Exclusives

For more than 30 years now, Prague-based translation firm Presto has been providing high-quality translation and interpreting services in more than 70 languages to more than 30,000 customers.

With a team of more than 4,000 translators and experts, the company provides focuses on the central and eastern European markets, included Czech, Slovak, Polish, Hungarian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Croatian, Slovenian, Serbian and more.

Presto CEO Milan Havlin spoke with MESA about juggling its many services and language offerings, what’s most in-demand today from clients, and what the future holds for both Presto and the translation industry.

MESA: How did Presto first come on the scene, and what makes its services unique in the media and entertainment space?


Havlin: I originally started Presto in 1990, as a small family-run translation service. Since then, we have gradually expanded in all areas – numbers of employees, volume and scopes of services, languages and industries catered. Eventually, we got experience all over the Central Europe, and that gives us unique perspective in the market.

The expertise in the area is unmatched and covers wide range of topics. That is made possible by the continuous adoption of new software, we are always looking for new ways how to make our production quicker, smoother, and simply better.



MESA: Translation services, interpreting, localisation, subtitling … Presto’s offerings run the gamut. How does Presto keep pace with competitors in offering each of these services?


Havlin: It’s not an easy task, that’s for certain. What helps the most is to keep open minds and always eager to learn about new solutions and technologies. I take my pride in the fact that our team is just like that, always ready, helpful, friendly, and always willing to do something new.



MESA: On the localisation side, what are the biggest challenges with offering so many different languages?


Havlin: In my opinion there are two aspects, where is the biggest challenge. First is obviously the time constraint. We see the fast pace of the world everywhere nowadays, and localization is no different. That in turn affects the second elephant in the room: how to maintain the high quality of the output in such short time? There is no single answer to this question, and we always go for the individual approach, to find the solution which fits our clients the best.


MESA: For subtitling and AV, what do you see as the most in-demand needs for clients?



Havlin: We have been working on TV series and movies for a long time, and that still continues. However, recently we perceive spike in other materials, like advertisement and marketing in general, but also longer forms, like conference recordings, internal corporate media, and e-learning courses. That makes the already diverse range of services even more varied, and I am quite excited on what the future will bring.


MESA: What are some of Presto’s favourite use case stories to date, where media and entertainment companies made great use of your services?



Havlin: There are quite a few interesting stories over the years, it’s hard to pick one.

But my personal favourite is the work for one of the largest video game companies, where we have been handling many different games for around 20 years, and the community of our linguists and voice over artists has changed considerably through that time, but the love for gaming is universal among them.

It’s just so nice to see. And to give some from other kind media, couple years ago we were approached by a company, who needed to localize vast quantities of subtitles for various titles.

At that moment, the teams were allocated much differently, and needed to adjust on the run, quickly adopting new software, different workflows, and onboarding new linguists. Within the first month they formed a completely new division in Presto, while also still maintaining the output for the client. They are currently a staple in our structure – as is the client. Success in my book.


MESA: What’s next for Presto, what advances in your M&E industry offerings do you see on the horizon?

Havlin: We continue to monitor the requests of our clients, and what they need, while still maintaining focus, on our main strength – the central European region, deepening our understanding and broadening our service scope in that area. Among others, we are dabbling in numerous AI implementations, be it voice to text or even the other way around, as the use cases are quite exciting, especially in the shorter formats.

The future is an open book, and I look forward to writing down some chapters with MESA.