Case Study

How a $2,000 investment resulted in a $1M online transcription business.

Situation:

Transcription business was developed for medical transcription application decades back. This kind of transcription usually requires specific training, and thus is expensive. With the advent of internet and digital recorders, more people started taping interviews, conferences, meetings, etc. and needed to get it transcribed. They went to the companies that did medical transcription for getting their voice files transcribed and paid the high medical transcription prices.

Year 2003:

The internet provided the opportunity to reduce the cost of general transcription and also increase the profit because

1. There was no need for experts to do general transcription work. All it needed was typists who pay attention to details.
2. These typists could be found anywhere in the world and would work on contract, which reduced cost and overhead of transcription companies.
3. The pool of typists suddenly increased dramatically because they did not need to live in certain geography.

Opportunity:

GMR saw an opportunity to develop a profitable online transcription services business, provide employment to typists looking to work from home on a flexible schedule, and reduce cost for its customer; a rare win-win-win business scenario.

GMR Solution:

1. Business Foundation -- Website development: GMR developed a website www.gmrtranscription.com with the following process:
   • Customer registers at the website which creates a folder for the customer and provides a unique login credential for uploading files in their folder.
   • Customer can now login and upload their voice file for transcription.
   • System assigns a coded name of the file.
   • Admin assigns file(s) to specific typists in the panel based on their skill set.
   • Typist gets notified about the work with a link to download the voice file with general details under the coded name and a folder number which correlates to the customer.
   • Typist transcribes the file(s) and uploads it to the folder number under the system assigned file name.
   • Admin assigns a QA person for the file who is notified that a file is waiting for QA.
   • QA is done and final file is uploaded by the QA manager.
   • Customer is notified about the completion of transcription by email along with a link.
   • Customer clicks on the link which takes him to the online payment gateway.
   • Customer pays through credit card.
   • Upon receipt of payment, the transcript is automatically emailed to the customer in MS Word format.
2. Increase Online Presence
   • GMR Web marketing team conducted a research of online activities related to transcription services and identified keywords used by the prospects.
   • Launched a PPC campaign for each keyword and tracked its effectiveness closely.
   • Launched SEO/SEM to bring the website up for organic search at Google.
   • Accomplished 1^st or 2^nd placement for most important keywords.

Results:

1. The website started to generate business immediately.
2. The volume increased as the website started moving up on organic search.
3. Fast forward 2008 – all PPC ads were stopped. The website added over 400 new customers and generated about $400,000 in revenue.
4. Fast forward 2009 – the website is on course of generating over $1M in business without any advertising.

Conclusion:

Another example of how web based business can replace brick and mortar. There is room to add at least ½ dozen web based transcription services business with similar volume.