Real Business:
The UK’s best businesses run from home. New research out today from Real Business and Brother.
Homeworking is more than convenient. In fact, it can create entirely new business models. At OutSec, homeworkers are transforming the secretarial trade. An army of home-based typists transcribe dictaphone recordings, replacing the in-house approach that has dominated corporate life for 50 years.
Vanessa Phillips worked as a PA to several FTSE chairman, and when she left to have children she earned money by typing up dictaphone tapes in her spare time. ‘People would post me the tapes and they’d get lost in the mail a lot of the time. I realised technology could make life easier. So I got a client to use a digital dictaphone and email me the sound file. I realised then that this approach could be turned into a business.’
8 years on, OutSec employs 250 typists, all of whom work from home. ‘Almost all our rivals have typing pools, so they have no flexibilty. Often they have only one or two salaried typists. We have ultimate flexibility, both for clients and for our typists.’
Subscribe 
