Far from being a dying art, the dictation and transcription business is booming. New technology has enabled files and transcripts to be delivered quicker and more accurately than ever. However, the main change has been that instead of having a personal assistant or even a whole typing pool transcribing dictation, many firms are looking to outsourced business support to meet their transcription needs.

According to an industry specialist, “Clients are now more demanding, and faster turnaround times for work are expected, so if the business has no spare typing capacity, the only option to address a backlog is to outsource the excess dictation.”

Since the recession hit in 2008, many companies have been looking to reduce their staff headcount, and subsequently, staff costings.

Instead of paying the salaries of a full typing pool, which cannot always be guaranteed steady dictation work, or passing off transcription to their already overburdened secretaries or personal assistants, outsourcing has become an effective go-to solution to the dictation needs of many different industry sectors.

These include the obvious ones – legal and medical, but also industries one might not think of immediately, such as television and film production, university research, and international companies that rely on conference calls and online meetings for their communication needs.

All kinds of dictation work can be outsourced, from presentations to conference calls. Some companies have a trained transcriptionist sit in on their conference calls and transcribe “live” – this is important when working in different time zones.