THE Indian offshoring and call centre association yesterday revealed it is piloting a voluntary national database of its staff in an attempt to reassure western clients and customers over concerns about security breaches of confidential data.

It came as three chief executives of Indian outsourcing companies told a conference in London they have their eyes set firmly on attracting jobs higher up the "value chain", even at an MBA and PhD skills level.

Such a move could see global companies shipping better-paid management positions, research and consultancy work to low-cost overseas locations, following the steady stream of call centre and business processing jobs over the last few years.

PV Kannan, founder and chief executive of 24x7 Customer, said: "I find it difficult to accept that this is the pie and it gets divided up like this. The pie is actually growing."
Countries like India have been very successful in attracting work from banks, insurance companies, and even western governments over the last few years.

One of the main concerns for companies embracing offshoring, and their customers, is that of security, with stories of low-paid overseas workers being easy targets for fraudsters who can extract potentially lucrative financial data.

Rajeev Sawhney, convenor of India's outsourcing industry body Nasscom, said: "This is a matter of concern for any consumer, but the incidence of that is equally possible in any other part of the world."

He said the industry was taking steps to make India a "trusted partner", including educating staff about the importance of security, and stepping up enforcement action.
Sawhney added: "Senior police officers have been hired by Nasscom to facilitate this."

He said the body had set up a pilot national register of all employees working in the sector, allowing employers access to a mine of data on them.

"It's voluntary at the moment. The database will have their qualifications, (career) track record on which companies they are moving to, work references, and security clearance. Employers will have some credible information."

He said the pilot was at a very early stage, but that there had been very high levels of acceptance in the industry, much higher than initially expected.

Susir Kumar, chief executive of Intelenet Global Services, said the Financial Services Authority, the City's main regulator, and the British trades unions had recently visited Indian outsourcing companies to satisfy themselves that the proper security processes were in place.

The outsourcing chief added: "The unions found the working conditions are better in India than in the UK."

Asked why this was, Kannan of 24x7 replied: "In general, the UK centres were built a long time back, whereas our structures are brand new and are designed specifically for the process."

He also said Indian workers felt empowered because of the investment in their training.

"People feel like they have a career, rather than a job for a few months," he said.