Foreign customers jittery as US National Counterterrorism says India #2 behind Iraq in terror attacks
Terror strikes India
Early in the morning, as I loaded up CNN to get my daily news fix, I was rather shocked to be staring at this front page story.
A day has gone by and the international press is now abuzz with news of the repeated bomb blasts in India. The impact of these violent acts is being felt intensely by the tech community in India, as well as customers in Europe and the US who are nervously eying events unfold.
Kelly Herdrich is one of many western journalists asking the tough questions in her article in Associated Content:
“Should American companies be placing much of their company’s consumer interaction in the heart of cities prone to this type of violence? Companies who house their outsourced offices in Bangalore, such as Microsoft, Intel, and IBM, are asking themselves that same question this morning.”
A report prepared by the National Counter-terrorism Center in Washington touches on the scope of the violence that has been going on in India, which until now, has escaped coverage in most western media outlets. According to the numbers outlined in this report, India experienced more violent deaths due to terrorist incidents than Afghanistan. In fact, the country is behind only Iraq in this respect.
“Between January 2004 and March 2007, the report concluded, the death toll from terrorist attacks was 3,674, second only to Iraq during the same period.” [reference]
Evaluating the implications of these blasts on Information Technology outsourcing, noted blogger of Indian origin, Om Malik, writes:
“It’s not clear who might be behind these terrorist attacks, but one thing is clear, this is going to have an impact on Silicon Valley and U.S. companies.”
Larry Dignan, writing for the popular investing publication, Seeking Alpha, opines:
“IT is the lifeblood of India and offshore outsourcing companies have been turning cautious. These blasts aren’t going to help matters.”
The underlying story that’s emerging is that India appears to be developing increasing instability. For onshore customers sitting in the US, this raises many key questions. Are the decreasing cost savings in outsourcing to India justified given the threat posed by the spiraling violence? Since the terrorist attacks seem to be focused on Bangalore and other tech centers, are western businesses and employees safe?
Repeated bomb blasts are alarming companies outsourcing to India
Soon after the attacks, Texas Instruments and Intel were both instantly contacted by journalists wanting to know if any of their employees had lost their lives or been injured. A publicly traded company can hardly afford this sort of attention.
We hope the authorities in India can curb the unfolding instability and we extend our sympathies to those whose lives have been affected by this violence.
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