Looking at the way the UK has gone in the last 50 years, the UK is quickly becoming a service based country.
Most of our products are imported, from electrical products, toys, food, cars and many companies are using offshore marketing companies.
Many companies are starting to use overseas website designers to look after their websites and IT systems. The main reason for this is cost, but also skills and quality can be better. Many up and coming developing countries are able to supply low cost resources as well as the USA and Mexico.
Telemarketing is something that has had bad press; many UK banks were using overseas telemarketing companies to handle incoming calls and for problem solving. The reason is cost, banks could save massive amounts by using agencies in India or another low cost country.
The British public did not like this mainly because of the fact that communication was an issue.
As so much is being outsourced overseas, outsourcing telemarketing is not unreasonable if cost savings can be found. The only issues that arise are verbal understanding (which is an issue with using overseas agencies), security and reliability.
Mostly, telemarketing is outsourced for inbound calling (calls coming into a telemarketing company) as opposed to outbound calling (for sales or lead generation). This can be understood if the client (a bank for example) needs to have 100's of staff on their phones to answer basic queries. If companies can save huge amounts by sourcing overseas (as with other products and commodities) then it becomes a wise move (as long as this does not adversely effect the customer).
With outbound telemarketing, this does tend to be different. Most companies that would use an outbound telemarketing company would not require 100's of staff manning the phones, perhaps only 2-3 people making calls daily. Despite the cost savings that could be had by using an overseas agency, there is the issue of meetings. Visiting a telemarketing company is a wise move, so as you can run over how the campaign is going and also ensure they have a clear understanding of your goals and objectives.
Indeed there are big cost saving to be had from outsourcing telemarketing overseas, but this needs to be balanced up against other criteria (language issues, quality, skills, industry knowledge and meeting potential).
