[specialist]

Ya.

If I wouldn't pay the consultants in the office across the street to work on my core IT (outsourcing), why would I pay someone separated by oceans, timezones, language, culture... (offshoring)?

While working in healthcare, our corporate overlords repeatedly rammed the "blended shore" model down our throats. Which never worked. (Got to know some nice people, though. So there's that.)

The easiest part of our job was the coding. Requirements gathering, analysis, project management, customer relations, QA/Test, etc. Working shoulder to shoulder with our clients, it was hard enough. No way our work could be further delegated while still delivering something useful.

Preaching to the choir, I know, apologies.

[paulddraper]

Exactly. It's a good short-term, bad long-term strategy.

Just like any other short-term strategy, could be appropriate sometimes, but very rarely is.