one big company based on one big vision

thebigword was launched in 1980 by Larry Gould, under the name of the Link Up Group. His intention was to offer the highest quality customer service across both recruitment and language services.

Streamlining increased our potential even further
In 1996 thebigword made a momentous decision. By selling our recruitment division, we were able to focus on providing language services alone and began to establish ourselves as one of the world’s leading global language providers.

As technology advanced, so did thebigword. We developed international teams and established secure, sophisticated systems and processes to effectively manage translation and localisation workflows. We were on our way.

The first language company to achieve a quality accreditation
A pioneer within language services we were the first company in the industry to achieve ISO 9001 certification. Since then, thebigword has consistently demonstrated its commitment to quality and accuracy, meeting and out-performing against quality and process standards across all industries.

World-class training and development programmes further ensure our people are the best in the industry. As a result, we were the first language services company to achieve the Investors in People Standard, and pride ourselves in finding individuals of the highest calibre to support our clients.

From 0 to 2,500 clients in 30 years
Larry’s vision was key to the growth and success of thebigword. It rocketed from a small UK-based service to a multinational corporation with a global network of 7,752 linguists working in 77 countries worldwide, across 53 industries.

Amongst the world’s top 20
In 2005 thebigword became one of the world’s top 20 translation companies, based on revenue and 2007 established us as the fastest growing language services company in the world, based on organic growth.

Next stop No.1
Our focus on developing tools to support our processes, speed translation and interpreting and save costs saw thebigword launch LanguageDirector® in 2007, an ultra-secure, web-based system for managing each element in the translation workflow process. Within twelve months LanguageDirector® was renowned as the second most effective translation management system in the world. To keep ahead, we constantly develop our unique system and we believe the new features introduced in 2010 will see us hit the number one position.

The future vision of thebigword is to be recognised as the world’s leading language services provider, supported by the best technology in the industry.