The Indian Call Center Journey

"The call center business appears to be going the dot-com way with a lot of big names
pumping in dough. Ultimately, only the fittest will survive."

A Mumbai based call center agent, in 2001.

Call Centers Fare Badly

In the beginning of 1999, the teleworking industry had been hailed as 'the opportunity' for
Indian corporates in the new millennium. In late 2000, a NASSCOM1 study forecast that by
2008, the Indian IT enabled services business2 was set to reach great heights. Noted
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) scholar, Michael Dertouzos remarked that India
could boost its GDP by a trillion dollars through the IT-enabled services sector. Call center
(an integral part of IT-enabled services) revenues were projected to grow from Rs 24 bn in
2000 to Rs 200 bn by 2010. During 2000-01, over a hundred call centers were established
in India ranging from 5000 sq. ft. to 100,000 sq. ft. in area involving investments of over Rs
12 bn.

However, by early 2001, things seemed to have taken a totally

different turn. The reality of the Indian call center experience
was manifested in rows after rows of cubicles devoid of
personnel in the call centers.

There just was no business coming in. In centers which did

retain the employees, they were seen sitting idle, waiting
endlessly for the calls to come.

Estimates indicated that the industry was saddled with idle

capacity worth almost $ 75-100 mn. Owners of a substantial
number of such centers were on the lookout for buyers. It was
surprising that call centers were having problems in recruiting
suitable entry-level agents even with attractive salaries being
offered.
The human resource exodus added to the industry's misery. Given the large number of
unemployed young people in the country, the attrition rate of over 50% (in some cases)
was rather surprising. The industry, which was supposed to generate substantial
employment for the country, was literally down in the dumps - much to the chagrin of
industry experts, the Government, the media and above all, the players involved. The future
prospects of the call center business seemed to be rather bleak indeed.
 The Indian Call Center Journey - Next Page >>>

Call Center Basics

In 2001, the global call center industry was worth $ 800 mn spread across around 100,000
units. It was expected to touch the 300,000 level by 2002 employing approximately 18 mn
people. Broadly speaking, a call center was a facility handling large volumes of inbound and
outbound telephone calls, manned by 'agents,' (the people working at the center). In
certain setups, the caller and the call center shared costs, while in certain other cases, the
clients bore the call's cost. The call center could be situated anywhere in the world,
irrespective of the client company's customer base. Call centers date back to the 1970s,
when the travel/hospitality industry in the US began to centralize their reservation centers.
With the rise of catalog shopping and outbound telemarketing, call centers became
necessary for many industries. Each industry had its own way of operating these centers,
with its own standards for quality, and its own preferred technologies.

The total number of people who worked at the center at any

given point of time were referred to as 'seats.' A center could
range from a small 5-10 seat set-up to a huge set-up with 500-
2,000 seats.

The calls could be for customer service, sales, marketing or

technical support in areas such as airline/hotel reservations,
banking or regarding telemarketing, market research, etc.

For instance, while a FMCG company could use the call centers
for better customer relationship management, for a
biotechnology company, the task could be of verifying genetic
databases. (Refer Table I). Call centers began as huge
establishments managing large volumes of communications and
traffic.
These centers were generally set up as large rooms, with workstations, interactive voice
response systems, an EPABX,3 headsets hooked into a large telecom switch and one or more
supervisor stations. (Refer Table II). The center was either an independent entity, or was
linked with other centers or to a corporate data network, including mainframes,
microcomputers and LANs4. Call centers could either be 'captive/in-house' or in form of an
'outsourced bureau.' Captive call centers were typically used by various segments like
insurance, investments and securities, retail banking, other financial services,
telecommunications, technology, utilities, manufacturing, travel and tourism, transport,
entertainment, healthcare and education etc.

The Indian Call Center Journey - Next Page >>>

Call Center Basics Contd...

TABLE I
BENEFITS OF A CALL-CENTER

• Enhances the customer base and business prospects;

• Offers an economical means of reaching diverse and widely distributed

customer group;

• Fine-tunes offerings to specific customer groups by specialized and

focussed assistance;

• Allows customers easy access to experts;

• Facilitates business round the clock and in any geographical region;

• Allows a company to reduce the overheads of brick and mortar

branches.

