LEEDS, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A new linguist booking system that will provide on-demand national coverage of qualified interpreters has been launched with the backing of thebigword, the world top-20 language services company.
Called ‘Poppy’, the system is relevant to all organisations that use linguists but is expected to be of particular interest to the UK's beleaguered justice system which has seen Court sittings delayed and halted due to a lack of professional interpreters.
Based on a collaborative network of language services providers overseen by a Professional Advisory Panel, Poppy provides seamless access to interpreters from multiple accredited organisations, including small enterprises, charities and the voluntary sector.
This provides a local service at national level and ensures that interpreters are appropriate to the task. The current issues of interpreters travelling unnecessarily long distances to assignments and not understanding local dialects and geography are overcome by using Poppy.
"We believe Poppy is the world's only collaborative and sustainable interpreting solution, with no single point of failure," says Larry Gould, language business entrepreneur and Head of the Poppy Professional Advisory Panel. "It is a fantastic example of driving and sustaining the localism agenda."
Eighteen months’ work and in excess of £1 million has been invested in developing Poppy to provide a nationwide interpreter resource, streamline booking processes, and reduce administrative costs to its users. Because Poppy is automated and imposes only a small standard booking charge to its partner organisations, the amount of money available to pay interpreters is significantly increased compared with current models.
At its heart, Poppy contains data on up to 20,000 interpreters from around 50 partner organisations. When a booking is received, the system selects the most appropriate interpreters and contacts them automatically. For the end user, the process is seamless, with one single point of contact for bookings, and all management information and invoice documents coming from a single source.
Larry Gould says: "We believe that Poppy is the only way that a single organisation can deliver face to face interpreters on a nationwide basis to a high and consistent standard. The current situation with the Ministry of Justice shows that a single supplier system with no backup simply doesn't work."