Our Philosophy

At QuickSilver, we often talk about ‘The impossible triangle of expectations‘: naturally, customers always want a very high quality of translation at a very low cost. Problems can arise, however, when they also want it delivered within a very demanding timeframe.

Sometimes we have to explain that the three elements of the impossible triangle are interlinked, and you can never have all three.

The more time you have for a translation, the better the final result will be. Tight deadlines work against quality, as both the translation and reviewing processes may be rushed. High volume of translation in a short time period also increases the cost as translation teams may need to be set up and this involves extra coordination, management and review time.

The key to managing expectations of quality, price and speed is to accept this compromise and to have a clear understanding of which aspects are most important in each case.

QuickSilver’s integrated approach improves all three aspects of the ‘Impossible Triangle of Translation’:

Integrated processes enhance the QUALITY of the final product by ensuring consistency across translations.

Integrated processes improve SPEED by streamlining the flow of projects and cutting back on transfer times between design and translation tasks.

Integrated processes ultimately improve COSTS by harnessing the potential of software applications and reducing labour-intensive processes. Clients enjoy cost savings thanks to:

- the fact that layout files are prepared for translation without the need for expensive design work;

- the re-use of original layout files (the design of the document doesn’t necessarily change over time, so why pay for it twice?);

- the repetition of segments already translated in the past.