Source: Compiled from various sources.

TABLE II
CALL CENTER CLASSIFICATION

• Voice call center with phones and computers.

• E-mail call center with leased lines and computers.

• Web-based call centers using internet chat facilities with customers.

• Regional call centers handling calls from local clients.

• Global call centers handling calls from across the world.

Source: Compiled from various sources.

Outsourcing bureaus were outfits with prior experience in running call centers. These helped
the new players in dealing with complex labor issues, assisted in using latest technologies,
helped in lowering the operating expenses and financial risks.

Outsourced bureau operators were utilized by companies at various stages viz. setting up of
the center, internal infrastructure revamps, excess traffic situations etc.

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Indian Call Centers – Myths and Realities
There were many reasons why India was considered an attractive destination to set up call
centers. The boom in the Indian information technology sector in the mid 1990s led to the
country's IT strengths being recognized all over the world.

Moreover, India had the largest English-speaking population after the US and had a vast
workforce of educated, reasonably tech-savvy personnel.

In a call center, manpower typically accounted for 55-60% of the total costs in the US and
European markets - in India, the manpower cost was approximately one-tenth of this. While
per agent cost in US worked out to approximately $ 40,000, in India it was only $ 5,000.

This was cited to be the biggest advantage India could offer to

the MNCs. Apart from these, the Government's pro call center
industry approach and a virtual 12-hour time zone difference
with the US added to India's advantages.

There were a host of players in the Indian call center industry.

Apart from the pioneers British Airways, GE and Swiss Air, HLL,
BPL, Godrej Soaps, Global Tele-Systems, Wipro, ICICI Banking
Corporation, American Express, Bank of America, Citibank, ABN
AMRO, Global Trust, Deutsche Bank, Airtel, and Bharati BT were
the other major players in the call-center business.
After the projections of the NASSCOM-McKinsey report were made public, many people
began thinking of entering the call center business. (Refer Table III).

During this rush to make money from the call center 'wave,' NASSCOM received queries
from many people with spare cash and space, including lorry-fleet operators, garment
exporters, leather merchants, tyre distributors and plantation owners among others.

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Indian Call Centers – Myths and Realities Contd...

TABLE III
THE INDIAN CALL-CENTER MILESTONES

GE, Swiss Air, British Airways set up captive call center units for their
Mid 1990s
global needs.
 Following increasing interest in the IT-enabled services sector,
NASSCOM held the first IT-enabled services meet. Over 600
May 1999
participant firms plan to set up medical transcription outfits and call
centers.

December A NASSCOM-McKinsey report says that remote services could

1999 generate $ 18 billion of annual revenues by 2008.

May 2000 Venture Capitalists rush in. Make huge investments in call centers.

More than 1,000 participants flock to the NASSCOM meet to hear

September about new opportunities in remote services. Though the medical
2000 transcription business is not flourishing, call centers seen as a big
opportunity.

NASSCOM report, indicates that a center could be set up with $ 1

Quarter 4
million. Gold rush begins. Everyone, from plantation owners to lorry-
2000
fleet operators, wanted to set up centers.

Most of the call centers are waiting for customers. New ventures still
coming up: capacity of between 25 seats and 10,000 seats per
Quarter 1, company. Small operators discover that the business is a black hole
2001 where investments just disappear. They look for buyers, strategic
partnerships and joint ventures. Brokers and middlemen make an
entry to fix such deals.

However, most of these people entered the field, without having any idea as to what the
business was all about. Their knowledge regarding the technology involved, the marketing
aspects, client servicing issues etc was very poor. They assumed that by offering cheaper
rates, they would be able to attract clients easily. They did not realize that more than easy
access to capital and real estate, the field required experience and a sound business
background. Once they decided to enter the field, they found that most of the capital
expenditure (in form of building up the infrastructure5) occurred even before the first client
was bagged. These players seemed to have neglected the fact that most successful call
centers were quite large and had either some experience in the form of promoters having
worked abroad in similar ventures or previous experience with such ventures or were
subsidiaries of foreign companies.

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Indian Call Centers – Myths and Realities Contd...

