Industry experts believe that the terror strikes of 26/11 could not have come at a worse time for the Indian IT-BPO industry as this could result in a further slowing down of the already sluggish market on two key counts.

Industry honchos believe that while on the one hand clients may be wary of visiting India at this juncture which may delay new business sign-ups, while on the other, there is a possibility of clients seeking data recovery centers which would add to the costs.

A report published in the Economic Times quoted several industry experts airing their views on the subject with most believing that India will continue to attract outsourcing projects though on a short-term due diligence process will get delayed.

Avinash Vasishtha, CEO of outsourcing advisory firm Tholons believes that the cost of outsourcing could go up in the medium term as clients would expect vendors to provide multi-city options to facilitate robust disaster-recovery and business continuity.

Nasscom President Som Mittal had recently touched upon this subject by stating that the industry had evolved business continuity plans even earlier and going forward adequate stress would be placed to ensure a 24/7 operations across companies.

In fact, the Economic Times report quoted un-named officials at Firstsource BPO to state that incoming call traffic was diverted to other centers across Mumbai n the aftermath of the terror attacks last month.

Companies like WNS Global and Genpact believe that client perception might take a blow in the short term but in the longer term it would continue to be favourable to Indian BPO providers given the proven track record in providing safety to both employees and to the data that these companies handle.