India acts on call centre fraud
By John Oates
Published Wednesday 13th April 2005 13:04 GMT
The Indian offshoring industry is taking action to counter security
concerns raised by last week's arrest of three call centre workers for
fraud.
The National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM)
is planning a nationwide database of call centre staff who have
security clearance. The register will be voluntary and will be up and
running in four weeks, according to Sunil Mehta, vice president of
Nasscom and quoted in the FT. He said it would be run by an external
consultancy. Employers looking for staff will pay a fee to access it.
The problem is staff turnover within call centres is notoriously high
- 40 per cent a year or more. So keeping the database up-to-date may
prove expensive (perhaps they can outsource it). Call center work is
not seen as a long-term career but as a first job for recent graduates
who move quickly on to better, more interesting, things.
Jerry Mao, chairman of Mphasis, the firm hit by fraud last week, told
the FT that the three staff arrested did not have criminal records
meaning it is unlikely that any screening programme would have picked
them up. Some leading offshoring firms already follow European or US
data protection standards.
Analysts Forrester initially predicted the bad news could reduce
India's call centre growth by as much as 30 per cent. They are
reportedly considering cutting that figure because of the lack of
mainstream media coverage the incident received. ®
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