Philips Dictation improves efficiency with speech to text technology

Improving efficiency in business with Philips Dictation speech to text technology

It’s no mystery that the success of a business is directly linked to how efficiently they run, with many organisations now shifting towards a more digital outlook. Combining a successful digital strategy with related products and technologies is bound to increase both a businesses’ productivity and efficiency. But what key technologies can help drive this movement?

Today's always-connected, instant-access environment has blurred the lines between the physical office and the place where work happens. As the distinction between professional and personal life dissolves, and the workplace becomes truly digital, employees are communicating and collaborating in unprecedented ways. And Philips Dictation allows you to do just that.

Who is Philips Dictation?

Speech Processing Solutions is an international technology company and global leader in dictation solutions. More than 4 million users worldwide work with their speech to text solutions, which are sold under the Philips brand.

Through Philips Dictation’s help, businesses can simplify their work with intelligent language-based hardware and software solutions, freeing up more of their time to focus on their customers.

“We believe in the power of simplicity. Our solutions were developed to make your daily work easier. Our excellent reputation for quality and reliability makes us number 1 in the professional dictation market. Philips is the leading solution provider for all speech-generated content needs, such as software, hardware and services.”

Philips Dictation in the working world

Philips Dictation operates in a wealth of vertical markets, bringing their solutions to the forefront of business processing. This allows for efficient and effective output of day-to-day tasks, as well as alleviating the burden of many administrative tasks.

Discover the full potential of their offering, whatever the industry.

Reducing turnaround time within Healthcare - The Princess Elizabeth acute hospital in Guernsey


Administration tasks are an important aspect of most people’s roles; however, they can often be time consuming and tedious. Without the administration which runs along in the background, most businesses wouldn’t function as efficiently as they do. But could they be even more efficient by enrolling the correct technology?

The Princess Elizabeth’s admin work is an essential part of the staff workload, and their document creation system housed a mix of analogue technology using cassette tapes and digital dictation. The consultants within the operating theatre were dictating their work onto tape recorders and finding there was a lengthy delay for their documentation to be produced. They also found the tape recorders very unreliable, with some departments already making the move to digital dictation.

It was clear that the hospital needed an integrated speech to text solution that better-managed document production.

Offering a centralised view of the work status with the ability to track tasks for completion

Sourcing the expert help from Philips Certified Partner The Speech Centre, the hospital was able to find a modern voice-controlled document creation system that was simple to use and flexible enough to future-proof their investment, saving them from future expenses.

The consultants were given Philips PocketMemo digital voice recorders, with the devices already preconfigured to their dictation requirements. The secretarial team used Philips Transcription Sets with headphones and foot pedals. Philips SpeechExec Enterprise software managed the flow between the dictations and transcriptions. The new solution fully integrated with their clinical system, enabling their staff to easily find patient data and attach the correct record to the patients’ correspondence.

“Turnaround time of documents is at least 80% better. They are able to effectively produce 17000 discharge summaries per year and 20-30000 pieces of typed work per year between five secretaries!”

Chantelle Le Feuvre
Senior Medical secretary

A flexible and cost-effective document creation solution – PCS Legal, Essex


The importance of being both flexible, and cost-effective, is of high stature to many businesses. It involves being highly critical and acknowledging that the business can, in some ways, improve.

PCS Legal, one of the largest conveyancers in Essex, wished to replace their current speech recognition technology with a more advanced dictation solution. The company were finding their current solution unreliable and untrustworthy, often causing time delays and work having to be repeated. Fast-forwarding tapes was difficult and searching for urgent information was severely time-consuming. This solution was neither flexible nor cost-effective.

Switching from analogue tapes to digital document creation

Deciding that it was time to modernise their methods of transcriptions, PCS wanted a system that would be simple, easy to use, and install. After searching the market for the perfect solution, PCS selected the Philips SpeechLive and the SpeechExec transcription set LFH7177.

Using the Philips voice recorder app on their smartphones, the authors are now able to record and send files direct to SpeechLive. This in turn allows the secretaries to access these files directly and complete the transcriptions, using the transcriptions set. This streamlined process and combination of digital technologies allows the company to perform both flexibly and more cost-effectively. Another factor that was particularly beneficial to PCS Legal was that the Philips technology would complement their current Windows capability. The result – is a modern document creation solution.

