Case Study - Wolfestone Translation
Wolfestone Translation
After Wolfestone Translation’s Anna Bastek received the title of Swansea Bay Woman of the Year 2009 – an award created by the Swansea Bay Partnership - it led directly to a number of new business contracts, as well as a significant increase in profile for the company.
Wolfestone Translation provides a range of traditional and innovative translation services and aims to provide more than the average translation agency whilst raising the standards of the translation industry as a whole.
Wolfestone was set up by Anna Bastek and Roy Allkin in 2006, and has now grown to become one of South Wales’ success stories, with a 15-strong team in its Swansea headquarters, as well as additional staff working from its US and German offices and a network of 4,000 translators across the globe.
In 2009, the Swansea Bay Partnership recognised Anna’s hard work and success as a businesswoman by awarding her the prestigious title of Swansea Bay Woman of the Year. Anna said:
“The profile that winning the Swansea Bay Woman of the Year award gave the business led to a number of new business gains. It also gave us real credibility and led to a number of invitations to speak at events, which increased our profile even further. It was also fantastic to receive a number of letters of congratulation, some of which were from women who felt inspired by my story and who planned to make changes in their own careers as a result.”
Anna’s decision to launch her business in Swansea has been a large contributor to the success of Wolfestone. The company’s main competitors are based in major cities, and operating from Swansea has offered Wolfestone lower overheads in terms of office accommodation, services and staff costs. Anna also cites the links between academia and commercial businesses in Swansea as a key factor to making the business a success. She commented:
“Wolfestone now has strong links with Swansea University, which is one of the best universities in the UK for translation. We are heavily involved with the University’s Skills Lab, which gives students exposure to real life, commercial translation experience. By participating in Skills Lab we are able to help the university and its students and in return we are best placed to identify the very best graduates. I’m proud to say that 90% of our employees have come from the university.
“There are also numerous sources of funding for business in the area that are not available in other areas of the UK. We were fortunate to receive grant funding via the Welsh Assembly Government in a number of areas including training and software development.”
In the longer term, Wolfestone plans to expand its overseas operations. The US office has now opened, and the German office is growing steadily. Anna sees it as imperative that Wolfestone has a presence in all regions of the world as quickly as can be sensibly achieved, and current targets include India, the Middle East, China and Russia.
On what makes Wolfestone special, Anna says:
“The secret of our success is simple – we have excellent systems that are scalable, we achieve the highest standards of industry certification and we recognise talent and invest heavily in our people. We also work hard at making the company a rewarding and enjoyable place to work, which helps attract and retain the quality of staff that we need to deliver our exacting standards of customer service.”