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What Makes Our Global Vendor Network Unique Our story begins in the early years, from 1999 to 2004—culminating in our formal incorporation on September 9, 2002—when we worked with a small group of specialized technical and legal translators. Back then, vendor information was managed in its simplest form: details recorded on printed Excel sheets, neatly organized in a folder. |
The history of Alafranga Translation Services (ALS) traces back to our founding in 2002 near the 3rd Notary Public in Istanbul, Turkey. At the outset, we focused primarily on providing Turkish language solutions to local clients.
| By 2004, we had transitioned our vendor management system to Excel files, structured for quick searching, which marked our first step towards more efficient operations. |
Soon, we began signing annual contracts with both local and global enterprises based in Turkey. This milestone prompted us to broaden our linguistic coverage to include languages from culturally and geographically adjacent regions.
| In 2007, taking inspiration from platforms like Proz, we commissioned a custom web-based application that allowed multi-criteria vendor searches. |
Not long after, we joined the Association of Translation Companies (ATC) in the U.K. and implemented ]Project Open[, becoming the first Turkish translation company to do so, thus automating and integrating all our management operations.
| By 2009, we scaled up this vendor management system into a global online platform, reflecting our growing international footprint. |
That same year, we achieved EN 15038:2006 certification through a rigorous audit by Bureau Veritas, affirming our adherence to European quality standards for translation services.
| With an entirely new, blank vendor database in 2009, we introduced a structured, six-step online application form. Its comprehensive requirements helped ensure that only highly professional vendors successfully completed the process. Since then, we’ve averaged around 340 applications each year, culminating in a robust, carefully curated database of 5,100 qualified vendors. |
As our operations expanded, ALS formed a sister company—Alafranga Language Solutions FZ Enterprise (ALS FZE)—registered in the RAK Free Zone near Dubai, U.A.E.
| We introduced powerful search features for our project managers, allowing them to filter vendors by language pair, specialization, CAT tools, pricing, and historical performance notes, which streamlined decision-making and increased project efficiency. |