An important reminder this morning from finextra on some of the risks of outsourcing. Reporters from Channel 4 in the UK were able to buy confidential customer data in India from middlemen. In this intance it was from a mobile phone company’s call centre, but the previous one was from HSBC’s call centre.

Of course, there is no reason to suspect that this has not happened at company owned call centres before, nor that it could not happen when you are insourcing your call centre. The incentives to do it, however,  are increased when workers are being paid less and the legal system is known to be weaker. If you are going to outsource, just have very good security in place and be mindful of the operational risks – they are increased. There are no

free lunches.