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As Wales’ largest county, Powys has had some notable industrial successes throughout its history. It was the birthplace of Robert Owen, the creator of the co-operative movement and the location of the first mail order business in the world – Pryce Jones of Newtown.

It is also where Laura Ashley, arguably one of Wales’ most famous entrepreneurs, chose to start her textile business in the 1960s which took Welsh fashion designs around the globe.

Given this business heritage, it is disappointing that, in terms of economic policy during the last decade, Powys has become very much the forgotten county of Wales.

For example, when Wales applied for European funding back in the late 1990s, Powys was omitted from the list of counties that was put together to make up the artificial region now known as West Wales and the Valleys.

As a result, not only did Powys then lose out on a share of the £1.2 billion of European funding made available to West Wales and the Valleys, but it also lost out on any assisted area status for the vast majority of the county with the notable exceptions of Machynlleth and Ystradgynlais.

This status is critical for companies wishing to expand their operations or for those inward investors looking to relocate as it means that a higher level of grant support can be given to a company setting up or expanding in an assisted area. As a result, maximum grant support of up to 50 per cent has been available within West Wales and the Valleys since 2000 whilst none has been forthcoming for any business wishing to relocate or expand within the majority of the county, including the main conurbations of Newtown and Welshpool.

The question, of course, is whether this failure to include Powys within the West Wales and the Valleys region has affected the Powys economy at all?

If we examine the economic data for the county, it does suggest that there has been a slowdown as compared to the rest of Wales.

For example, official data from the Office for National Statistics shows that Powys has now suffered a fall in economic prosperity (GVA/head) from 75.0 per cent of the UK average in 1999 to 66.1 per cent in 2007. This decline of 8.9 per cent compares with an overall fall in the prosperity per head of West Wales and the Valleys of only 1.9 per cent.

By the time the first round of Convergence funds via the Objective 1 programme was drawing to a close in 2007, the GVA/head in Powys in 2007 was £12,771 per head. In four of the counties receiving funding it was higher, namely Swansea, Gwynedd, Bridgend and Neath Port Talbot.

Indeed, whilst the economic prosperity of West Wales and the Valleys had grown by 41 per cent during the period 1999-2007, that of Powys had increased by only 29 per cent.

Given this, you have to ask the question why the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) did not make a case for Powys to be included in the second round of European Structural Funding for the period 2007-2013, which has resulted in an additional £2 billion of funding for the West Wales and the Valleys region?

Why didn’t anyone within WAG stand up for Powys during this time, especially given the fact that it had been overtaken in economic prosperity by other counties which still qualified for funding? Would it have been too difficult to make a strong case for inclusion and therefore access to vital funding for economic development?

Assuming that Powys would have had its fair share of the two European funding programmes, this exclusion has meant that the county has lost out on around £200 million of additional financial support for the economy during the period 2000-2013.

One can only imagine what such investment would have done for its prosperity during this time.

If the Welsh economy continues to decline relative to the rest of Europe, then current estimates suggest that the fifteen counties that make up West Wales and the Valleys may well qualify for an unprecedented third time.

If that does happen, then there is certainly a case to be made for Powys to be included in this next round of European funding and therefore gain access to funding opportunities that could turn around the economic decline suffered by the county during the last decade.

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You have gone to the expense of translating you website into a second and third language.  Are you are getting enquiries from the destination counties to make it worth the investment?  Is your website being found for the products and services you provide in those counter search engine?

Probably not!

Translating your website content to get listed on foreign search engines is the first step to increasing your international exposure.  You are considering the customers in those destination countries who use English as a second language but are you sending the right message to them?  Is the translation at a level of language that is suitable for the foreign visitor to your website?

It is not often the case and all depends on the Translation Agency you used or the translation technology you found on the internet that translated for free.  The literal translation of content can change the nuances of meaning and context of your copy when changed from one language to another.  There are many cases of this happening to dire consequences and often lost orders.  Literally ‘Lost in Translation!’

Lazy workersAn engineering company that wanted to open up the Chinese market had a long report translated into Mandarin by a native speaker – cheaper than getting a translation agency to do the work – the report was translated literally and it was published on their website.  In the first 9 months they did not get a single enquiry even though they could see from the website logs that there were many visitors to the translated page.  It was at this time that a Good Samaritan contacted the Engineering Company to ask why they were telling everyone that the engineering company had lazy workers and did not care about the customers.

Lost ordersAnother case was reported of a company that had provided an enquiry form in German for their customers in Germany.  After a period of intensive marketing they were receiving over twenty enquiries a day.  The sales team were dutifully deleting these enquiries because they thought the emails were spam.  They had not been informed by the marketing department there was a German version of the email enquiry from the site and to pass it to another office.

Inflatable toys!A seller of rubber dinghies had translated their website into French using his rusty schoolboy learnt skills.  The effect was good and they got a large number of visitors to the French pages in their website.  Unfortunately they did not get the corresponding orders from the site that should have expected.  On closer examination they had translated the content and used the term inflatable which thought was a French word. 

What he did not know was the word inflatable is a keyword for a blow up doll.  What he should have used was the term ‘bateau pneumatique’.  I can imagine the look on the faces of the users when they were presented with a Zodic (another term the French use for inflatable boats) not the subject of an episode of ‘Only fools and Horses’

When it comes to business, trying to shave the budget to get the job done cheaper can result in a waste if money and brand damage.  Use a Translation agency and get localised translation of your website.  Search engine optimisationKeyword research should also be carried out in the destination languages with experienced linguists who understand the importance of the keywords and phrases used by their countrymen.  Many of the sites that we see that have been translated have not catered for this and do not appear in the search engines of the destination country.

Be and expert use an expert.In summing up you are experts at your business.  Make sure you use an expert in the translation industry and search engine marketing industry to get the best for your business.  It could save you some embarrassment and a lot of money

Have a good week!