It was a bold but calculated gamble. Elizabeth Elting and Phil Shawe staked everything they had on the belief that the need for communications services would grow dramatically as the world economy became increasingly interconnected.

That was 18 years ago. Today, their company, TransPerfect, is the world’s largest privately held provider of language and business services, with offices in 65 cities on five continents and production hubs circling the globe. As co-CEOs, Elting and Shawe continue to run its day-to-day operations.

“From the start,” Elting says, “we have dedicated ourselves to providing the very best client service possible. Meeting our clients’ needs to communicate effectively in any language and any medium has always been our highest priority.”

Quality control is also of paramount importance, and TransPerfect has the most rigorous quality management measures in the industry, investing in world-class quality control systems and holding an array of certifications, including ISO 9001:2008 and EN 15038:2006.

TransPerfect’s clients include leading firms in virtually every industry – from automotive and consumer brands to legal and financial services to pharmaceutical and healthcare companies.

“We have the ability,” Elting says, “to serve any organization that participates in the global marketplace, whether they need to communicate verbally, in document form or electronically. It is our goal to provide the highest quality translation services and technology solutions that meet the needs of every division across the enterprise: financial, legal, advertising, research and product development, human resources, corporate communications and technical publications. We hire the highest-caliber linguists, place them in the industry’s leading quality control process, which has been refined over our 18-year existence, and then leverage cutting-edge translation-related technologies to deliver global content to our clients in a cost- and time-efficient manner. We pride ourselves on our ability to keep pace with our clients’ ever-changing requirements surrounding global content.”

According to Elting, the company’s many locations make it convenient for most clients to meet with an account executive in person. The benefits of having someone sit down with you to figure out how to achieve the best solution to meet your needs and budget cannot be overstated, she says.

TransPerfect is large enough to meet every need in the realm of global content and flexible enough to do so in the way that best serves the client’s interests. In addition to standard translation jobs, the company specializes in providing customized solutions, using the best subject-matter experts for each industry.

A mobile phone software provider, for example, needed a list of potential Internet search terms that people in Western Europe might use to find links on a specific topic. Recognizing that the terms used in the U.S. were not necessarily the same as those that would be used in the client’s target markets, TransPerfect assembled a team of copywriters to create a list of terms in English that reflected the cultural preferences of people of each target country. The final step was to localize the mobile phone search engine glossary.

Looking back to TransPerfect’s earliest days, Elting says she and Shawe had no idea how rapid and complex the evolution toward a global economy would be. New communication technologies developed seemingly overnight, she recalls. “In today’s world,” Elting says, “information moves very quickly around the globe. One slip, one misunderstanding, and a critical business goal could be jeopardized or a liability could be created. Businesses need to select a translation provider with a proven track record in their industry. In the arena of international business, the stakes are simply too high to do anything less.”