Executives at Satyam and Wipro say the temporary dip was an immediate and emotional reaction to the bombings--and that their customers don't appear overly concerned about the attack. "People are used to living in a dangerous world," says Vivek Paul, Wipro's vice chairman and president. "No commercial enterprise was targeted [by terrorists]. As a result, there's not much questioning on this topic."
But in general, with the rise in terrorism worldwide and other potential security threats, customers have inquired more frequently about Wipro's business-continuity efforts in recent months, Paul says. "We've had customers do audits at our sties and those audits have all ended satisfactorily, with customers feeling that our preparedness was at least as good as their own," he says. Wipro has several back-up centers throughout India and can move developers if one of the centers is affected by a disaster. Paul says it's difficult to imagine a disaster of a magnitude that would disable them all. "It would take a lot to slice off the entire south of India and throw it into the sea," he says.
Satyam has invested heavily in business-continuity efforts, says senior VP Neeraj Nityanand, noting that the company has full development centers outside India in Kuala Lumpar and Singapore that can serve as backups. Satyam also runs its own telephone and power systems.