Customers wary of security outsourcing to India

BANGALORE: A survey done by Sanovi Technologies states that reveals 51% of the customers abroad are wary of outsourcing security solutions to India. According the Managing Director, Sanovi, Srinivas Pothapragoda, "The primary reasons for this perception as the survey revealed, 37% cited lack of adequate protection and Intellectual Property (IP) rights for their data, 28% revealed geo-political reasons and 11% cited infrastructure inadequacy".

Speaking at the BPO summit on 'Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity' during the ongoing Bangalore IT.com, 2002, he suggested that, "We need to assure the outsourcers of better processes and adopting better management skills. Industry players need to identify the key drivers of this segment such as providing a 24/7 and 365 days of business operations and with the 9/11 event, we have seen heightened awareness among the industries. We need to tap this ever-growing market potential".

According to him, companies abroad such as in UK, compliance of DR solutions are mandatory and several federal and legal requirements are strict in most industries there to store and retrieve data. " BPO outsourcing has created business eco-system," he said.

Addressing the gathering, Darshan Shantamurthi, CEO of SISA consultants, spoke on OCTAVE, a SEI- CMU methodology of risk assessment in enterprises. Implementing it for the first time in India, Darshan said, " The goal of the OCTAVE is to direct and manage information security in organisations and carry out risk assessment for them to make the best decision based on unique risks or threats. Besides it focuses on protecting key information assets and effectively communicating the key security information to the decision makers".