The real trouble started when these companies began soliciting clients. As call centers were
a new line of business in India, the lack of track record forced the clients to go for much
detailed and prolonged studies of the Indian partners. Many US clients insisted on a strict
inspection of the facilities offered, such as work-areas, cafeterias and even the restrooms.
The clients expected to be shown detailed Service Level Agreements (SLAs)6, which a
majority of the Indian firms could not manage. Under these circumstances, no US company
was willing to risk giving business to amateurs at the cost of losing their customers.
Because of the inadequate investments in technology, lack of processes to scale the
business7 and the lack of management capabilities, most of the Indian players were unable
to get international customers.

Even for those who did manage to rope in some clients, the
business was limited. As if these problems were not enough, the
players hit another roadblock - this time in form of the high
labor turnover problem. Agent performance was the deciding
factor in the success of any call center. Companies had
recognized agents as one of the most important and influential
points of contact between the business and the customer.
However, it was this very set of people whom the Indian call
centers were finding extremely difficult to recruit and more
importantly, retain. In 2000, the average attrition rate in the
industry was 40-45%, with about 10-15% of the staff quitting
within the first two months itself. Even though attrition rates
were very high in this industry worldwide, the same trend was
not expected to emerge in India, as the unemployment levels
were much higher.
The reasons were not very hard to understand. In a eight-and-a-half hour shift, the agents
had to attend calls for seven-and-a-half hours. The work was highly stressful and
monotonous with frequent night shifts. A typical call center agent could be described as
being 'overworked, underpaid, stressed-out and thoroughly bored.'

The agents were frequently reported to develop an identity crisis because of the 'dual
personality' they had to adopt. They had to take on European/US names or abbreviate their
own names and acquire foreign accents in order to pose as 'locals.' The odd timings took a
toll on their health with many agents complaining of their biological clocks being disturbed.
(Especially the ones in night shifts).

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Indian Call Centers – Myths and Realities Contd...

Job security was another major problem, with agents being fired frequently for not being
able to adhere to the strict accuracy standards. (Not more than one mistake per 100
computer lines.) The industry did not offer any creative work or growth opportunities to
keep the workers motivated. The scope for growth was very limited. For instance, in a 426-
seat center, there were 400 agents, 20 team leaders, four service delivery leaders, one
head of department and one head of business. Thus, going up the hierarchy was almost
impossible for the agents. Analysts remarked that the fault was mainly in the recruitment,
training, and career progression policies of the call centers. Organizations that first set up
call centers in India were able to pick and choose the best talent available.

The entry norms established at this point were - a maximum age

limit of 25 years, a minimum qualification of a university degree,
English medium school basic education and a preference to
candidates belonging to westernized and well-off upper middle
class families. The companies hence did not have to spend too
much time and effort in training the new recruits on the two
important aspects of a good level of spoken and written English
and a good exposure to western culture and traditions. However,
companies soon realized that people with such backgrounds
generally had much higher aspirations in life. While they were
initially excited to work in the excellent working environment of
a multinational company for a few months, they were not willing
to make a career in the call center industry. They generally got
fed up and left within a few months when the excitement waned.
A consistently high attrition rate affected not only a center's profits but also customer
service and satisfaction. This was because a new agent normally took a few months before
becoming as proficient as an experienced one. This meant that opportunities for providing
higher levels of customer service were lost on account of high staff turnover.8

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Future Prospects
The Indian call center majors were trying to handle the labor exodus through various
measures. Foremost amongst these was the move to employ people from social and
academic backgrounds different from the norms set earlier. Young people passing out of
English medium high schools and universities and housewives and back-to-work mothers
looking for suitable opportunities were identified as two of the biggest possible recruitment
pools for the industry. Such students with a good basic level of English could be trained
easily to improve their accents, pronunciation, grammar, spelling and diction. They could be
trained to become familiar with western culture and traditions. The housewives and back-to-
work mothers' pool could also be developed into excellent resources. This had been
successfully tried out in the US and European markets, where call centers employed a large
number of housewives and back-to-work mothers.

Another solution being thought about was to recruit people from

non-metros, as people from these places were deemed to be
more likely to stay with the organization, though being more
difficult to recruit and expensive to train. Even as the people and
infrastructure problems were being tackled, a host of other
issues had cropped up, posing threats for the Indian call centers.

