Later this year, two long-standing German language service providers (LSPs) will officially merge. Flexword and precise! — the boutique translation agency it will purchase in July 2023 — have already begun working together, with common IT system upgrades and other training and development projects already underway.
Flexword’s Managing Director, Goranka Mi-ak, told Slator that we expect double-digit revenue growth again in 2023, as we did in 2022.
Mi-ak noted that both LSPs had been in the German translation industry for three decades and were familiar with each other prior to the arrangement. Flexword has been looking for strategic partners for several years now, she explained.
The two companies, both situated in Mannheim, in southwest Germany, complement each other in terms of services, quality standards, and team outlook, according to the MD.
Exact!, which will keep its own brand, specializes in English-German language pairs and serves customers from a variety of industries, including marketing, communications, banking, law, science, and technology. Meanwhile, Flexword serves customers in the biological sciences, engineering, and legal industries, including Roche, Fresenius, and Dentsply Sirona, in a greater range of languages.
Both firms use a variety of third-party translation solutions, such as Trados, Plunet Business Manager, MemoQ, Across, and a variety of machine translation (MT) engines. “We are investing in the implementation of tested, newly approved AI technologies,” Mi-ak said.
Martin Gundlach and Gritt Mückstein, exact!’s co-MDs, will step down as part of the transaction, with Mi-ak taking on the additional job of exact!’s MD. With a third partner, Marco Kamradt, Grudlach and Mückstein also run Docuwerk, a technical documentation and translation company.
Exact and flexible! have 60 staff working across admin and project management jobs and rely on the skills of an additional 100 contractors on a monthly basis.
