Nearshoring is gaining increasing popularity in the logistics world. It is a business strategy that aims to move a company's processes, services, and functions from a geographically more distant area to one that is less distant. Unlike nearshoring, offshoring involves outsourcing services or processes to countries that are far apart, often on different continents. It has been a business strategy used massively in recent decades by many companies with a very clear objective: to reduce production costs.
However, the global political and economic context is becoming increasingly volatile. In addition to exceptional health situations such as the last pandemic, geopolitical conflicts and the economic effects derived from them, with the increase in instability and the unstoppable escalation of energy prices, have tipped business strategy towards more controllable models such as nearshoring. With this strategy, the aim is to reduce costs and maintain fluid and effective communication with the work team, which can be more difficult to achieve when working with very remote countries. This new approach derives in part from the effects caused by the pandemic: in order to shield themselves from exceptional situations – increasingly frequent – derived from the complexity of the world in which we live, many companies are opting for shorter and more resilient production chains, which are capable of maintaining operations in any circumstance.
In the case of nearshoring, the advantages for companies are obvious: improved communication and reduced transport and time costs, an imperative need, moreover, to meet the demands and demands of consumers, who increasingly want to have their products and services as quickly as possible. Of course, the use of nearby suppliers also greatly reduces the risk of cultural and linguistic problems of having a production chain located on a distant continent. Located in a nearby country, similarities are much more likely to exist in terms of language and business culture. We are therefore faced with a forward-looking option for the design of new supply chains.