The promise of cheap, English speaking and technically aware

labor from India was suddenly not as lucrative in the
international markets. A survey of Fortune 1,000 companies on
their outsourcing concerns showed that cost-reduction was not
the most important criterion for selecting an outsourcing
partner. This did not augur well for a country banking on its cost
competitiveness.
Also, China was fast emerging as a major threat to India, as it had embarked on a massive
plan to train people in English to overcome its handicap in the language. In February 2001,
Niels Kjellerup, editor and publisher of 'Call Center Managers Forum' came out strongly
against India being promoted as an ideal place to set up call centers. He said: "The English
spoken by Indians is a very heavy dialect – in fact, in face to face conversations, I found it
very difficult to understand what was said. How will this play out over the telephone with
people much less educated that my conversation partners? The non-existent customer
service culture in India will make training of reps mandatory and difficult, since such a
luxury as service is not part of everyday life in India.

The Indian Call Center Journey - Next Page >>>

Future Prospects Contd...

The infrastructure is bad, no, make that antiquated: The attempts by a major US
corporation to set up a satellite link has so far been expensive and not very successful.
Electricity infrastructure is going from bad to worse – in fact during my stay at a 5 star hotel
and at the corporate HQ of a big MNC, we had on average 7 black-outs a day where the
generators would kick in after 2-3 seconds.

The telephony system is analog and inadequate. It took on average three attempts just to
get a line of out my hotel. The telecom market is not deregulated, and international calls
are very expensive. The business culture and the mix of Government intervention will be a
cultural shock for Western business people with no previous experience.

Add to this a lack of a call center industry and very few people
with call center experience which makes it very hard to recruit
call center managers with a proven track record."

Despite the mounting criticisms and worries, hope still existed

for the Indian call center industry. Analysts remarked that the
call center business was in the midst of a transition, wherein
only the fundamentally strong players would remain in the fray
after an inevitable 'shakeout.'

Unlike other industries, the shakeout in this industry was not

only because of an over supply of call center providers, but also
because of the quality of supply offered. In spite of the
downturn, the call center business was considered to hold a lot
of potential by many corporates.
With the US economy facing a slowdown, the need for US companies to outsource was
expected to be even higher. The Reliance group was planning to open call centers in 10
cities across the country. Other companies including Spectramind and Global Telesystems
planned to either enter or enhance their presence in the business. Whether the dream of
call centers contributing to substantial economic growth for India would turn into reality was
something only time would reveal.

Exhibits
Exhibit I: Call Center Terminology

Building a call center

Manjushree Infotech wanted to enter the IT Enabled Services space and

decided to set up a call center in Kolkata. Although inexperienced in the call
center business, the company decided upon the appropriate technology and
solution platform after evaluation. by Soutiman Das Gupta

Manjushree Infotech decided to enter the IT Enabled Services (ITES) space

because it felt that this area had a lot of business potential. It received a
mandate from the Health Management Organization (HMO) in USA to support
its call center in Tampa, Florida. And in order to support the operations of this
 In a nutshell
facility, Manjushree Infotech decided to set up a call
center in Kolkata with the required infrastructure.
• The company
Manjushree Infotech is
THE SOLUTION PLAN a part of the B.K. Birla
Group of Companies. It
The plan was to build a small setup comprising 25 wanted to enter the IT
seats which could scale up when business picked up Enabled Services space
and decided to set up a
and new clients were acquired. The company had to call center in Kolkata.
• The problem
keep a number of aspects in mind in order to plan Since it had no
experience in call
the setup. centers the company
had to decide upon the
"We had to look for a technology platform and a call appropriate technology
and platform on which
center solution that would be quick to deploy to construct the
solution.
keeping in mind our customer's need, address our
• The solution
expansion plans, and support a future need for The company deployed
an appropriate call
convergence," said Sam Swaminathan, CEO, center solution which
had QoS features and
Manjushree Infotech. supported voice, data,
and multimedia
The solution had to be scalable enough to support integration capabililties.

the company's expansion plans. It had to be built on

• The benefits
an integrated single infrastructure in order to exploit The call center is able
to support 1,600
the convergence in data, voice, and video. It was incoming calls a day.
Customers can use
compulsory for the WAN to have QoS features since multiple reporting
capabilities through e-
voice would be the primary medium of mail, voice, and the
Web. It enables the
communication. And the solution had to support company to track
expenses and agent
multimedia applications and use the benefits of productivity.
convergence to deliver multiple modes of interaction
with customers.

