There are a number of advantages to the rethinking of offshored services in the current economic climate, even if the final decision is to keep those services offshore.

As stated in the main article: "communication between client and supplier is paramount". This is especially true when the requirements of the company using outsourced services are insufficiently defined, or change rapidly.

Many companies have long paid scant attention to the risks of ambiguous or incorrect requirements definitions, and can get stung by the costs of communicating changed requirements to outsourcing supplies, or the costs of slow adaptation to the recognition of their needs.

These costs, tangible charges or intangible ill-adapted services, are higher when the communication chain is longer, and lowest for in-house services.

When rethinking outsourcing, especially when there is concern of changes to foreign exchange rates, there is a good chance that these costs of poor requirements definitions will be recognized, resulting in more care when defining business requirements.

Reasonable care in requirements definitions is simply good management, and Australian businesses (and governments) have been slack. If outsourcing reviews leads to greater care, then that is good for us, whether or not the final decision is to offshore services or not.

It also wouldn't surprise me if with a weaker Australian dollar, some Chinese companies consider using Australia to host services to their customers in the US and UK.