On Monday, April 11, and Tuesday, April 19, Giovanni Roncucci, President of Roncucci&Partners, participated as a speaker in two important Webinars born from the will of Finest S.p.A., the Autonomous Region of Friuli Venezia Giulia and the Veneto Region to identify and activate common actions aimed at fostering the growth and development of companies in the Italian Northeast in foreign markets. The two Webinars focused on Near-Shoring, reorganization of supply chains and new international trends in global value chains, with special attention to the opportunities offered by Croatia and Serbia.
Since the first half of the 1980s, globalization has led to the configuration of an organizational model based on the fragmentation of the production process into individual stages, allocated in different enterprises distributed around the world, giving rise to global value chains. The effects of Covid-19 have in fact structurally altered this chain, leading to a fundamental reconsideration of supply chains and their dynamics: demand has fluctuated sharply, several supply chains have broken down, and there have also been serious consequences in the financial sphere.
Consequently, in order to react to such a crisis and try to gain a competitive advantage, supply chains must be as agile and resilient as possible. Here, then, is where near-shoring comes to the rescue. This is a mode of outsourcing that involves transferring some business processes to a nearby country, especially in preference to a more distant one. This, of course, makes sure that you shorten procurement times, optimize logistics costs, provide greater control of operations and reduce regulatory issues. On the other hand, however, there are some factors to consider, such as determining who is responsible for risk management, knowing the territory, and securing qualified suppliers, which also need to be diversified.
How do countries like Croatia and Serbia fit into this context?
Although Croatia lives mostly on tourism (the service sector accounts for about 60% of GDP), industry is quite developed, especially that involving food and beverage, metal processing, and the production of coke and refined petroleum.
The reasons for choosing Croatia as a supply country can be many: it is a neighboring country, easily accessible, equipped with six seaports and crossed by two Trans-European Transport Network corridors, the Mediterranean and the Rhine-Danube ones, and is adjacent to the Baltic-Adriatic one. It is a member of the European Union and has a culture similar to that of Italy, with good infrastructure, competent staff with a lower average cost than Italy.
Serbia gives us a somewhat similar picture. Again, it is a country driven by the tertiary sector (64% of GDP), but with a focus on ICT, establishing itself as one of the top 4 national export sectors along with steel, automotive and agriculture.
Serbia may be a suitable country to re-enter the supply chain because it has tax benefits and a strong banking system, with free trade agreements and 15 Free Zones. It is an attractive market for FDI (Foreign Direct Investment), easily accessible, with a favorable geographic location between West and East. Again, the cost of qualified personnel is lower than in Italy.
Croatia and Serbia thus offer interesting opportunities for proximity and potential market internationalization for important process steps in typical Triveneto production sectors. As neighboring countries, they could contribute to the growth of companies in northeastern Italy as part of the reorganization of supply chains, allowing cost containment and stability in value chains at a time when structural changes in world economies give rise to serious volatility.
