Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Animation Business Quite Different From A Typical BPO

Indian icons in the information technology industry such as Infosys have often been tracked as true blue stories which serve as a beacon for any industry aiming to target the offshore space in services. Little wonder then that there are many companies that started out in search of the ‘holy grail’ of animation services — to be the Infosys of the animation world!

Public memory is very short, however, and almost no one knew about Infosys for over a decade before it became a corporate giant. At the time, it was a software company that honed its technical and management skills and evolved into a well-organised IT company before it saw a window of opportunity and could drive home that advantage.

The animation business is presently not comparable as there are hardly any companies (in the long form broadcast/theatrical sector) with that vintage and readiness to play such a game.

So, is this comparison with IT valid, and is animation all about technology play? Well, the entertainment and media business has been demonstrating substantial capabilities in the past decade. Although it is primarily content driven, its methods of delivery — including in the future the intervention of mobile and Net-based technologies — will make it a tandem technology plus content play.

Like the IT community did overseas, the electronic media has succeeded in delivering to both local and international markets locally created entertainment software in TV and movies. These media players have already demonstrated their global expertise in producing “live action” software! They now use repurposing or servicing methods to exploit their TV programming, to leverage already created libraries in world markets. But this did not happen as BPO (business process outsourcing)!

It happened because the local market was deep enough to allow original content to be produced. Finding additional revenues prompted the search for overseas pockets of consumers for a product/market extension. Animation has potential parallels in content production, provided the local markets find the financial ability to fuel such original content.

However, in my mind there is no controversy. While animation has several leverages through technology tools, it is primarily a media content business.Then, we come to the issue of scope for animation as a BPO business. For instance, how is the animation BPO business different from BPOs in other IT-enabled services sectors in India? In recent years, the BPO syndrome has caused a flurry among entrepreneurs and has caught the imagination of investors...

Source: http://www.financialexpress.com/

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