Shootout at a BPO
Shootouts are nothing new to love stories; boy discovers that his girlfriend is having an affair, he gets drunk, finds a gun, and shoots the “other” boy — or some variation of such a story. Such stories remain in the news for a couple of days before getting overtaken by other newsworthy stories.
Last week’s shootout at HCL BPO in India, when a squabble between three employees (two lovers + one more) led to the shootout, too, made brief headlines before giving way to other news. Yet, for those Western companies seeking BPO and IT services from India, and for the Indian providers of such services, the news will have a more lasting impact.
The fact that the shootout happened in the company’s premises (in the cafeteria) and not outside, raises a fundamental question: When Indian BPOs tout their security measures as one of their unique selling points, how could an employee take a gun and live cartridges into a company’s premises?
If you’ve ever been to one of the better Indian BPO (and IT) companies you’d be familiar with the security regimen they follow. Camera phones are not allowed on the premises; often regular mobile phones are also not allowed. Much to the annoyance of visitors, these have to be deposited at the “security desk.” Security guards demand that you remove your laptop from its cumbersome packing of the laptop bag and display its serial number (how that is a security measure, I haven’t yet quite understood because they seldom cross check the serial number of the laptop that you take out — but that’s another story). At some BPOs, you are also frisked before being allowed to enter the premises. And, of course, you can’t just wander around the building without an official escort. These are security measures for visitors.
Employees’ office hours are even more regimented. They can use their mobile phones only during breaks, and that too in designated areas. They cannot enter certain parts of the office building. Their workstations don’t have USB ports, CD drives, printer connections, email access and Internet connections. They cannot bring their own stationery to work; the office provides them stationery that has pre-numbered pages so that employees cannot write confidential information on a piece of paper, tear it, and take it out of the office with him!
Whew, you’d imagine with all this security, little could go wrong. Yet, it has. And that too at one of the leading BPO companies of India — a company that you would expect to use all the security measures described above, plus more.
Customer companies seeking services from third parties will be justified in asking a few questions:
- If an employee at a leading BPO company could bring in a weapon into the office premises, what security measures could be breached at a lesser established BPO company?
- Agreed, physical security and data security are two separate things. Yet, if, despite all security measures discussed above, a company cannot keep its own employees secure, how can they keep the customer company’s data from being stolen?
Click here for a video news report by an Indian news channel.
Camera phones are in great demand these days, i own at least two of them.’-
Camera phones are in great demand these days, i own at least two of them~’,