Language skills spark export success

05/03/2007

Businesses employing staff with language skills are are able to achieve 44% more export sales than those that do not, new research has shown.

The findings from CILT, the National Centre for Languages, have shown a clear link between small and medium-sized businesses with language skills and export success.

Firms without staff who can speak more than one language are therefore losing a significant amount of business, according to the research. An estimated 11% of European small and medium-sized firms are losing business because of identified language barriers.

Businesses could utilise four areas of language management which are associated with successful export sales, CILT said. These include having a language strategy, appointing native speakers, recruiting staff with language skills and using translators and interpreters.

The report says that ‘a small or medium-sized entreprise investing in these four elements was calculated to achieve an export sales proportion 44.5% higher than one without these investments.

‘Furthermore, it is likely that there would be productivity gains from exporting which would wash back to the internal economy.’

Although English was identified as a key language for gaining access to export markets, the view that English is the best world language for business was questioned, as Russian, German, French and Spanish are also commonly used to trade.

‘Longer-term business partnerships depend upon relationship-building and relationship-management,’ the report says.

‘To achieve this, cultural and linguistic knowledge of the target country is essential.’