Tell us little bit about your self
Tarun Agrawal, Alchemy Translation: I completed B.Pharm in 2008. After that I wanted to do MBA in international business. I was studying Spanish as well. I always knew that language is required if you want to do international marketing & language could serve as added advantage. I started learning Spanish. While learning Spanish I came to know about field of translation. Many company did not know about translation services being done in India. Most of the activities were done from outside agency. Slowly I came to about this & from 2010 I started my own company. Because I know many foreigners & I came to know lot of people who know language & translation. Slowly I started building my network. Being a pharmacist, it is easy to approach pharma company. Give them assurance & better service. I started with Ranbaxy. Ranbaxy was our first client. Then Glenmark joined us. We worked with Sun Pharma, Cipla, Lupin, Aurbindo, MSN, Hetero.
How you thought of starting a translation company being a pharmaceutical background?
Tarun Agrawal, Alchemy Translation: I always wanted to do something different which no other companies were doing because there is lot of completion. I wanted to do something & this do not require heavy investments early on. That’s why I thought let’s start, it works then it works, if not then I do not lose anything.
There are other agencies in this field but I am being in Ahmedabad there are not so many much agencies here. Most of agencies are in Mumbai, Delhi. This was kind of novel concept for Ahmedabad.
How Translation activities are helping Pharmaceutical companies?
Tarun Agrawal, Alchemy Translation: Most of the pharmaceutical companies in India are export oriented. Exports are done in Africa, Europe, Latin America, China, Japan. Translation of certain documents like SmPC, PIL, COPP, FSC, license copy, Dossier, DMF, BMR, BPR are required. When pharmaceutical companies registered their product in certain countries, all these documents are required to be translated. Some of the countries require translation of SmPC, PIL while some require translation of BMR, BPR or some require translation of DMF & Dossier. It depends on regulation. We help them in translating these documents. They do not have to go anywhere. Once we give them translated documents then they can register it. Earlier, companies need to pay heavily to their consultants who are sitting outside India. Even they cannot follow up with that consultants.
For example, we work for one big Indian Pharma Company for Spanish translation. Earlier they were doing translation in Mexico & that translation would take around 6 months. We give them in 40-45 days. Their process is getting speed up because of us.
How many languages your company is working on?
Tarun Agrawal, Alchemy Translation: We translate all the languages. Being it a European language, Asian language, Latin American language.
How you ensure quality in translation?
Tarun Agrawal, Alchemy Translation: We make sure that translation is done by native translator. They are based in their country. All the translators are graduate or master in translation studies. This is the minimum criteria. All the translators are required to have 3-5 years of experience in handling pharmaceutical documents. Once they translate the documents then it is checked by subject matter expert, who is based in that country only. After this two rounds, it is once again checked by our internal resources, who is having experience in regulatory affairs. We check the flow of documents, we check proper pharma terms, whether terminology used is correct or not. This is the way we do it. It goes through three eyes before it is handed over to customer. We make sure that people from pharmacy background is working on the documents from start till end. For example, Submission is for Europe, then we check that whether documents are as per QRD template or not. We will take care of formatting as well. We have in-house formatter who is full time employee as well.
Are you targeting only Indian companies or are you targeting companies outside India as well?
Tarun Agrawal, Alchemy Translation: Our clients are most of the Indian pharma companies. We have client outside India but they are not from pharma background. We have clients from IT back ground from USA. For pharma we trying for European clients but European clients trust more companies which have their offices in Europe.
Do you have any plans to open office in European countries so you can reach to your European clients?
Tarun Agrawal, Alchemy Translation: May be we can find somebody who can help us, like local person. We are always open for tie ups.
Coming to the business part, how much growth you are witnessing year by year?
Tarun Agrawal, Alchemy Translation: Percentage wise it is difficult. Our first year earnings were around 20,000 USD. Last year we reached around 75,000 USD revenue. This growth is in 10 years. Every year it is difficult to give growth percentage but it is 20-30% percentage every year.
Are you open for investment from investor like angel investor or venture capital which could help you to scale up your business?
Tarun Agrawal, Alchemy Translation: Sure. If we can get good opportunity, we would like to expand. If we can get investor who can help us in expansion, then for sure. Currently, we have limitations by staying in India. If we can get investor who can help us in getting big clients outside India, then we are ready for that opportunity.
If someone ask you why should I use your services instead of translator tools available online?
Tarun Agrawal, Alchemy Translation: Online tools does to know where to put which words. Online tools are good for some of the European languages & not all the languages. We always give them options to try online tools but any pharma company who has reputation at stake will not go for online tools. Biggest Translation company is having around 1 billion dollars in revenue so if translator tools are such accurate then no agency would be surviving. Translation does not cost that much. Document like leaflet cost around 5-10 thousand rupees so any company would not risk their reputation for a such small amount.
How did you manage to work during Covid time last year?
Tarun Agrawal, Alchemy Translation: It was pretty tough like working from home. Managing all the things. Additional responsivity of managing family but thanks to my team they could manage it. I could not spend that much time with team as before the corona. My team was quite supportive. Everyone manage each other’s work. Work did not suffer. As such our work is more on computer so physical presence in office is not required.
There was no interruption in your services to client during Covid times
Tarun Agrawal, Alchemy Translation: We always provided support to our clients. Even before the covid times, we sometimes used to work on Sundays as well. If our clients have any problem they used to call us on Sundays, late nights. Many time we have send email at 4’o clock in the morning as well. There were no setbacks with regards our services during the Covid times.
How see your company in next two-three years? Where do you want to reach?
Tarun Agrawal, Alchemy Translation: We would like to set up office in China at least. We would like to open office in Europe as well but Europe is little bit tough to crack it. China now have opened the market. Last year our work for china translation was pretty good. Recently, China have opened to foreign pharmaceutical companies so work for China will grow exponentially. First target is to open office in China. Currently, we are in top five translation companies in India. My goal is to reach on top.