A critical success factor for their customer’s business, PCS were particularly pleased with the more efficient and fast process. Not only that but muffled tapes that could not be understood were eliminated too. PCS Legal were impressed with the difference from using Philips’ dictation products; with many staff commenting on how much easier they were to understand as opposed to analogue tapes.

“We found the SpeechExec solution far more efficient than our previous choice of recording equipment; delivering a much easier to understand the solution.”

Rachel Nelson
PCS Legal


Efficiency for Surveyors – Fifield Glyn Chartered Surveyors


The days of staff sitting in an office 5 days a week are rapidly in decline, with many businesses now operating on the road, from multiple, remote locations, or from a home office. Having the technology that supports this shift in working is vital for the productivity of the individual and in turn the business.

This was much the case for Fifield Glyn, a leading firm of Chartered Surveyors in the UK, who were struggling with their ineffective transcript technology. Richard Smith, Director, explains:

“The majority of employees who used dictation machines worked away from the office. Returning to their base to upload dictations was a costly and ineffective use of their time. This also caused a delay in getting the dictations to the transcriptionist, which resulted in slower customer response. We knew there had to be something better out there.”

When evaluating different services, they came across Philips Dictation and signed up for a free trial of SpeechLive.

Instant uploads for on the road staff

On trialling Philips speech to text products and technologies, Fifield Glyn found that many of the features and capabilities fitted their needs perfectly. The removal of IT involvement made a big impact; freeing team time to focus on other tasks and cutting downtime for those on the road who previously needed IT support. Echoing this was the Philip Dictation recorder app, allowing for instant uploads to the Philips SpeechLive cloud for those on the road, all via smartphone. 

Fifield Glyn worked with the local Philips Certified MDC (Master Digital Centre) in Manchester, who provided exceptional support from the off. Being both fast and reliable, they were able to get Fifield Glyn up and running straight away.

Philips SpeechLive and the Pocket Memo 7000 and 8000 voice recorders integrated seamlessly with their IT system, eliminating any messy intervals periods when phasing out their old technologies and integrating the new. This, therefore, caused no disruptions to business productivity.  

“Since adopting SpeechLive and the Philips voice recorders, we have seen a whole host of benefits including higher employee productivity, more efficient processes, greater accuracy and, of course, better customer satisfaction as we can respond to their needs quicker.”

Richard Smith,
Director

The introduction of Multi-Factor Authentication

Given the recent transformation of many businesses turning to a hybrid working environment, it means that some employees will be working in the office while others will be working remotely. Philips SpeechLive now has a multi-factor authentication (MFA), offering a flexible workspace and a secure content creation platform to access anywhere, at any time.

As over 80% of hacking-related breaches are caused by weak or stolen passwords, this extra layer of protection will ensure data is fully secure and protected against unauthorised access, whilst remaining flexible to those who need it.

Although MFA is important in the office, as more workspaces adopt a ‘work from anywhere’ attitude, employees logging in remotely pose a higher risk – by perhaps using their personal smartphone to check emails or using their laptop in a coffee shop, they would need extra protection to reduce the risk of data breaching.

With Philips SpeechLive, users will log in and be required to enter an activation code sent to their email. It can be enabled and disabled at any time. It also meets global security standards such as ISO, CJIS, HIPPA and CSA.

New developments in Speech-to-text technology

Philips SpeechLive has recently been updated and the Speech-to-text (STT) feature has been immensely upgraded for increased productivity and hybrid flexibility. The new desktop app and smartphone app enables users to insert speech into any text field, whether it be Outlook, Microsoft Teams or a word document, with real-time or automated transcription that is up to 7 times faster than typing. It can also transcribe text in up to 22 languages and variants.

This is ideal for users working remotely because it ensures a fast turnaround and efficient workflow, enabling users to send text to the office immediately rather than spending valuable time transcribing. It also means that remote workers can sign into the app anywhere, anytime without having to be in the office.

The way we communicate has had to adapt and Philips Speech-to-text has risen to the challenge, bridging the gap between office and remote workers. It allows members of the team to connect from anywhere, maximizing productivity.

Stationery or on the go

To explore the full opportunities Philips Dictation can bring to your customers’ businesses, speak to Chris Newark, our SFD and dication Brand Manager, for further information.

Philips speech-to-text solutions