Utilities as a growth market

The German photovoltaic Q-Cells has entered the Japanese residential solar market. Once a foreign player enters the market, there are two possible dead-end options from a point of view of a non-native freelance interpreter here.

1. The domesticated player will have no need for interpretation.
2. The localized company may still have needs for interpretation at headquarter level, but this will be catered by internally, or sourced through agencies, in such case the foreign interpreter has essentially no chance to get the job.

There are examples of in-house non-native Western interpreters in big Japanese technical corporations. Spending years of in-house experience is a sure way to grow. However, for the standard and rare non-native independent interpreter in Japan, the market is basically located at the margin, at the level where entrants are still not residents but on business trip mode. It is one of the reasons why creating repeaters out of such fluctuating environment is tough. One must instead develop and rely on a high level of flexibility. The Tohoku disaster is having profound but hopefully temporary effect on this business dynamics. Utilities are a segment of potential growth market besides nuclear.