Elizabeth Elting Elizabeth

In 1992, when the economic and global relations world was evolving, Elizabeth Elting had a hunch that there would be an opportunity for many in the rising economy. This was the time when NAFTA and European Union were quite new and fresh. At that time, Elting had just graduated after a Masters in Business Administrationdegree from New York University (Liz's Bio, 2013). Elting along with her boyfriend Phil Shawe found TransPerfect Translation. What started from a dorm room firm has now turned out to be the biggest and largest privately owned translation firm. (Blecher, 2009) Currently, the company reached a total of $250 million in revenue. At the moment, she has a total of 1600 full time employees in about sixty six locations all around the world. This business is the third largest language service company in the world and comes in the five womenowned business in the world (Woman of the Year, 2004).

Elting's first job was walking a child to school, delivering newspapers and babysitting. This shows that she was like the average American girl who went on by to cover her expenses. Her education comprises of a BA from TrinityCollege and a MBA from the New York University (Liz Elting, 2013). A major theme that Elting followed was to set goals in her business.

Background

Elting states that she started the business with only five thousand dollars with her as funding from credit cards. (2011) Elizabeth Elting started out by purchasing a computer that was forty dollars per month. The next step was that she bought a six hundred dollar fax machine which she used for the purpose of advertising. (Blecher, 2009) Seeing how Elting had to rent out her first computer shows that she was not in the best She wished that in six months, she wanted to move into the office space. With her first goal accomplished in the time frame she set, Elting had a feeling that this technique would work. According to Elting, the growth of TransPerfect was just a simple matter of establishing and achieving milestones and infiltrating into departments like litigation-support services and staffing according to the request of the customers (TLS Leadership Team, 2012). Along with the co-CEO of the company who is also her boyfriends, she has been able to finance everything, ranging from 10 minor acquisitions, most of which are situated outside America, and that too with cash flow. She has also stated in many of her interviews that she is satisfied with the way her business is going and that she does not have answer many people as there are no investors. Things are simple and easy for the two of them.

Even though Elting is now a successful businesswoman and is doing a great job in her field, it was not the same throughout. She started her business while she was still a student at the New York University and that too in her dorm room. It can be said that she did not have an idea that her business would flourish like it did. Since she had studied and was primed at different languages that included French and Spanish, she believed that she could use her skills and knowledge to open up a business. Initially, she only wanted to have a single shop but when she started providing quality services to her clients, there was more and more demand of her work and therefore she expanded her business to different areas and regions of the world (Executive Profile, 2013). TransPerfect now occupies four floors of the same building that is situated in NYC. These floors are nothing like the place where she actually started the business, the dorm room. The now lobby of their offices is decorated with the most stylish sofas. The business is now worth of $205 million and the company has employed around 1100 employees along with 4000 subcontractors...

As there was a 31% increase in the revenues from the years 2007 to 2008, she added another 365 employees to the company (International and Bilingual Staffing Solutions, 2008).
The projects of TransPerfect have grown along with the complexity and size of the company. The job for Novartis and Genetech involves the translation of about 1000 pages from French to English so that the drug Xloair could be submitted for FDA to approve and the other one for Simpson, which is a law firm.

Core

It is quite obvious that Elting had to come along way to the position at which she stands today. She had to work day in and day out to make sure that all her projects were submitted in time so that he clients were satisfied. During this whole process, she had to face a number of challengers. But if we classify these challenges, they would come under the category of sociological challenges. She did not really have to face any economic issues because at the start of the business, she was able to make a reasonable amount of profit. Her main focus was to make sure that she developed a friendly corporate culture with her employees as well as the customers. This is what it possible for her to achieve the required competitive advantage. She has been reported as saying that she always counseled her employees that if they want to get on the good side of the customers, they would have to listen and go beyond what the clients are asking for. This is not an easy goal to accomplish. As a matter of fact, some employees are very competent but do not have the stamina to go out of the way for the customers. This is the main challenge that Elting had to face since she had to take all the employees together on the same level and satisfy her customers as well (Buchanan, 2012).

Another challenge that she had to encounter during the progression and growth of her business was that she had to make sure that her clients are receiving the best quality service. At variousoccasions she has been reported as saying that her first and foremost priority was to provide services of outstanding quality to the clients. She also claims that this is the one goal that she accomplished and strives to accomplish that led to the success of TransPerfect.

Yet another challenge that Elting and her first few employees had to face were constant transition in which the company was. One can well imagine how much things must have changed at all levels; starting from a dorm-room to a multinational company. Elting states that the company and the employees had to adapt to the new phases and along with these phases, she had to changer her approach as an entrepreneur as well. However, she claims, she felt extremely happy and thankful that she was exposed to such a vast variety of opportunities and she could learn and grow along with her company and learn new skills of leadership and benefit her business from these skills.

As mentioned many times before, Elting went through a big transition during from the start of her business to where it is now. As the CEO of the company, she had to face many challenges; both as the head of the company and that one person who had inspire those who were working for her. Her leadership abilities from the business point-of-view were obviously not that mature when she started the business. Therefore, she had to make sure that her leadership also grows with the company. She now claims that throughout these years, she had to incorporate hands-on, collaborative and trusting leadership skills in her personality as the CEO of the company. She believes that it was essential for her to make these skills a part of her personality since they were…