The trust factor
Low levels of trust inhibit knowledge sharing in the knowledge-based industry. Concerned over recent reports about an employee of an Indian call centre who allegedly sold bank account details, Nasscom is gearing up to face unforeseen challenges regarding confidentiality in the IT industry. It is working closely with legal authorities in Britain to ensure those responsible for criminal breach. Any case of theft or breach of confidentiality should be treated seriously. Such malpractices would pose a serious threat to SMBs in the BPO sector. Most of the small and medium companies in this segment do not have enough capabilities to tackle the situation themselves.
Lt Bipin Chandra, Vice-president, India operations, Knoah Solutions, does not believe that this will severely affect the BPO industry in India. He says, “We have enough security measures as far as data security is concerned. Accessing the database should be need-based only, and if, without necessity, anyone tries to access it, our system will alert us. We have been strengthening our security policies; in any case, our existing system does not allow employees to browse through the data. Going by recent reports, I don’t think there will be any significant impact on BPO companies. Our clients ask for higher levels of security on information systems. Every organisation needs to have a fool-proof security system, apart from building loyalty and commitment among employees as part of good HR policies which are common for all types of organisations.”
Critical factors
At Wipro they believe that the knowledge-based industry faces five critical challenges. One of the most important is talent management and development. Professionals bring with them a lot of aspirations, and to be on the compet ...