The new VIP partner of the B2B.RU open barter system—Alpha & Omega Translation/Interpretation Agency—was founded in 1991 by two career officers and military interpreters Michael Bulygin and Aleksey Gudimenko. 

Alpha & Omega President and CEO Michael Bulygin, a graduate of the Defense Language Institute in 1975 and a professional linguist, has a perfect command of English and Arabic. During his student years and after his graduation, Mr. Bulygin gained broad practical experience working as a military interpreter amid armed conflicts in Africa and the Middle East. His interpretation services were used by such well-known politicians as Muammar Gaddafi, Yasser Arafat, and Sam Nujoma. 

When most military interpreters found themselves on the sidelines after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Michael Bulygin decided to start a business of his own. So, this is how Alpha & Omega—one of Moscow’s first private translation and interpretation agencies—appeared. Since then, the market has gradually expanded with more and more participants emerging on the scene, but the Agency has invariably remained among the market’s top five since 1995. Alpha & Omega’s excellent reputation among its colleagues can be evidenced by the fact that its President and CEO, Michael Bulygin, was elected as Chairman of the National Guild of Translating Companies, when there arose a need for establishing such professional association. 

At present, Alpha & Omega arranges translations and interpreting from and into more than 50 European and Oriental languages and offers services provided by more than 500 highly skilled translators and interpreters. The interpretation services for the English language alone are covered by 150 specialists.  

The Agency’s primary customers are large and medium businesses. Among Alpha & Omega’s current regular customers are such organizations as the Government of the Russian Federation, Central Bank of the Russian Federation, Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs, European Commission, Interpol, L'OREAL, Ernst and Young, Gazprom’s  numerous divisions, 12 companies spun off from former RAO UES of Russia, ROSBANK, Norilsk Nickel, ONEXIM Group, ALROSA, to name but a few. Most new customers apply for the Agency’s services on recommendations, while the lion's share of first-time clients place repeat orders or enter into long-term agreements for services. Some companies have cooperated with the Agency for 10 years. 

Alpha & Omega’s key operating principle is to provide excellent translation and interpretation services for adequate prices. The Agency unequivocally prioritizes high quality, rather than cheapness, of services. The fact is that the translation and interpretation market is oversaturated with participants, but only some of them can really guarantee high quality services. Unfortunately, nearly half of linguistic company managers are no professional linguists having linguistic intuition. Such managers have no way of knowing the professional level of their recruitees and, therefore, cannot control the quality of their work. As a result, translation and interpretation services are provided by students or employees of doubtful professional reputation, whereas a translation agency’s reputation is the only guarantee for high quality. Small test translations cannot guarantee that the entire work would be done well, as many companies can offer adequate quality for two-page translations done by the best specialist on a team. Few, however, can within a week generate immaculate translations of a book or a report containing several hundred pages. For Alpha & Omega, such projects are quite feasible, as they can be split into parts to be translated by several top professionals. 

Alpha & Omega understands that the translational quality depends on translators’ proficiency. Therefore, its specialists are paid somewhat higher than average in the market. On the other hand, the Agency’s applicants have to follow a very rigorous selection procedure, with only a few of a hundred of applicants recognized as adequately proficient. Alpha & Omega’s managers and editors never compromise on quality. Literary editing is obligatory. When negotiating extra large and sophisticated projects, Alpha & Omega managers try and persuade their customers to allow some extra time for translation and editing, but even huge projects are never ever handled in a slipshod manner. 

So, what is translational quality and why does one need high quality translations? The answer is sometimes obvious. Errors in the translation of official documents or technical materials (for example, design documents) may lead to serious problems. Any terminological or semantic inaccuracies must be prevented. Misunderstanding due to inaccurate translation, however, may arise even in informal documents. For example, the English word “concern” may be translated as “a commercial company or enterprise” and “anxiety, worry.” It would seem that the difference between the two meanings is obvious, yet not so to some translators, unfortunately. Let us have a look at another example, showing a more challenging translational case. A certain degree of discernment to see the difference is required when translating such words as “management” and “governance.” The former term deals with the operational control of a company on the part of a company’s administration, while the latter denotes the control on the part of a company’s shareholders. A skilled translator, who is well versed in the subject matter, would always be aware of the difference and, if necessary, would spend some extra time to scrutinize the context in order to give a semantic, rather than just literal, translation. On the other hand, mechanical substitution of words, which second-rate translators tend to do, may well lead to misapprehensions and eventually tarnish the image of a customer in the eyes of its counterparties. Alpha & Omega employees regularly deal with having to correct poor quality translations done by other entities, so they are well aware of what financial and reputational losses may oftentimes be incurred by trying to economize on translational services.

 
What brought Alpha & Omega to the B2B.RU open barter system was not only the interest in new trade and financial technologies, with not yet so strong competition, but also the following reasons:

Firstly, the System, owing to the fact that inside money—B2B Money—is used, attracts more clients, who now due to the apparent costliness of services exercise caution and are afraid to use the services of translators of authority. As a matter of fact, parting with “barter” money is easier than with cold cash, while an increasing number of clients will, in its turn, attract more top translators.

Secondly, barter is a good opportunity for building loyalty. People will have a chance to evaluate the actual level of services provided by Alpha & Omega. The Agency’s operational experience shows that, having tried once, clients will come again and again for services, paying for them both by way of barter and with cold cash. In fact, it is it very difficult to give a verbal description of what a brilliant translation looks like, while the first-hand experience would make any explanations superfluous.  

Thirdly, the Alpha & Omega management counts on additional promotion of its services through the B2B.RU system, as “word of mouth” works perfectly well with businesses where good repute is valued above all else. 

Alpha & Omega Translation/Interpretation Agency is currently offers B2B.RU participants the following services: 
• Written translation
• Consecutive interpretation
• Simultaneous interpretation
• Editing and literary adaptation
• Notarization and apostillization
• Desktop publishing
• Translations from video and audio carriers
• Text translation and website localization
• Translation quality assessment