Westpac tried this a couple of years back and it was a monumental F-UP. The 600 roles that were outsourced were bought back in-house. CBA had similar experiences.
I love how management think of IT as being 'non-core' and easily off-shored. What they fail to understand is that a 'local' resource is more likely to care about the quality of his/her work than an off-shored equivalent that is likely supporting 'many different organizations' and is likely to perform the role at a lesser standard. Then there's the quality component which is never comparable. In fact (apart from the original kodak outsourcing test case) I'm yet to see an example of where off-shoring or outsourcing has resulted in REAL cost reduction or improved service. Indian call centers have a bad rep for a reason.
If I were a Westpac customer I would be considering whether I'd feel safe know MY MONEY was sitting on systems being managed by these people.
