Offshoring and reshoring of Italian companies: a quantitative analysis.

Abstract

The thesis wants to study the internationalization process of Italian firms. First of all, it describes and explains the reshoring and offshoring strategies. Offshoring is the practice of basing some of a company's processes or services overseas and abroad, that is the delocalization of the totality or part of the production in a foreign country. Reshoring is the process of returning the production and manufacturing of goods back to the country of origin. After a description of the phenomenon at an international level, there is a depper analysis of the delocalizing activity in Italy. The majority of the data shown are taken from the Uni-CLUB MoRe Back-reshoring Research Group’s studies. In order to collect information directly from the firms involved in this process, it was developed a questionnaire: it was submitted to Italian firms of different size, region and industry. The results are described and compared to the theory of the first part of the thesis. In the final part of the study, a SMART analysis and a decisional tree are elaborated to give a model of the internationalization strategy for Italian companies. They are developed to clarify which should be the best solution for a firm – that is, if delocalize or not, where to transfer production examining the aspects of the countries, if stay in the foreign country or eventually coming back home after a negative experience abroad.