Amidst reports of a slowdown in BPO hiring and IT billing comes the news that the KPO industry is not unduly worried about a serious impact of the Wall Street woes with most companies ready to brazen it out.

The knowledge process outsourcing industry believes that though there would be an immediate impact of the US financial sector meltdown, but going forward the industry would continue to benefit from the spate of take-overs happening in the financial sector.

Analysts believe that the financial turmoil would ensure that more and more companies would look to save money and since the outsourcing is a sure-fire way to do so, there is every likehood that KPO services would continue to make hay.

Meanwhile, a report published in the Financial Express quoted an official of KPO firm eClerx as saying that the company was facing the impact of the Lehman Brothers banruptcy given that around 13% of their revenues accrued from them.

The paper quoted PD Mundhra, executive director, eClerx Services, as saying that fall of investment firms are more like to affect KPOs rather than BPOs since investment banks are more likely to work with KPOs.

"In such a cenario, KPOs are more likely to get affected,” said Mundhra. However, according to an industry analyst, things are not as gloomy as they seem to be... the service providers dealing with the investment firm will definitely be affected. But on the other hand, if the company gets taken over by someone else, the same businesses would need to be dealt with," the paper quoted him as saying.

Whether the projects stay with the same service provider or goes to a competitor, the fact is the ultimate beneficiary would be the Indian KPO industry, says an analyst who believes that there is every likelihood of the buyers of the busted company to continue with the original service provider.