Creative sector deemed vital contributor to BPO industry

CEBU, Philippines - The Business Process Association of the Philippines (BPAP) is looking at the creative sector as one of the largest growth contributor to the industry in the next few years.

Bulk of the work will be on the digital production and animation, among other automated creative requirement from other countries, especially in the film making and gaming sectors.

BPAP executive director for talent development Jamea S. Garcia said there is a huge potential that the Philippines could rake bigger share in job contracts from other countries, as Filipinos are known for their excellent creativity skill.

“We already have a lot of content development companies here that do jobs for Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, and most of Japanese animation companies,” said Garcia.

Because of this, she urged BPO destinations, such as Cebu to strengthen the pool of creative developers—animators, creative content providers, and highly creative people to accommodate the growing demand for digital production works.

In 2008, the creative BPO sector generated total revenue of US$150 million. The Philippines currently is getting 15 percent of the total creative outsourcing market, while India is getting 37 percent.

Locally, the Cebu Educational Development Foundation for IT (Cedfit) is now linking the IT creative sector and the academe to strengthen the animation, graphic arts, gaming and film IT artists in Cebu, as the province is pursuing a bid to become an “Innovation Island” in Asia.

Cedfit managing director Bonifacio Belen earlier announced that a Focus Group Discussion (FGD) was initiated recently to link the creative IT departments of different companies developing this kind of products, with the academe, in order to sustain the supply of good animators, computer gaming developers, graphic artists, and film developers.

In Cebu, VersaGrafx Designs Philippines Inc. established its presence here in 2005 to take advantage of the untapped good artists and animators in the province. The Cebu offshore office is the first facility opened by the company outside of United States.

The company establishes a conceptualization and design facility for cinema standees, and other promotional collaterals for Hollywood movie production companies in Cebu.

Philippines has been working on cartoon flicks known worldwide, these include; Tom & Jerry, Adams Family, Scooby Doo, The Mask, Power Puff Girls, The Incredibles, Dexter’s Laboratory, Dragonball, The Jetsons, among others.

Walt Disney and Warner Bros, are among big animation studios worldwide, that have high regard to Filipino artists.

On the other hand, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Animation Council of the Philippines have implemented a joint effort to boost sustainability of the industry, this has to be reinforced further to accommodate the expected demand of 25,000 artists in the year 2010.

According to a report, the threat of artists’ migration has continuously haunt the industry, as incentives offered abroad are set to attract artists from the Philippines which depletes even more the already scarce pool of labor force. — Ehda M. Dagooc