Back reshoring: new opportunities for italian companies of made in Italy
Over the last few decades, there have been intense processes of the production delocalised in fa-vor of foreign contexts characterized by significant comparative advantages in terms, for example, of labor costs and raw materials.
However, more recently, this process seems to register a reversal of the trend, defined as back-reshoring, which sees the production activities previously outsourced by relevant business groups fall within the country of origin. In the United States, this phenomenon is now a consolidated reality, thanks also to public incentives and the reduction of energy supply costs.
The interesting fact is that even in our country we are witnessing a change in this sense. A recent study showed that some important Italian companies (eg Furia, Nannini, Beghelli) left the countries where they had settled to return to the beautiful country. The motivations behind such a choice are manifold.
Without a doubt, at present the cost of labor has been outdated by logistic costs. Together with this, companies are increasingly wary of political instability and, therefore, of the country risk that distinguishes foreign contexts. Furthermore, the delocalization of production can erode the image capital linked to the so-called "made in" effect (Maizza, 2014).
The striking fact is that Italy appears in first place among the European countries affected by the back-reshoring, second only to the United States of America. 40.7% of the 194 European "repatria-tion" cases concern Italian companies, operating - in most cases - in the Classic sectors of Made in Italy: textiles and footwear (43%), electrotechnical and electronic (18.6%) , automotive (5.8%) fur-niture and furnishings (5.8%), biomedical sector (4.7%), health and wellness (4.7%), mechanical (4.7%) (Dl Law »2015).
he phenomenon will still need to be monitored before it can be said whether it will have a large-scale impact or will remain a few entrepreneurial choice. Certainly, the back-reshoring can repre-sent a concrete strategy to support the competitiveness of the Italian manufacturing industry at a time when the emerging countries offer no longer the same certainties of a few years ago.
In fact, bringing companies closer to their countries of origin means reducing drastically the time required to relate to the market, adding value to production thanks to greater flexibility and an em-phasis on Italian production. Made in Italy support policies can represent an important incentive for the repatriation of activities.
However, companies must necessarily rethink their international strategies that reward the full ex-ploitation of the origin of production, this would be a decisive asset to compete successfully in global markets.
Law references A. (2015), Back-reshoring: opportunities for Italy, in www.leurispes.it Maizza A. (2014), the back-reshoring for the relaunch of Made in Italy, at www.managementnotes.it