Most nearshoring announcements I have seen are dressed as resilience decisions.
But they are not.
The real conversation happening in the boardroom is about cost and lead time:
- Labour arbitrage has shifted.
- Ocean freight is unpredictable.
- Lead times from Asia are long and getting longer.
- The numbers for regional sourcing are starting to make sense in a way they did not five years ago.
There are legitimate factors to take into account for the business decision. Make that decision.
But do not call it a resilience strategy.
The Difference
A cost decision asks: Does regional sourcing improve our margins and reduce our lead times at acceptable quality?
A resilience decision asks: If our primary source fails tomorrow, can we absorb the shock without breaking customer commitments?
Most nearshoring projects answer the first question. Almost none answer the second.
Most supply chains never test it.
A resilience strategy requires testing: actually switching volume, stress-testing the new supplier, running the scenario where the primary is down.
A cost strategy requires qualification and ramp-up. These are not the same process and they do not produce the same outcome.
What most organisations end up with is a supply chain that is geographically closer and structurally just as fragile.
The distance changed. The dependency did not.
If your nearshoring programme has never run a “primary supplier down, secondary must absorb full volume” test, you have not built resilience. You have reduced lead times.
Both are valuable. They are not the same thing.