UK: LANGUAGE LESSON LEADS TO FAST TRACK IN THE SINGLE MARKET.

A costly translation error led an entrepreneur to an EC enterprise plan.

It cost £2 million to teach Giles Trentham the value of European language skills. During the mid-1980s he was involved with an, until then, highly successful British software company which was just starting its first serious attempt at Continental expansion. The £2 million that vanished was the value of the contract the company lost with Philips of Eindhoven when they carelessly failed to check the translation of the explanatory literature that went out with the product, and sent it off riddled with embarrassing errors.