because I can tell you that this is something that I cannot do it on my own. This is something that everybody can be part of it everybody can benefit from it. And that's the beautiful thing of being in this industry.

Igor Afanasayev 19:57
Sorry, a very like your positive attitude right? So you're like interpreting industry specifically. And there are lots of technical advancements in terms of like text to speech speech to text recognition, like, all the different engines that allow you to automate pretty much pretty much anything. Right? Don't you feel scary about this new chapter in like technology advancements? You seem to be not, but what's, what's your what's your secret sauce?

David Utrilla 20:28
Yes, you know, the reason why I'm not is because of my experience in the past. As I say, in my presentation, 25 years ago, everybody was scared about trends about MTS, you know, or appearance I'm sorry, translation memories, all this is going to now this Rob, the whole industry, translators were feeling like, I'm not going to be able to make as much money as before. And because of the discounts, I have to give it repetitions is going to be less profitable LSPs are thinking the same thing. And basically, they will not embracing that. And then finally, when they will force also almost two, to embrace it, because of competition was embracing it, and they were early adopters, and, and you will now becoming more relevant, they did that. And then it became the best friend for LSPs. And also for translators. And we have seen this type of disruptions are not happening today have happened for many, many years. I've been in the business for 25 years. So I have seen multiple disruptions already. And this year, we are seeing even more, and in five years or 10 years from now, we will see even more than you can imagine, even so I will say be an early adopter. That is the secret for growth. It's okay to be not comfortable. Again, comfort, comfort is the enemy of growth. If you are in a place where you want to say this is a way I have done it, this is my business model. And I have done it this way for 10 years, I had big successful, I now want to make changes because of whatever reasons you may have. Be careful with that mentality, be open to changes and be fast agile, to adapt those to those changes.

Igor Afanasayev 22:22
Okay, thank you so much. So just before our talk, we were talking with Renato Benedetto about like finding your niche, do you think that finding the niche is a good strategy to like, step out of your comfort zone and do something different and succeed?

David Utrilla 22:36
Yeah, specialization is something very, very important. It is true, you cannot be best at everything I did say that in my presentation to an even if you put together a team where they can be very good, multiple things. The truth is that if you're a specialized, and you focus on on that area of the market, that wherever there is a need, you will be more successful, especially when you're doing marketing. If you become too general, then you make you may have general inquiries, you know, but if you become very specific, let you say that you want to go into the elearning market, you have to compose and you have to create content that will make you relevant to that particular industry, that you have authority in that industry. And where you can build you can create trust, though software is in that industry will feel I want to go with a with a Jewish translation, because they specialize in elearning. And they have been working on that for many, with many customers, when it clients that are competitors that we know, and I want to work with them too. So I agree on that. I will also caution however, this is the part that I will say too, is that I will not do only one area of specialization, I would like to choose three or four of them. I know that that is not a solicitation that does not focus anymore, but I will I don't want to see somebody focusing, for example, only on the on the restaurant industry or the hotel industry, because something like this happened like COVID and then you may not be in business anymore. So So I will say that, yes, we can focus but but is just just pick three industries or so. I think that's that's good enough.

Igor Afanasayev 24:42
Thank you. So I think we have time for for one more question, maybe two. So this one comes from Kevin Maguire. And Kevin asks you where do you see live events in six months, one year and the future a hybrid situation. So to expand on that the COVID Situation kind of allows you to reshape some of the things. So what do you see like the effect the aftermath of that?

David Utrilla 25:07
Yes, I believe in six in six months from now people will have people meaning that the event planners or the event organizers will have adapt already to what is happening, we can meet the need for conferences for live events is not going to stop, it's not going to be replaced either by virtual events, either there is there is going to happen. It may not happen in six months from now. But I will say that, you will see some hybrid events, I am already experiencing that today, where there is a hybrid of having a live event with the station, everything happening, but the audience is remotely working. So we have a gear, the equipment or things on the side, even interpreters there. And so for us, it's like being a life event, but the audience is not there. I feel that there will be audience starting to attend. As as things become as a vaccine come out. And then this becomes more like a normal we feel to adapting to a new normality. And but then a year from now, I don't feel strongly that we will see those life events that were causing happening again, that is doesn't mean that virtual events are going to be obsolete or going to be gone. No, I think virtual events are going to are here to stay and are here to stay for forever. They're not going to disappear. But live events also will happen at the same time. And this is a beautiful thing for sure.

Igor Afanasayev 26:53
Well, thank you so much, David. It was really insightful really inspiring and I love your energy about the topic that you're presenting.