Reconnecting after Four Years – Day 2
After a night on the dance floor for our Plunet Party at the Berlin-style beer garden Birgit and Bier, everyone made it to our second day of the Summit, despite the endless party opportunities Berlin had in store for our attendees from all over the world.
Plunet Community Update
We started the day with an update on how our user community changed how our clients communicate with our product team and each other. Our community members and power users are the main drivers of its success, so we took the opportunity thank our most active contributors, Lieven Lannoo from Akira Translations and Jasmin Stolk from Surrey Translation Bureau. These members regularly share their knowledge with us and other Plunet users who are on a mission to continually improve their software usage.
Plunet Standard Features That Could Change Your Life – Zikit Translation Services
Staying on the topic of system improvements, our client Shany Orian from Zikit Translation Services took to the stage to show how to make the most out of your Plunet software by stepping up your data management game and providing next-level customer service. The best part? All of the features mentioned are part of our standard software. Highlights included the use of tasks, memos, and text modules to foster client relationships, as well as the advanced use of templates that allowed Zikit Translation Services to boost sales by offering multiple options with each quote. The session provided so many actionable tips that the audience filled out their take-away sheets in record speed. To summarize in Shany’s own words:
“We don’t want to lose any time or information. If somebody has already done the research on a client, we want them to document it so that the other person saves time.”
Leveraging Plunet to Turbocharge Your ISO Certification – Translation Back Office
From client relationships, we moved on to another favorite topic for language service providers: Quality! Or, more specifically, the different certifications that are available to authorize your internal processes. Translation Back Office from Argentina has been a Plunet client since 2017 and has leveraged the system to obtain 5 different certifications, including their ISO certification. In his presentation, Charles Campbell shared how the company accelerated their certification audit with Plunet and even had his Quality Specialist join via video to share valuable tips on high-quality documentation and process control.
Plunet Gym: The Workout You Need to Train Ideas – Stillman Translations
To continue the best practices trend, Carolina Li Gambi from Stillman Translations took to the stage next. The Argentinian native got everybody’s attention with some unmissable intro questions and shared how her company tackled a challenge that sounded very familiar to every language service provider (and everyone at Plunet as well!):
How do you come up with good ideas, even during the busiest times?
Continuous improvement should be part of every company’s agenda. However, it’s hard to dedicate space to detecting opportunities and improving processes at any level when everyone is busy with their daily operations. Nonetheless, Stillman Translations cracked the code to innovation and shared these practices with the audience, the most significant take-aways being the involvement of all team members and the 60-second rule when pitching ideas in management meetings.
“Training is important, and training our brain and body is equally important.” – Carolina Li Gambi
Ultimate Panel on Regrets
After a morning of best practices, we took a little detour and focused on the opposite: Regrets!
Everyone loves to share their success stories and best practices, but if we are honest, we mostly learn from our mistakes. Some can turn into successes, others cost time, nerves, money, or resources, and some might even change how we work for good. But they have one thing in common: they make us better in the long run if we learn from them!
That is why we invited a brave group of people to share a recent (big!) mistake and what lesson they learned from it by hosting our first “Ultimate Panel of Regrets”.
The stories ranged from painful to funny, including clicking on that spam email because it looked like the attachment that contained competitor’s rates, restructuring an organization one too many times, and taking the limitless customization options Plunet offers to such an extent that the system became too difficult to maintain. Each of the stories was brave, honest, and full of take-aways.
It was clear that the audience shared the pain, especially when our very own Rosa Lopez, Plunet’s Head of Product, shared her regrets regarding the release of Plunet 8, and what she and her team learned for future releases. The result is our Plunet 9 release, which would not be what it is without hard lessons learned!
Thank you to everyone who put their success stories aside for the afternoon and gave the stage to our ultimate regrets—we all learned something for the future!
t’works Group: A New Player Thanks to M&A – t’works
The learning continued with another guest speaker: Christian Enssner from t’works. He gave us an insight into his M&A strategy, and how the expansion via acquisition helped the company grow in scale and scope. This also better served their existing customers due to the additional resources and knowledge.
How to Become a Plunet Guru – Surrey Translation Bureau
Our last client presentation came from newly crowned Plunet Guru Jasmine Stolk from Surrey Translation Bureau, whose presentation matched the title she won at the Plunet Guru game the day before. She showed us what it’s like to be the Plunet System Admin in her company, and how the job taught her to juggle requirements from operations teams with the depth of the Plunet Admin section. She shared tips that helped her make her team’s life easier—which is the biggest reward for anyone working with software! Her biggest pride: cutting down project processing time significantly by setting up specific templates for a multi-lingual, recurrent project that, after her configuration, only needs 20 clicks from start to finish. Her presentation is a must-see for everyone who is a Plunet Admin or wants to become one!
“It is important to be flexible. You need to be able to wear many hats in the situation. You need to listen to different departments, listen to their different needs, and try to implement all of the ideas they want.” – Jasmine Stolk
2022 in the Language Service Industry – Nimdzi Insights
After a day of Plunet knowledge, we ended the event with a broader view. Josef Kubovský from Nimdzi Insights took the time to look back on the last few years and towards the future of the language industry in 2022 and beyond. He managed to get everyone excited for what’s yet to come! Covering everything from new trends, price increases, challenges, and opportunities, he ensured that every last attendee had at least one take-away to go home with.
If you want to learn more, head to our YouTube Channel to watch all of the speaker presentations, and enjoy our summary video that captured the most important moments, and, most importantly, the indescribable energy only our Plunet Summit has to offer.
