Dispatches

By Jesus F. Llanto
Researcher, Newsbreak
December 3, 2008

The global economic crisis is slowing down the demand for services in some sectors of the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry and experts are saying they may revise growth targets for 2010.

At the ongoing 2-day BPO Summit Philippines 2008 in Ortigas business district, industry leaders from the various sectors of the BPO industry said that the slowdown in the United States—where major BPO clients are located—and in other major economies have slowed down their operations.

Industry leaders from the non-voice sectors of the BPO industry like animation and transcription said that the financial crisis has been affected by decreasing demand from the United States.

Grace Dimaranan, president of the Animation Council of the Philippines, said some of the projects they have were on hold due to the recession. “Some animation series where reduced.”

The animation sector has been growing by an average of 38 percent during the past three years, data from the Business Process Association of the Philippines (BPAP) showed. In 2007, it generated a revenue of US$105 million or 2 percent of the US13 billion generated by the entire BPO industry in 2007.

Meanwhile, Myla Reyes, managing director of the Medical Transcription Industry Association of the Philippines (MTIAPI) said that some of their operations slowed down as a result of the economic meltdown.

The transcription sector generated US$197 million or 4 percent of the total BPO revenues. For the past three years, the sector is growing at an average of 24 percent.

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