Product details

Scandinavia Translations (Scantran) provides translation services between English and the three Scandinavian languages (Danish, Swedish and Norwegian), as well as Finnish. The business is operated primarily by a husband and wife team. The unique thing about Scantran is that it is a purely virtual business: they never meet with, see, and rarely even speak with any of their clients, nor with any of their individual translators. Almost all the business is done over the Internet, supplemented by faxes and occasionally the telephone. Documents are mainly transferred as file attachments to Internet electronic mail messages. There are no other permanent employees, and all the work is done out of the couple''s apartment, with no need for expensive overhead such as office premises or fixed salaries. Scantran''s business has grown rapidly since its inception, and is faced with a number of decisions: Can the company maintain the great flexibility provided by the Internet, and still expand? If the decision is to grow, what should the new business model be? This case nicely illustrates both pros and cons of virtual small businesses, typical of a great many Internet-dependent startup companies created in recent years.