BANGALORE, INDIA: Employees of  BPO and IT companies, working in India’s silicon valley -- Bangalore, had the worst experience of their life on Black Monday. A political party’s show of strength, which saw close to 1.5 lakh people attending the rally at the city’s Palace Grounds resulted in massive traffic jams with commuters stranded for as long as seven hours.

With many areas of North Bangalore being paralyzed since Monday noon till late evening, employees working in shifts in the IT/ITeS and BPO sectors were badly hit. While those working in the day shift were not really affected as they could manage the  traffic in the morning, it was those who had to reach offices for late evening shifts and getting back home were badly stuck.

“Generally, it takes just 45- 60 minutes to reach my home even during peak hours. But traffic was so terrible yesterday that it took me two hours to reach home said Shikanth, an Employee with Cisco. “After a hard day’s work it was not   asked for.”
 
“It was a total mess on Hebbal Road. I had to reach the city centre to attend to a major problem at a corporate office. I had to wait for three hours to reach my destination. It was very crucial for the company to fix the system yesterday. But none of us could help the situation,” says Roshan, a hardware engineer.

While major IT companies and BPOs are armed with necessary business continuity plans in place, it was the mid-sized BPOs and small companies and the employees working here who were badly affected.

"For employees working in a BPO, we have to adhere to the working shifts and timings. And no matter what, one has to work for nine and a half hours. So, in case one is late due to any physical impediments, his/her working hours are extended. But such rallies only add to our woes," says an employee at Infosys BPO.

“It is disgusting that such situations occur in the IT hub of our country. What was even more irritating was that traffic came to a stand still for long hours on all roads leading to the new international airport. I had an important meeting to attend in Mumbai late evening. I missed my flight as I could not reach in time. I lost a good business opportunity,” said Sudheendra, CEO of a Bangalore-based software firm.

According to Joydeep Mukherjee, head, knowledge services, Infosys BPO, “Big companies have good business continuity plans in place and such a crisis should not impact the functioning of the company.”

“No doubt the industry is dependent on a lot of infrastructure for its smooth functioning. However, a situation like this does not impact the industry as a whole. We, at Infosys BPO, are strong in risk management and have robust business continuity (BC) plans in place. Unexpected situations like these make us more alert and cautious about our existing BC plans. We do this for every project and every engagement. In case we have information about some of the staff members turning up late in a crisis like this, we make alternate arrangements by extending the work hours of members in the previous shift and extending the work hours of those coming in late. We have help desks to handle such situations well. It is the mid-size firms which gets affected badly,” says Joydeep. First of all, we should not be facing a crisis like this, he adds.