Oct. 9, 2006

On any given normal day, Bangalore India is very busy with IT and BPO (business process outsourcing) activity. However, the Indian city recently came to a screeching halt as its neighboring province Karnataka observed a complete strike over the past week.

"Overall, Bangalore looked like a deserted town with all of its companies, BPOs, commercial establishments, schools and colleges remaining closed, bringing the whole city to no activity at all," noted the Karnataka News.

What's more, general strikes, monsoon rains and many other unpredictable events, like the chaos caused by the recent death of a movie star or communal violence combine to mean that "the frequency of upheaval that results in delivery center shutdowns in Bangalore and in other Indian tech capitals is quite high," according to analyst Dana Stiffler of AMR Research.

So far no catastrophic event has succeeded in giving India a permanent black eye, but AMR still thinks it is worth quizzing your Indian IT/BPO and B2B service provider about their disaster recovery plans and procedures.

Stiffler talked to vendor Infosys and learned the following:

1) Any unplanned work stoppage day is counted by Infosys as a weekend day, and the work is transferred to an upcoming Saturday instead. The delayed workday gives employees a chance to catch up on their other projects as well as to adjust their personal plans.

2) If, as in the case of the recent statewide strike, Infosys knows what is about to happen, it keeps employees in the company hotel for a couple of nights. "This ensures that project deadlines are met and that employees are safe [and] Infosys will have absorbed the financial impact of the stoppage within two weeks."

3) In the case of a more catastrophic event, Infosys would simply transfer its projects to other delivery centers outside Bangalore and, if need be, outside India.

These measures demonstrate how Infosys and other rapidly growing Indian IT/BPO vendors have considered what could go wrong in their local environment and have planned accordingly.

That said, Stiffler concludes by recommending that "buyers need to ask specific questions about how a work stoppage would affect different phases of a project, or how more critical support functions can be shifted to alternate delivery centers."

Source: Line 56