This year, Etrans reaches a milestone: sixteen years since the company was founded in Shenzhen in 2010. In an industry that has been transformed more than once in that time, longevity is not merely a cause for celebration but an opportunity to reflect on what has changed, what has not and why clients continue to trust us with their most important content.
From a local office to an international agency
The company began with a simple proposition: businesses in southern China needed reliable language support as they traded with the world, and the market was short of genuinely professional providers. In those early years, much of the work was document translation and on-site interpreting for exporters, law firms and manufacturers.
Sixteen years on, Etrans serves clients on several continents, works with more than seventy languages and has developed deep expertise in life sciences, legal, financial and technical communication. Alongside written translation, the company now provides simultaneous and consecutive interpreting, localisation, subtitling and multilingual desktop publishing, all coordinated through established workflows.
The constant thread: people
If one thing has remained constant throughout, it is the belief that quality depends on people. The company has built a network of carefully selected linguists, most of them native speakers of their target language, many with years of specialist experience before they ever work on an Etrans project. Project managers, reviewers and technical staff complete the team that turns source files into reliable finished products.
Our international credentials reflect the same commitment to professionalism. Etrans maintains membership of the Globalization and Localization Association (GALA), the American Translators Association (ATA) and the Translators Association of China (TAC), connecting the company to the standards and conversations of the global profession. We also treat development as continuous: established linguists are encouraged to deepen their specialisms, and internal reviews ensure the network keeps pace with the subjects clients increasingly ask us to support.
Technology, adopted thoughtfully
The technical changes since 2010 would have been difficult to predict. Computer-assisted translation, once a specialist's advantage, is now universal; machine translation has gone from curiosity to infrastructure; and artificial intelligence now participates in nearly every stage of the workflow.
Throughout these shifts, Etrans has taken a deliberate approach: adopt tools that genuinely improve quality or efficiency, never use automation as a substitute for professional judgement, and keep clients informed about exactly how their content is handled. The machines have changed; the standards expected of finished work have not.
How we work with clients
Principles only matter if reflected in everyday conduct, and our approach to client relationships is deliberately straightforward. Every enquiry receives a prompt, honest response, including an answer to whether we are genuinely the right supplier for the work. Quotations are clear about scope, process and assumptions rather than hiding qualifications in small print, and every project has an identifiable manager who remains accountable from the first file to final delivery.
We also aim to make the work easy on the client. Briefings capture expectations once rather than repeatedly, queries are batched sensibly, and finished files arrive in the formats clients actually need. For ongoing programmes, periodic reviews examine what is working and what should change, because a long-term relationship deserves the same attention as winning a new one. None of this is complicated, which is exactly why it is sometimes rare.
Gratitude, and what comes next
Milestones are first of all an occasion for thanks. We are grateful to the clients who have entrusted us with regulatory submissions, mergers, product launches and everyday communication across borders, many of them partners of many years' standing. We are equally grateful to the translators, interpreters, reviewers and staff whose skill and diligence define the company's reputation.
Looking ahead, the priorities are familiar ones. We will continue investing in our quality systems and security, deepening our specialist capabilities and making the client experience as straightforward as possible. International communication will keep growing in importance, and new technologies will keep arriving; the role of a trusted language partner will remain exactly what it was in 2010: to remove uncertainty and help people understand one another.
Sixteen years is a meaningful distance, but we have always treated anniversaries as a starting point. The next chapter begins now.