I used to work on Level 1 service desks until my positions all got outsourced to India. The reason? Lower cost. But management never considered the "true cost". Sure, they could hire 4 people there to do what I did, but they didn't actually DO what I did. First call resolution dropped from an average of 65% down to 40%. And of that 40%, it was considered "first call resolution" if it never left the service desk, not if it the Level 1 agent resolved the call. So it was actually closer to 25% first call resolution. And of the 60% of calls that were not resolved "first call", the average down time for the (more expensive) end-user is 2.5 days - versus 6 hours when the call is not outsourced. Multiply that 60% times the number of calls then multiply by the lost work hours. THEN tell me that I was too expensive. (Sorry for the rant - still bitter about it since I lost THREE positions for the same reason.)

Management needs to start considering true cost of outsourcing whenever they consider outsourcing ANY position, not just the immediate, front-end cost. My wife is an accountant and even SHE as felt the pain of outsourcing (and also, like me, offshoring).