It was also important to build the converged, multi-service infrastructure based

on IP. The availability of a wide variety of applications on IP for voice, data and
video were highlighted as key drivers for the adoption of technology. And this
infrastructure had to interoperate seamlessly with legacy PBX, based on TDM
voice in the US.
"Since we had no prior experience with call centers and there were various
solutions available in the market to address our needs, we decided to adopt an
extensive evaluation process. All vendors presented their suggested technology
direction for voice and video to our decision-makers and teams of technical
consultants belonging to our customer in the US," said Amit Choudhury,
Principal Consultant, Manjushree Infotech.

The company conducted discussions with various vendors like Lucent, Nortel,
and Cisco for architectural designs and directions for the call center technology.
Case Study
About Client and Company:
The client, based in Columbus, is a leading and trusted provider of government assisted wireless services
and non-lifeline telecom services. The company wanted a complete back up support system to cater its
need of back-office operations where the applications of candidates can be tracked and verified to
expedite the processes. The company was also looking for one stop source which can take care of their
extensive and growing numbers of customers and provide them better and prompt services.

Analysis:
The client was specially concerned about the numbers of applications and the time of response taken by
in-house staff. This was not only resulting in wastage of time but also in loss of customers to the
competitors. Once we presented them our delivery model of work, since then, they have been associated
with us, and we are proudly handling their back-office and customer support operations.

Our Solution :
We deployed expert call center agents who were well versed in English and had accurate and effective
account knowledge. The purpose was to assist the customers effectively and quickly. The customers
were provided with toll-free numbers so that they would not hesitate to call. To make services more
customer centric, we initiated two shifts of working- one which would work in night to complement the day
hours according to western zone of timings and other in daytime as per Indian Standard Time. To cope up
with the elaborate and painstaking work of processing applications, callcenterinindia. info employed
expert back office administration workers.

Results :
Now, the team at callcenterinindia.info caters about 60, 000 customers on monthly basis. We have not
been able to meet the expectations of our client but have been able to elate the company with our
services. We provide bi-monthly progress and performance reports to our client as well.

Client talks:
Thanks for providing such an excellent support. I appreciate your timely help and for offering such a
wonderful outsourcing experience.

Program Performance :
We are consistently achieving new benchmarks and exceeding services level expectations. We are
handling about 50, 000 customers on monthly basis for this client and adding more than 60 percent as
customer acquisitions monthly,

Call Center Development and Implementation Projects

Scenario
Today, Customer is the king and information in right time is the need of the hour. The BSNL customer
were facing a lot of difficulty in (1) Accessing the information about the services being offered by BSNL (2)
Getting value added services (3) Information pertaining to himself (4) Complaints related to services. The
solution of the same was an integrated Call Center with all the CRM working in the operation unit.
Requirement
Telecom and Energy was looking for a call center blended both inbound and outbound to cater the
services being asked by their potential and existing customers. The Call Center should have the basic
feature of integrating with different kind of CRM packages working across the operational units. The
system required should be scalable both in terms of increasing the service requirement and changes
happening in the world of telecom services. Scope & SIS OFFERS:
Technology
We have variety of solution for various business verticals to provide complete
solution in terms of contact center. Out solution is tightly integrated with
existing CRM so that it covers all aspects of the business contact to give highly
satisfied experience to their customer.
We have call center solution based on different technology, mainly

1. Switch based Call center

2. Server based Call center ( Dialogic )

SIS offers number of solution depending upon requirements of out
client and flexibility to integrate with their business requirements.

1. Inbound Call Center

2. Outbound call center
3. Predictive dialer
4. Auto Dialer
5. Preview Dialer

6. Inbound/outbound call center

Components
SaiCall is complete suite consists of various modules to operate call center or contact center in
different situation.

1. CTI Server
2. Flexible IVRS
3. Agent Client
4. Administrator client
5. Scheduler/Calendar
6. Monitor and Alarms
7. Reports

8. Workforce Management
Critical Success Factors:
Integration of existing CRM Servers: BSNL has different packages working for CRM activities across the
operational units. These CRM can exist in Oracle/Sybase/DB2/SQLServer and even in Foxpro.

