About us

Qualitätssprachendienste Deutschlands – a movement focusing on quality

The Association “QUALITÄTSSPRACHENDIENSTE Deutschlands (QSD) e.V.” was founded in the spring of 1998, at the suggestion of the EUATC (European Union of Associations of Translation Companies).

The members of QSD as a whole play an important role in the German translation market. Among their customers are medium-sized and large companies with international business, including the German DAX companies, industrial customers, as well as banks, IT companies or manufacturing companies.

Since being founded, QSD has represented the interests and the opinions of the German translation industry, and thus of German translation companies within the EUATC. The principal tasks of QSD include strengthening professionalism in translation work and creating a lobby for the strongly expanding sector of language services within the globalised economy.

QSD e. V. has brought together quality-conscious translation companies with their own audited quality assurance systems certified according to DIN EN ISO 9001 or ISO 17100, or proven quality assurance in line with the QSD quality guidelines. Where no quality management system is in place, the Association provides the opportunity for new members to prepare and implement these or other comparable quality assurance systems.

QSD seal stands for certified quality

Membership in QSD and the QSD seal are a sign of quality, since all members must undergo an audit process before being admitted to the association. Once they have been admitted, they are given authorisation to advertise their services with the QSD seal. In other words, the QSD seal may be used on their website, their stationery or their business card. It is a sign of certified quality and goes hand in hand with the association’s public relations measures.

In its quality-oriented policy, the Association is not seeking to create barriers, but intends rather to disseminate awareness of quality and to achieve a better understanding of the complex problems involved in translation work. In particular, the Association seeks to achieve this by taking a public position with regard to critical, and not always unjustified, opinions of translation services expressed by those commissioning work.

QSD welcomes all German translation companies committed to enhancing the image of the sector and further improving the professionalism of the translation industry through a continuous process of improvement. It actively promoted the development of the next generation of interpreters and translators, and achieving better communication between all parties involved in the translation process.

Due to growing demands on the industry and needs, the association has also opened itself up to the target group of language services clients and the interested general public, since they are ultimately the target group for all language services. QSD offers professional information and consulting to clients on the benefits of working together with recognised translation companies.