O backshoring do calçado em Espanha

Um artigo interessante sobre a evolução do offshoring e backshoring do calçado espanhol. "Offshoring in the Spanish footwear industry: A return journey?" de Carmen Martínez-Mora e Fernando Merino, publicado por Journal of Purchasing & Supply Management 20 (2014) 225–237.

O crescimento do backshoring é um tema querido a este blogue desde quando ainda ninguém falava nele (2006 e 2010, por exemplo).

Um artigo que documenta as observações que fomos fazendo aqui sobrea a evolução portuguesa. Com uma diferença. Espanha tem marcas com tradição e dimensão e fez deslocalizações. Portugal sempre foi mais terra de subcontratação. No entanto, as razões que levaram ao regresso dos clientes em Portugal, são as mesmas que levaram ao retorno de parte da produção espanhola à Europa.

BTW, lembram-se das previsões de quem não andava no terreno? Dois exemplos: Sérgio Figueiredo no Jornal de Negócios e André Macedo no Diário de Notícias)

"During the 1990'0 and the first decade of the twenty-first century, outsourcing and offshoring became one of the most important changes made by companies throughout the world. Many companies outsourced tasks which were formerly internalised in order to gain competitiveness through reduced costs or increased flexibility or efficiency. Meanwhile, many activities located in developed countries were transferred to other places; production processes were no longer geographically concentrated in one location but were split up into phases which were each located where the advantages to be gained were greatest.
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However, in more recent years, it has come to light that this relocation of production activities is being reconsidered by some industry leaders which has given rise to cases of "repatriating manufacturing to the country of origin". These cases have been called 'reverse offshoring', 'reshoring, 'backshoring', insourcing' or inshoring as opposed to outsourcing/offshoring.
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Three of the four comapnies that have not offshore their production justify this with one main reason: the range of footwear that they produce. The fourth company explained that it was due to the size of the firm. Table 3 summarises the character-istics of these companies. The three companies (Wonders, Pedro Mirages and NordikaT) manufacture only one type of footwear, the mid-high range, and have not considered the possibility of extending their collection with lower-end lines. To produce this type of footwear, highly-skilled labour is required and the companies do not believe that they would be able to maintain the high quality levels that they achieve in Spain if they produced their output in low-wage countries. As production is located in the company's own factory or outsourced to other factories nearby, the company is able to control the entire manufacturing process and guarantee the desired quality levels. These companies commented that they benefit from lower transaction costs due to the geographical proximity (which goes hand-to-hand with more fluid relationships) to the companies that carry out the production activities.
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The fourth company that has not offshored production, Pedro Iniesta - Biostep, provides qualitatively different reasons for this decision. This company's product can be classified within the mid-range, and competes basically on price. As we shall see later, most of the offshoring in this segment was motivated by efficiency reasons (the search for alternative locations to Spain that provide comparative advantages in production costs). The location that offered the lowest costs was Southeast Asia, particularly China. The manufacturing structure of the sector in China requires large batches to be ordered and Pedro Iniesta - Biostep, due to its small size, could not order these large volumes, and continued to manufacture all of its production in Spain. The company has been able to maintain its presence in the domestic and export markets although with a reduction in sales. Other similar firms (with mid-range footwear which did not offshore their production), were not able to survive the price competition of footwear manufactured in countries with lower costs causing them to close during the last ten years.[Moi ici: A mesma mortandade que ocorreu por cá e que descrevemos graficamente em "O emplastro iluminado"]
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When Spain joined the EEC in 1986 and any remaining trade barriers with the member countries were dismantled, the position of Spanish footwear companies did not weaken. This was because the strategy widely used at that time consisted in abandoning the low-range lines which many companies had produced in the past and. specialising in another type of higher range footwear with greater differentiation and value added. This strategy enabled them to compete in the European markets and to maintain their share of the domestic market based on elements other than price. As could be expected, during these years, many footwear manufacturers that produced low-range products and competed on price closed down.
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However, in the mid-1990s, when China was negotiating for membership in the World Trade Organisation, Spanish companies became concerned about the future threat to their positioning. The incorporation of China would lead to a huge increase in exports to Europe of the shoes produced by the foreign multinationals in the sector, mainly from Europe and America, which offshored their production to Southeast Asia? This output was characterised by highly competitive prices and a moderate level of quality due to the comparative advantages in production costs, especially labour. and the enormous scale of this industry in some countries. Responding to these structural changes in the industry, the majority of the larger Alicante-based footwear companies began a process of offshoring production to Southeast Asia between the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s.
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The aim of the companies that outsourced the production of their mid-range lines abroad was to obtain the highest possible growth in sales, based on the increased price competitiveness derived from the lower costs in foreign countries. The revenue obtained from this growth was used to increase investment in those activities carried out within the companies in Spain, such as design, product innovation, marketing, distribution. quality control and the manufacture of high quality footwear. With this strategy, these activities became the core business and internal departments were created or expanded and had a strategic role.
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Panamá Jack and Ras Shoes encountered problems in developing their offshoring strategy due to the type of their output and the characteristics of the industrial structure of the foreign country. Problems arose because they only made small orders and their high and mid-high ranges of footwear required the almost permanent presence of highly qualified technical and managerial staff to supervise quality levels. These companies concluded that offshoring production to China was only profitable if large orders were made as the costs involved in transferring staff were too high for small quantities. Also, large volumes of stock were permanently accumulated in Spain as the minimum quantifies established by the foreign countries were not compatible with the sales of the companies which comprised small quantities of a wide range of models. For these reasons both companies abandoned the strategy and have reshored all of their production activities to Spain and have no intention of manufacturing abroad again.
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The main differences between firms reside in the relationship between the current strategy and the decisions previously made with regard to offshoring. Those companies that order small quantities have reshored all of their production to Spain. However, those that order larger quantities are increasing their manufacturing operations in Spain or nearby countries but complementing this with offshoring and have no intention to abandon this strategy. Summing up, the different "reshoring" strategies observed can be explained by three main reasons. First, the volumes that are outsourced abroad; second, the type of product that is offshored; and third, the improvement in distribution which is also related to volume but also to lead times. From a more general perspective, our results show that reshoring in the footwear industry does not constitute a correction of prior misjudgements.
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First, the cost differential between China and Spain has narrowed due to the evolution of the economies of Southeast Asia. In addition, the demand for smaller batches makes it difficult to exploit scale economies in China or even to gain access to the Chinese shoemakers at a reasonable price. Second, transportation costs have become a key element in this case not because of changes in traditional issues linked to logistics,  but because the demand of the final goods has changed. This new demand introduces conditions (lead times, batch sizes. etc.) that the existing logistic structure does not cater for and even seems to evolve in the opposite direction with the introduction of steam shipping, larger vessels, etc.
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From the results of the study, we can conclude that the reshoring process most likely constitutes a permanent relocation of footwear manufacturing in Spain. This strategy has increased the competitiveness of firms engaged in the mid-range footwear segment and can be expected to prevail in the long term as it fulfils the need to serve new collections with greater frequency. However, if Spanish unit labour costs rise, these increases in production in Spain could be redirected to other nearby countries such as Morocco or Portugal where batch size is not important In any case, the results of the study indicate that part of the offshoring wave should be undone."