DEMO content for development and layout testing — not real editorial reporting.
For decades, global production was organised around efficiency: firms located each stage of production where it could be done most cheaply, relying on just-in-time logistics to keep inventories lean.
How it works
Disruptions have pushed resilience up the boardroom agenda. Strategies include holding larger buffer stocks, qualifying second suppliers, and moving some production closer to end markets — often described as near-shoring or friend-shoring.
Companies are weighing the efficiency of concentrated production against the resilience of diversified networks. The trade-offs are rarely simple.
What to watch
Each option carries costs. Duplicated capacity raises unit costs, and relocating production takes years. The likely outcome is not a reversal of globalisation but a more varied map of where value is added.
Key concepts
- Supply chains
- Trade
- Manufacturing
