India’s largest IT services giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has asked its associates in the Middle East to stay indoors, while suspending all incoming and outgoing business travel to and from the region amid flight disruptions as geopolitical tensions escalate.
An internal advisory sent out to the employees seen by Moneycontrol, showed that the IT firm has asked all its associates to stay indoors while avoiding any travel outside the region. TCS is reaching out to impacted employees regarding the same.
“In light of the ongoing geopolitical developments in the Middle East, all our associates have been advised to stay indoors, avoid non-essential travel, and strictly follow guidance issued by local authorities. TCS has suspended all incoming and outgoing travel to and from the Middle East region, including transit, as airspace across several countries remains closed,” the advisory said.
TCS’ country leadership and human resources teams have activated a call tree service to contact stranded employees in the impacted and bordering regions on priority.
“HR and country leadership teams are actively connected with our associates and their families across locations and are closely monitoring their safety and well-being…We are also coordinating closely with local authorities and the Indian Embassies to track developments and will continue to provide timely updates as the situation evolves. The safety and well-being of our associates and their families remain our highest priority,” the note added.
Queries sent to TCS went unanswered at the time of publishing.
TCS currently has over 9,110 employees in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, serving over 150 clients across 11 industries, as per its website.
Several senior executives from other IT majors, including Infosys and HCLTech, too have been stranded in Abu Dhabi and Dubai as they were travelling to attend the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Escalating Middle East tensions
These developments are happening in reaction to the ongoing war escalating between US-Israel and Iran. Over the weekend, the US and Israeli forces started joint strikes on Iran, while the latter responded with missile and drone attacks on US bases in the Middle East.
Iran's attacks in turn were targeted across several important cities in the region including Dubai, Doha, Abu Dhabi, Manama, Riyadh among others.
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