'BPO incident not offshore-centric'

Sudin Apte, country manager -- India, at Forrester Research, an international market research firm, told Business Standard, "incidents like the latest one are not offshore centric, but will undermine call centre expansion."

Apte said, about security breaches in general, "clients are very concerned". On the impact on "offshore business process outsourcing", Forrester recently surveyed 31 decision makers in firms currently using BPO and found "hardly 13 per cent confirmed they will send work offshore without any change" in the current way of doing business.

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"Most respondents told Forrester they will extend investigation, increase oversight of the vendor or renegotiate contracts," he said.

"We believe incidents such as this, will undermine call centre expansion. Two months back Forrester forecast a reduction in growth to the tune of 30 per cent and the survey confirms we are on the right thought process. Incidents such as this will only add to it."

But it is not only in India. "Look at the incidents and size of their impact in several security breaches with respect to data at Bank of America, Citi, MCI, Ameritrade, Card Systems, Time Warner, LexisNexis and so on, the problem is not offshore centric".

"Indian BPO leaders should rise to the challenge by retooling their marketing message around security processes, methodology superiority and delivery excellence -- areas where they are undoubtedly strong -- and meet the challenge head on."

Forrester also think that they (Indian firms) need to take dramatic steps towards improving hiring practices and manage attrition rates. These are two base reasons for theft that erupted in India, Apte said.

"However, as far as the latest story is concerned, I think we will need to wait for more specific details of the case. Presently the details available and "tabloid" nature of story is not convincing enough to drop the guns," he said.