When a company moves their operations closer to home, this is an example of:

Nearshoring is a supply chain strategy where a company transfers business or IT processes to a company in a nearby country, often sharing a border. The primary motivation is to benefit from proximity, which can lead to reduced transportation costs, shorter lead times, and better alignment of time zones and culture compared to offshoring to a distant country. Moving operations "closer to home" is the definition of this strategy.

A. Offshoring is the opposite; it involves moving operations to a distant country to take advantage of lower costs.
B. Insourcing involves bringing a previously outsourced function back in-house, regardless of the geographic location.
D. Outsourcing is the practice of hiring an external party to perform services, which can be done onshore, nearshore, or offshore.

1. Chopra, S. (2019). Supply Chain Management: Strategy, Planning, and Operation (7th ed.). Pearson. (Chapter 6, "Supply Chain Network Design," discusses sourcing decisions, including the definitions and trade-offs of offshoring, nearshoring, and onshoring).

2. Ellram, L. M., Tate, W. L., & Petersen, K. J. (2013). Offshoring and Reshoring: An Update on the Manufacturing Location Decision. Journal of Supply Chain Management, 49(2), 14–22. (This article defines and contrasts offshoring, nearshoring, and reshoring concepts in academic literature). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/jscm.12010

3. MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics. (2021). The State of Supply Chain Sustainability 2021. (Section on "Network Design," p. 34, discusses the trend toward regionalization strategies like nearshoring to improve resilience and reduce transport-related emissions).