In its annual report London-based RWS Group said that its sales grew by 13.7% to ₤40.8 million (roughly US$80 million). Profitability before taxes and goodwill amortization grew 21.55% to ₤9.04 million.

The company has 2 businesses: its translation group specializes in patents, while its information development division offers patent search retrieval and monitoring services. Unique among its competitors, RWS does not use any language management technology to process its work. Instead, it relies on good professionals with scientific degrees dictating translations that are subsequently transcribed. This is proof that you don’t need technology to be profitable and grow, just good service and good clients.

• Challenges: Even though RWS still has a lot of room to grow its services for the the patent business, it is a limited market. And the appeal of its high-quality high-price services may not travel well to other market segments.

• Opportunity: RWS could break away from its high concentration on the Geman-English language pair and carve niches for high-quality high-price in other language pairs. Fortunately for RWS, discussions for a single EU-wide patent have reached a stalemate and its prospects are receding.