Do you often wonder what the advantages of outsourcing are? Are there any? How can the advantages of outsourcing benefit your business and it’s profitability?
To outsource or not to outsource transcription services?
Many companies, including law firms and real estate firms, are choosing to outsource transcription services because they understand and realize the advantages of outsourcing.
Services like audio transcription service requires huge investments if you want them in-house. Transcription is also a niche skill set. There are not that many people with the required skills and competence for transcription. When you consider the wages, benefits and overhead of a dedicated transcription department in-house it is very expensive for any company. This is why many companies are choosing to outsource their transcription needs.
The digitalization of the recording equipment, voice recognition, secure online connections and a skilled freelance labor pool has made the outsourcing of transcription an attractive option for real estate firms, professional firms and law firms.
Let’s take a look at the advantages of outsourcing transcription services to your organization.
At first glance, it would seem that opting to outsource transcription services would add cost to running your practice or decrease your company efficiencies. Not true. Advantages of outsourcing transcription services to a third party outweighs any perceived disadvantages.
5 advantages of outsourcing transcription services for your business:
1. You only pay for what you need, when you need it: Your transcription volume and requirement will fluctuate. Most companies will not need large volumes of transcription carried out on a regular basis. This leads to transcription volume peaks and troughs. This fluctuating nature of your transcription requirement means it’s difficult to ascertain how many in-house transcriptionists you need to transcribe. Keeping the least number of transcriptionists will mean they don’t cope in times of peak and keep enough transcriptionists to cope when your transcription volume peaks means your transcriptionists will be underused when the volume falls. So having an in-house transcription department is a bad idea.
Advantage of Outsourcing: You literally only pay for what you need as most transcription services only charge by the minute or by the line rather than the hour, and they are flexible in terms of capacity.
2. Outsourcing transcription saves money: The cost savings in outsourcing transcription instead of employing full-time transcriptionists in-house is significant. In the US a full-time secretary earns approximately $34,000 per year. Therefore, monthly expense on one full-time secretary is $2833 and this is excluding expenses on space, furniture, computer, electricity, Healthcare, insurance on this employee. Also consider this transcriptionist will take time off for annual leave and illness, and you could be looking at savings of more than 30% of the expense by using an outsourced provider.
Advantage of Outsourcing: An outsource transcription provider provides expertise and specialized skill at a fraction of the cost you would need if paying for an in-house transcriptionist.
3. Access to experienced staff: Transcription is not an easy job. It requires focus and attention to detail as well as a keen ear. Using less experienced staff can result in inaccuracies and delivery delays. Transcription expertise is a rare skill too.
Advantage of Outsourcing: Transcription companies are specialized service professionals. They are experts in transcribing audio to text. By using professionals you gain access to their skills and knowledge to give you a quality outcome. By using an outsourced transcription service, you’ll tap into a huge bank of experience for a small percentage of what you would otherwise have to pay.
4. Flexibility: Success in the your industry requires managing rapidly changing environments. Transcription providers give you the flexibility to meet these rapidly changing conditions. The challenges for businesses include varying transcription volume, different turnaround times for different projects and cases, adding new services and departments, contraction, report format changes, etc. These are a few of the curve balls a flexible transcription vendor can help your practice navigate.
5. Outsourcing transcription frees up time for your staff to develop other skills: Transcription is a specialized skill. Not every secretary or admin person can transcribe with accuracy and expertise. Most employees have skills that are better suited to other activities.
Advantage of Outsourcing: Outsourcing transcription means your personnel is used more efficiently and productively with minimal investment. This increases productivity and saves costs.
These are 5 advantages of outsourcing transcription that can help your business be more productive, profitable, efficient and competitive. We haven’t touched on the advantages of outsourcing transcription in terms of customization, automation, universal access and standardization, workflow process and branding for your business.
TranscriptionPro is a full service provider of innovative office solutions that enables businesses of all sizes to improve efficiency, productivity and competitiveness. Contact us for our Transcription and Dictation services.
