Good language skills give SMEs the exporting edge

10 July 2008

Sterling's weakness against the Euro has made British prices competitive but more small businesses need to use the bridge of language to make the most of these opportunities.

This is the advice of Sue Clarke of PromoLingua, a Warwick-based language consultancy.

One in five Midlands exporting businesses admit they have lost business contracts abroad because of difficulties with language, according to figures recently released by the National Centre for Languages.

Furthermore, a recent British Chambers of Commerce survey found that 80% of English exporters could not competently conduct business dealings overseas in even one foreign language.

However, Ms Clarke said, small and medium-sized firms are waking up to the value of using linguists to give them better prices, deliveries and profits.

Speaking five languages, she founded PromoLingua to promote language skills in business. It places multilingual professionals into Midlands companies and supplies linguists from Spanish to Mandarin.

In the present downturn, she pointed out, solving language problems could make the difference to companies’ survival.

"It’s clear that there are financial benefits and sales opportunities that can be created abroad, so companies are screaming out for language skills," she went on.