Application to match Local Scenario: The requirement of services being offered through these call center
is geography specific and depends on the customer base and competition scenario. SIS does the case
study of the requirement and presents the complete solution to meet the requirement and configure the
application to meet the requisite.

Training Agents and Supervisor: SIS do understand that any system integration project is incomplete
without the handing over of the technical knowhow and operational knowledge to the customers. SIS
practices this in action and hands over the complete knowledge to the customers so that the operations of
the call center can be handled by the customer himself without the hindrance.
Project done so far
1. Ahmedabad Telecom District - BSNL (Inbound/Outbound Call center integrated with CRM/Billing
System)
2. Gujarat GSM -BSNL ( 150 seats Switch based Inbound/Outbound Call center integrated with
CRM/Billing System)
3. Rajsthan BSNL (Call center Inbound/Outbound Call center integrated with CRM/Billing System)
4. UP(West) BSNL (all centers spread across Noida, Meerut and Bareilly Inbound/Outbound Call
center integrated with CRM/Billing System)
5. UP(East) BSNL (Call center Inbound/Outbound Call center integrated with CRM/Billing System)
6. Kerala - BSNL (Call center Inbound/Outbound Call center integrated with CRM/Billing System)
spread across Trivendrum, Ernakulam, Trichur and Calicut.
7. MP BSNL (Call center Inbound/Outbound Call center integrated with CRM/Billing System)
8. Raipur BSNL (Call center Inbound/Outbound Call center integrated with CRM/Billing System)
9. iCall,i Factor, Ahmedabad Predictive Dialer International
10. BJP, New Delhi - Unified Messaging System
11. ONGC Mumbai - Unified Messaging System

12. MGVCL Call Centers at Vadodara, Anand and Godhra in Gujarat.

Call Center Offshore Outsourcing - A Case Study
Flatworld transformed the sales process for a global software and services company based in the US. They
were looking at expanding their India operations and Flatworld bagged the contract and delivered lucrative call
center offshore outsourcing services.
The Customer
Our customer was a leading global software and services company based in Minneapolis and listed by
NASDAQ..
Flatworld has done diverse call center offshore outsourcing work and cater to customers from all over the
world. From Fortune 500 companies to individual entrepreneurs, from those who wish to establish a presence
and create more channels for their business to those who require complex applications and more interactivity,
we have rendered to them all.
The Challenge
The customer, addressing mid market companies globally had successfully established a development center
in Bangalore and was looking at expanding the scope of activities in India. They were interested in
understanding how the developing IT enabled services industry in India could be leveraged. IT enabled
services include Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Back Office Operations like, Accounting, Data
Entry, Data Conversion, Finance & Accounting, HR Services, Transcription Services, Content Development,
Animation, Engineering, Other Services including Remote Education and Market Research Services.
Flatworld was singled out as the best fit to undertake their call center offshore outsourcing.
The Solution
Flatworld was awarded the contract for the customer’s call center offshore outsourcing
based on the solution it highlighted to drive the customers' sales process. Our solution included:
• A team based in India, that had the required sales skills, communication skills and poise to open doors
for the company’s highly skilled product specialists to take the sales process to the next phase.
• Design of a pilot program
• A team of Flatworld’s B2B specialists
• Relevant training for two weeks to make the first level pitch
The Result
The initial pilot program we designed for the call center offshore outsourcing service was an unqualified
success. The customer then decided to extend our call center offshore outsourcing services to other business
divisions and product categories.

After Flatworld’s pilot, the initial market scope extended from the USA to cover the UK, Canada and
Anglophone Africa. Extensions were not only in business divisions, products and market scope but also in
budgets. The marked increase in productivity of the in-market sales team resulted in the extension of budgets
as well.
Customer Response
The customer remarked that the call center offshore outsourcing deal they got from Flatworld was extremely
successful, as the results from the pilot paid for Flatworld’s subsequent quarterly service fees!

The customer thought it was important to build a team rapport across customer and service provider. They
made it mandatory for the in-market sales team to visit the development center in India and our sales support
team and interact on a more personal level.

