Call centers turn into dormitories to offset strike
By siliconindia   |   Friday, 13 September 2002, 19:30 IST
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BANGALORE: Call centers in India's tech capital have become large dormitories as the burgeoning sunrise sector copes with the shutdown called Thursday to protest the release of Cauvery waters to Tamil Nadu. Some companies have even booked nearby hotels to house their staff so that services to their clients in Britain and the U.S. are "not affected one bit" or result in loss of current or future business from a "highly sensitive foreign clientele". Staff in the voice-based call centers were either brought in for the night shift before the shutdown began 6 a.m. Thursday or made to stay overnight after their shift ended Wednesday night. "We have booked about 100 rooms in nearby hotels to accommodate our colleagues after the Wednesday shift ended," the CEO of a big call center, who did not want to be identified, told IANS. "They will hold the fort for the first few hours of the Thursday evening shift before the regular shift staff arrive after the shutdown ends," he added. The shutdown was called after the Cauvery River Authority (CRA), headed by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, directing Karnataka to release 0.8 tmc (thousand million cubic) feet of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu every day. The CRA decision superseded a directive of the Supreme Court to release 1.25 tmc feet of water. Karnataka Chief Minister S.M. Krishna's efforts to convince the agitating organizations of the inevitability of releasing waters to Tamil Nadu failed Wednesday, leading to the shutdown. Unlike the IT and other sectors, call center work is a totally different ball game. More importantly, it is a different business altogether, where quality and continuity are watchwords that are intrinsically linked. "As much as we understand and support the issue, it is not possible to shut down operations because our clients may just cancel the contracts. At least, they will never come here or even to India, again," held another head of a call center. "It is not so much the cost of housing them or providing food that is important here. It is a question of maintaining business continuity," he said, requesting anonymity for fear of facing repercussions locally. "A foreign client, alien to our culture of shutdowns, is skeptical about such issues and would remember it for the next three years. And, as word spreads, outsourcing to India may itself get affected," he added. "Of course, we have briefed our clients that there could be some disruption. But it is just not possible to say that the operations will come to a halt," said the human resource manager of a business process outsourcing (BPO) company. Indian IT-enabled services, including all forms of contact centers as well as BPO companies, are growing at a phenomenal rate of over 70 per cent annually with revenues of $1.5 billion and employing 107,000 people, 15 to 20 per cent of whom are Bangalore-based. The global market is expected to reach $234 billion by 2005. "Even in BPO, it is difficult to have any backlog. And, after the recent war tensions between India and Pakistan, clients could come up with several reasons to back off of commitments or look at India in the future. This is why companies have had to adapt to various innovative ways of dealing with the situation," says a human resources manager of another company.

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