The Holiday Dip: An opportunity to reflect and plan your Transcription Operations
The Whirlwind
Transcription operations teams and leaders are always very busy, often too busy to look at the big picture. They do not have time to step out of the whirlwind of the day-to-day operations to see the “forest from the trees”.
They always have client deadlines that are barely being met, hiring and staffing challenges, and business that they are turning away because they just don’t have the capacity. Although they are able to continue growing revenue, this doesn’t always reflect increased profits because their operations are based on leveraging a largely manual process.
The Annual Holiday Dip
The only time these operations teams experience a bit of a slowdown is the annual holiday dip around Christmas and New Year. For anyone who has been in the transcription business for at least two years, the holiday volume dip is a repeatable pattern you can rely on. You can expect a slowdown from mid-December to mid-January for the legal and insurance sectors and a slightly shorter period for medical dictation services.
A Time to Reflect and Plan
It is a great time to take a pause and appreciate the successes and growth you have achieved over the past year. Review the feedback, both positive and negative, that you have received from clients. Service areas you have grown in, and others where you wish you had more growth. Where do you see the company in the next five years? What role do you hope to play in it at that time? A few measurables to think of: revenue, profitability, productivity and resiliency. Work backwards and think about what that would mean in terms of milestones for each year. And then drill down further into what that would mean in terms of measurable outcomes in a year.
Once you have set out your goals, you need to look at your current measurables, where do you stand on each of these outcomes today. A good place to start is:
What is your profitability per client?
What is the average productivity of your staff?
Can your company run if one of your key members is away for a month or decides to move on to a different role?
Do you have documented and repeatable processes for your operations that allow you to add new members to different teams without too much friction?
Have you had to turn away transcription projects because you don’t have the resources to do the work?
Are you aware of all the industry trends in your transcription sector?
Do you feel like there are opportunities for growth that you haven’t been able to explore because you are swamped dealing with the day-to-day operations and client deadlines?
You don’t have to answer these questions alone. You can have your team assist you with the process. Having answered these questions, you can then go back and look at your yearly milestones, and adjust them up or down to what you believe is achievable.
Over the next few weeks, I will explore each of the above questions in detail to help you answer them for your transcription company. As you take a step back from the whirlwind and go through the process of answering these questions, you can start to work on growing your transcription operations, see the forest from the trees, and set yourself and your business up for growth in 2024.