The customer also expressed that the company strategy to differentiate itself from competitors in terms of the
quality of staff deployed in its initial customer facing interaction and solution development was a success.
Read this Case Study on Call Center Services offered by Flatworld to a leading global Call Center Operator.
Outsource your call center needs to Flatworld now.
Learn more about Flatworld's Success Stories.
Some Indian Case Studies:
1 Pune Citibank MphasiS Call Center
Fraud

US $ 3,50,000 from accounts of four US

customers were dishonestly transferred
to bogus accounts. This will give a lot of
ammunition to those lobbying against
outsourcing in US. Such cases happen all
over the world but when it happens in
India it is a serious matter and we can
not ignore it. It is a case of sourcing
engineering. Some employees gained
the confidence of the customer and
obtained their PIN numbers to commit
fraud. They got these under the guise of
helping the customers out of difficult
situations. Highest security prevails in
the call centers in India as they know
that they will lose their business. There
was not as much of breach of security
but of sourcing engineering.

The call center employees are checked

when they go in and out so they can not
copy down numbers and therefore they
could not have noted these down. They
must have remembered these numbers,
gone out immediately to a cyber café
and accessed the Citibank accounts of
the customers.

All accounts were opened in Pune and

the customers complained that the
money from their accounts was
transferred to Pune accounts and that’s
how the criminals were traced. Police
has been able to prove the honesty of
the call center and has frozen the
accounts where the money was
transferred.

There is need for a strict background

check of the call center executives.
However, best of background checks can
not eliminate the bad elements from
coming in and breaching security. We
must still ensure such checks when a
person is hired. There is need for a
national ID and a national data base
where a name can be referred to. In this
case preliminary investigations do not
reveal that the criminals had any crime
history. Customer education is very
important so customers do not get taken
for a ride. Most banks are guilt of not
doing this.

2 Baazee.com case
CEO of Baazee.com was arrested in December 2004 because a CD with objectionable
material was being sold on the website. The CD was also being sold in the markets in
Delhi. The Mumbai city police and the Delhi Police got into action. The CEO was later
released on bail. This opened up the question as to what kind of distinction do we draw
between Internet Service Provider and Content Provider. The burden rests on the
accused that he was the Service Provider and not the Content Provider. It also raises a
lot of issues regarding how the police should handle the cyber crime cases and a lot of
education is required.

3 State of Tamil Nadu Vs Suhas Katti

The Case of Suhas Katti is notable for the fact that the conviction was achieved
successfully within a relatively quick time of 7 months from the filing of the FIR.
Considering that similar cases have been pending in other states for a much longer
time, the efficient handling of the case which happened to be the first case of the
Chennai Cyber Crime Cell going to trial deserves a special mention.

The case related to posting of obscene, defamatory and annoying message about a
divorcee woman in the yahoo message group. E-Mails were also forwarded to the victim
for information by the accused through a false e-mail account opened by him in the
name of the victim. The posting of the message resulted in annoying phone calls to the
lady in the belief that she was soliciting.

Based on a complaint made by the victim in February 2004, the Police traced the
accused to Mumbai and arrested him within the next few days. The accused was a
known family friend of the victim and was reportedly interested in marrying her. She
however married another person. This marriage later ended in divorce and the accused
started contacting her once again. On her reluctance to marry him, the accused took up
the harassment through the Internet.

On 24-3-2004 Charge Sheet was filed u/s 67 of IT Act 2000, 469 and 509 IPC before
The Hon’ble Addl. CMM Egmore by citing 18 witnesses and 34 documents and material
objects. The same was taken on file in C.C.NO.4680/2004. On the prosecution side 12
witnesses were examined and entire documents were marked as Exhibits.

The Defence argued that the offending mails would have been given either by ex-
husband of the complainant or the complainant her self to implicate the accused as
accused alleged to have turned down the request of the complainant to marry her.

