Small businesses and corporate houses hold conferences, press releases, seminars and interviews on a regular basis. Most of these need to be documented to keep the workings of the company transparent. But due to the paucity of time, it may not be always possible to record the verbals by hand. For this purpose, companies use a voice recorder such as an Olympus voice recorder or a Sony voice recorder. These voice recorders can be bought cheap and can record hour’s worth of audio in universal accepted digital formats – Mp3 and Wav. Besides their cost, their small size (portability) makes than an ideal choice for recording audio.

There are basically 2 ways that companies now a day’s use to transcribe corporate meetings and conferences. These are

1. Employ expert Transcribers and transcriptionists – Large corporate houses, news agencies and even government organizations may need large amount of transcription work over a continued period of time. To keep long term costs low and to save time transcribing files, companies prefer to hire expert and qualified transcriptionists. These transcriptionists, can work efficiently and can transcribe conference call and meetings very quickly, often within a span of just 3-4 hours for 1 audio hour. The main advantages of employing an expert transcriptionists is the saving of external hiring cost in the long term, better accountability and control over the work.

But not all companies may prefer to employ transcriptionists. There is a second method that companies may use to get their work transcribed.

2. Contract with a Transcription Service Provider – Transcription service companies can be classified into 2 categories on the basis of their location - Outsourcing Transcription Company and a local transcription company. Businesses may hire either one depending on the disadvantages and the advantages that each one has and what suits their business the best.

The main advantage of outsourcing transcription services is that the services cost 30 to 60 percent less as compared to a local transcription service company. But some businesses may not want their work or files to be transcribed by someone who is not present in their country.

In such cases, businesses prefer to hire a local transcription service firm.

So after comparing the two transcription service companies based on their location, which one should a business hire?

It depends. If saving cost is a prime concern, then outsourcing transcription work is the way to go. If the company needs transcription work for cassettes, tapes, VHS etc i.e. analog media, then it is recommended that the work be given to a local transcriber service provider.

For other decision parameters such as confidentiality, on time delivery, quality of work, extra services, payment terms and contracts, any one of the conference and meeting transcription service company can be chosen.

Nowadays, the field of transcription has become highly competitive. Because of the intense competition, transcription service providers have continuously dropped their rates and increased their service bar. Choosing the right transcription service provider should not be a difficult or a time consuming decision as there are a plethora of quality service providers in the market, all offering excellent services.