John Chambers, mega-star CEO of mega-sized
US technology company Cisco Systems Inc, likes to rabbit on about the
importance of the Australian market.

But that hasn’t stopped
Cisco abandoning its outsourced customer service centre in
Frenchs Forest, Sydney, run by Amsterdam-based tech group Getronics. Cost cutting has seen the centre progressively downsized – and now the last 50 staff will eventually go.

The
Australian facility has been one of Cisco’s three global providers of
24 hours a day, seven days a week technical assistance. Now the Asian time
zone will be serviced by an operation in Malaysia, and Europe by a
centre in Hungary.

Why have they closed down Australia? Simple: technical staff in Malaysia and
Hungary work for much, much less.