Why this is a one-off, say BPOs

‘‘How can anyone suppose that a BPO in India, which replicates international outfits right down to the wallpaper, would forget replicating security norms—the most important factor?’’ says Satyajit Lahiri, spokesperson for global technology firm EDS, which runs a 500-seat call centre in India.

To deter someone from copying the information and shipping it out, call centres like HCL BPO have banned agents in sensitive ‘‘processes’’ from carrying floppies, CDs, tapes, even cell phones, pens and pencils or notebooks to their workstations.

An impressive array of electronic batches, don’t-bring-laptops code and monthly training also hammer in the importance of security.

‘‘It’s not as easy as getting information and passing it on. To get away with personal details of customers is serious fraud and employees know it when they join us,’’ said Saurabh Adhikari, vice president, corporate strategy, HCL BPO, Noida.

And there’s constant monitoring. ‘‘It is usual practice to monitor call centre agents physically and electronically. If we find deviant workers, alarm bells ring. The usual industry practice is to observe deviant behaviour for a while, and then trap and catch a thief, without giving him the slightest warning,’’ said Lahiri.

In fact, ever since the BPO industry decided to move ‘‘up the value chain,’’ most call centres have quality or compliance committees and teams of pros who monitor: ‘‘Is xyz releasing information to a caller without asking for a verification…Is he releasing details despite getting incorrect details from a caller…and so on,’’ says a senior Wipro executive.

The financial sector BPOs are generally the most cautious. R Venkataraman, executive director, KPMG, says, ‘‘It’s only lobbies overseas opposed to outsourcing that get some incidents blown out of proportion. In fact, this kind of fraud has nothing to do with a call centre. Banks have faced it before and after offshoring, for example.’’

Besides, Indian BPOs have evolved on international lines, leaving little room for clients to doubt their efficiency or quality. What really bothers BPOs is the ‘‘moral hazard’’ — the chance that some individual sitting somewhere will break the law, rather than the system in India being incapable.

‘‘Risk has become a very big thing for the BPO sector. That is why BPOs usually appoint one very senior officer as a ‘Chief Risk Officer’. Their sole job is to look at process, find out where there are holes in it, and fix them to plug possible fraud,’’ says Venkataraman.

In many call centres, a US analyst reviews progress on security and privacy. Industry sources say the results of this audit have been a mixed bag: Some BPOs take the middle road, some fare very well, while some have loopholes that need fixing, much like the BPOs in any other country.