Feb 14, 2009

Tables for estimating job volumes

Anil Gidwani is a software engineer and German to English translator. Like me, he's fond of analyzing data and finding or creating tools to help him plan his business. One of his recent efforts in this regard involves creating Excel tables to show the relationships between weekly translation volume, word price and income as well as weekly volumes, the number of words per job and the number of jobs per month. A description of his efforts as well as the two tables can be found here.

Such quantitative analysis isn't for everyone, though for those who prefer more than a guess and a prayer in their planning it can certainly be useful. And as "obvious" as the principles and content of these tables are, I never made the effort to build the tables myself, because I usually calculate numbers like that in my head. However, seeing all the data in a well-organized table is more helpful. Thank you, Anil.

1 comment:

  1. Excellent table, thanks! As a semi-geek and Excel table lover (business school will do this to you), thanks to Anil for creating this and to you for passing it on. Just like you do, I can certainly do the math in my head that translators who charge significantly less than I do have to work many more hours to earn the same amount of income, but seeing it in a table makes it even more clear!

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