Further the Defence counsel argued that some of the documentary evidence was not
sustainable under Section 65 B of the Indian Evidence Act. However, the court relied
upon the expert witnesses and other evidence produced before it, including the
witnesses of the Cyber Cafe owners and came to the conclusion that the crime was
conclusively proved. Ld. Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Egmore, delivered the
judgement on 5-11-04 as follows:

" The accused is found guilty of offences under section 469, 509 IPC and 67 of IT Act
2000 and the accused is convicted and is sentenced for the offence to undergo RI for 2
years under 469 IPC and to pay fine of Rs.500/-and for the offence u/s 509 IPC
sentenced to undergo 1 year Simple imprisonment and to pay fine of Rs.500/- and for
the offence u/s 67 of IT Act 2000 to undergo RI for 2 years and to pay fine of Rs.4000/-
All sentences to run concurrently."

The accused paid fine amount and he was lodged at Central Prison, Chennai. This is
considered as the first case convicted under section 67 of Information Technology Act
2000 in India.

4 PARLIAMENT ATTACK CASE

Bureau of Police Research and Development at Hyderabad had handled some of the top
cyber cases, including analysing and retrieving information from the laptop recovered
from terrorist, who attacked Parliament. The laptop which was seized from the two
terrorists, who were gunned down when Parliament was under siege on December 13
2001, was sent to Computer Forensics Division of BPRD after computer experts at Delhi
failed to trace much out of its contents.

The laptop contained several evidences that confirmed of the two terrorists’ motives,
namely the sticker of the Ministry of Home that they had made on the laptop and
pasted on their ambassador car to gain entry into Parliament House and the the fake ID
card that one of the two terrorists was carrying with a Government of India emblem
and seal.

The emblems (of the three lions) were carefully scanned and the seal was also craftly
made along with residential address of Jammu and Kashmir. But careful detection
proved that it was all forged and made on the laptop.

5 Andhra Pradesh Tax Case

Dubious tactics of a prominent businessman from Andhra Pradesh was exposed after
officials of the department got hold of computers used by the accused person. The
owner of a plastics firm was arrested and Rs 22 crore cash was recovered from his
house by sleuths of the Vigilance Department. They sought an explanation from him
regarding the unaccounted cash within 10 days.

The accused person submitted 6,000 vouchers to prove the legitimacy of trade and
thought his offence would go undetected but after careful scrutiny of vouchers and
contents of his computers it revealed that all of them were made after the raids were
conducted.

It later revealed that the accused was running five businesses under the guise of one
company and used fake and computerised vouchers to show sales records and save tax.
SELECTED ASIA / PACIFIC CASES:

The following section provides a selection of actions taken against file-sharing Web sites
and P2P services in the Asia/Pacific region, focusing on Australia, China, Japan and
South Korea.

1. In Australia’s largest copyright infringement case, three university students received

criminal sentences for running a Web site called MP3/WMA Land, which offered more
than 1,800 pirated songs for download. In light of their age at the time and the fact
that they never profited from their actions, the court warranted 18-month suspended
sentences for two of the students and an additional fine of US$5,000 for one of them.
Moreover, one student and a third participant were given 200 hours of community
service.

2. Reportedly, China has become a leading exporter of counterfeit and pirated goods to
the world. The U.S. industry estimates the value of counterfeit goods in China at US$19
billion to US$24 billion, with losses to U.S. companies exceeding US$1.8 billion a year.
The severe piracy problems derive from a combination of cultural, historic and economic
factors and are further aggravated by inconsistent, weak enforcement by officials. File-
sharing Web sites and networks such as Jelawat and Kuro have been developing
rapidly, too. The distributors of P2P software claim that file-sharing falls within the
private use exception to copyright, but the Supreme People’s Court of China rejected
this interpretation. Increasingly, copyright owners and right organizations are
challenging file-sharing Web sites on copyright infringement claims.

3. The Beijing No 1 People’s Court ruled in April 2004 that the Web site chinamp3.com
violated the IP rights of Hong Kong-based entertainment companies Go East
Entertainment and Sony Music Entertainment (Hong Kong), and ordered the site to pay
US$19,000 in damages. The suit concerned the unauthorized distribution of MP3 music
files. The defendant argued that he had merely provided links for download and not a
direct download service, and therefore should not be held responsible for the IP rights
violations. According to observers, the court’s ruling may prove to be a significant
development in the nascent field of Chinese copyright enforcement in the digital age.

Copyright:
http://www.cyber.law.harvard.edu/media/files/wpsupplement2005.pd

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