As the coronavirus pandemic pushes India into lockdown, the call centres and IT services firms that function as the world’s back office are struggling to piece together work-from-home solutions and other business-continuity plans.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday ordered 1.3 billion Indians to stay at home for 21 days to stem the spread of SARS-CoV-2, following earlier lockdown orders in many Indian cities and states. As of Tuesday, India had reported over 500 cases of the virus and nine deaths.
Many of the companies that provide business services such as call centres, information technology services and business process automation were not prepared for work-for-home arrangements, according to interviews with more than a dozen employees of several companies.
That raises questions about whether one of India’s showpiece industries can function smoothly amid the coronavirus crisis. “The industry has been scrambling to set up its own business continuity plan,” said R. Chandrashekhar, a retired federal government official and a former president of India’s IT services lobby group, NASSCOM.
In the southern tech hub of Bengaluru, an employee working at a JPMorgan (JPM.N) call centre said that until last Friday, her managers had repeatedly declined staffers’ pleas to work from home. “Even if I am infected with the virus, I know the death rate for young people isn’t very high, but I am very very scared that I might transfer it to family,” she said on condition of anonymity, as she was not authorised to speak to the media.
After a state government order, JPMorgan on Sunday asked its Bengaluru staff to “stay at home until further notice,” according to a message to employees seen by Reuters. In some cases, companies must seek client permission before allowing employees to work on sensitive projects outside the office, a senior human resources executive at a top Indian IT firm said of working remotely.
