Transcription Outsourcing
Transcription typically refers to the process in which content that is captured in audio, video or image file is written out in text format. This process is nothing new and it has been done in-house by many companies for decades. It is only recently though that Western companies discovered that they can outsource this work offshore and retain great quality at much lower costs. There are many applications. A good example would be interviews captured on audio tape by lawyers, doctors, and journalists. There is also a great need to take handwritten papers and insert the data contained in these papers into plain written text.
As mentioned in our section on Content Writing Outsourcing, most Filipinos have excellent English language skills and are fully familiar with Western figures of speech. Filipino education is taught in English and Filipinos are thus familiar with English writing and abbreviations. All of this makes them perfectly suited for work as Transcriptionists. The Philippines furthermore has a great number of nurses and lawyers who can be tapped into for more specialized work like medical and legal transcription. High-speed scanners and higher bandwidth connections have also increased the volume of transcription work that can be moved around the world.
MicroSourcing started its first transcription operation in 2006 for a UK-based client. Our client captures consumer feedback in the UK through audio recordings and handwritten comment cards. It is our job to transcribe the content in these messages and directly enter them into our client's systems. We are also doing legal transcription for a number of US- and Australia-based law firms. In June 2011, we started a new medical transcription operation consisting of more than two hundred registered nurses. Besides these long-term solutions, we have also done a lot of project-based work transcribing anything from journalist interviews to classroom recordings for students.
