Episode 105: A twist to Friendshoring, nearshoring and on shoring
Hello Everyone, and welcome to the podcast of the Ordinary Maverick. This is Ajey, your host, an ordinary Maverick sharing real life thoughts and experiences and Maverick tips. If you haven’t hit the subscribe button yet, please do so, and you’ll not miss another episode.
I first heard about these terms ‘friendshoring’, nearshoring and onshoring some time back and these were brought back into prominence and discussions during the Covid 19 pandemic. So what do these terms mean and how are they related. All of these are related to supply chains and manufacturing.
Onshoring means making products at home within a country’s borders, while nearshoring is taking these from places closer to home or from neighbors. And friendshoring is about moving supply chains from hostile countries to friendly ones so the risk of disruption from geopolitical turmoil is low. Now this concept was brought into prominence during the pandemic when there was global disruption of supply chains. Countries were facing shortages across the board with medical supplies and other dependent products and it became increasingly important to sort out the supply systems.
Now friendshoring is a relative new term, only come about during the pandemic. It started with the thinking of ‘allied sharing’ in the US. And got included in official reports about building resilient supply chains. What was important here is that friendshoring is recognizing a vital concept that one cannot do everything ourselves and ‘friends’ or allies can help.
Increasingly now, companies are taking this into consideration and including geopolitics in risk calculations. In the last couple of years, country policies affected and resulted in major disruptions to supply chains, like China’s zero Covid policy and then Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Global supply chains were thrown into chaos.
And the concept of friendshoring grew more and more into prominence and relevance. But it isn’t easy. Many challenges…for example, relocating operations to another country, even if friendly can get expensive. But perhaps that’s relatively easy to handle and build into the calculations. It’s the other question that is more tough. The question of ‘Who are your friends?’. Yes, for friendshoring, knowing who your friends are is most critical.
And that’s what got me thinking and reflecting. And here comes my twist on the term. It may be used in supply chains and manufacturing etc BUT, we all need friendshoring, nearshoring and onshoring in our lives. Just as all of these result in safe, sustainable and resilient supply systems, in our lives too, these concepts bring about security, joy and happiness.
Fellow Mavericks, like many of us, me and my family have also experienced first-hand the impact of these concepts. Would love to share more with you, so here goes.
Let’s look at onshoring first. It means in your own country, remember…I see it as look for solutions within your own home. Ha ha. Being travel crazy Mavericks, we’ve lived in a total of 30 different houses as a family over the years, some for a few months, some for years together, some were rented, and some we owned. These were in different countries and cities across continents. Many difficulties came up as am sure many of you who’ve moved homes have faced as well. Not every house has what you want and never will. So, we made do, or improvised. I must admit, it wasn’t always easy. Compromises never are. But with each move, we got better. And learnt to focus on what’s important and look for the solutions within the house itself, making it work for us.
One example is the placement of the kitchen in all the homes we lived in. they say, kitchens are the heart of the home. Now when one moves so much, you can’t have the ideal kitchen. Sometimes, we were like, how on earth are we going to manage in this kitchen???? And then Indian cooking needs an exhaust arrangement. Well, we looked for alternatives within the house. In one of our homes in South Africa, I recall, we had two cooking areas, to give more space and helped us have both the gas and the electric stove. In another one of our earlier homes, we broke away walls and had an open kitchen. It wasn’t a very popular concept those days, but we improvised to create space for a dining area which was a drop-down table stored on the wall when not in use. We used our aquarium in creative ways, to divide a room or to be the one side of our dining table, welding and having a drop down from the fish tank to create a table.
See what I mean….we were ‘onshoring’. Figuring out the supplies and the solutions from within our home. Ha ha…hope you’ll will agree with my twist on these terms.
Let’s look at near shoring…meaning sourcing from neighboring countries. Well, for me, it’s about the neighborhood and building relations and finding solutions together. We lived in societies many decades back. This was in Mumbai, a city where space is at premium and society living, apartment buildings that get registered as societies is the norm.
There are some unwritten rules in this society living. I mean, one just gets it, it’s not written anywhere, and no one briefs you on it. It just organically happens. Here is what I mean…we lived in this society when our girls were little. You know how stressful it is to be back in time for your kids school bus especially when kids are small. And in city traffic, there was always that uncertainty of reaching on time. Well, not to worry. In this society, kids were taken care of. Basically, if the school bus arrived and a parent wasn’t there, there was always another kids’ mom or dad who would help out and the kids would go with their friends to their homes, be fed and taken care of without any questions asked. It was no big deal. In fact, kids would do their homework, or get a change of clothes if one was really stuck. Not every society was like that, but this one where we stayed for a few years had something special. Managed by seniors living there, the society ran like clockwork and had a strong sense of belonging and camaraderie. We spent some of our best years there and have great memories. Birthdays were like community events. I recall, one birthday celebration of our daughter where we had 75 kids and almost all of them were just from the society! Ha ha. Festivals, celebrations were fun times to come together but there were also strong bonds over challenges and grief.
Here is where near shoring really worked, and one drew strength and resilience from the neighbors and got through. It’s getting more and more difficult for such bonds now in societies with the rapid changes in living, digitalization and the culture of doing things singularly becoming more and more the norm.
And now we come to the third and last term, ‘Friendshoring’. It means building ties with countries that are friendly and creating those supply systems that are less vulnerable. I shared earlier that there are challenges and one of them is about knowing who your friends are? Now isn’t that key in our lives too? And just as in friendshoring, countries have to find ways and criteria to find ‘friendly countries’ and countries that are aligned and have similar interests keeping the geo political context centerstage, the same way we in our lives have to ‘find our friends’. We connect with many people in our lives, in fact on a daily basis, we are continually meeting people. Here’s what I think..we do have our criteria for friendship. Whether we understand it and recognize it, it’s there. Think about it. In our own heads, we’ve set the criteria for our quote unquote friendshoring.
I see it in our lives for sure. We are privileged and grateful for the most amazing and special friendships we’ve been super fortunate to have and build over the years often times created in different circumstances. So what’s our criteria for the friendshoring? Ha ha…well, firstly, a love for the unexpected, the spontaneous with an attention to quality. You see focusing on quality versus quantity. We see this as something that creates an instant click. Another factor that creates a connect is the ‘love for the moment’. Almost all the friendships we’ve had over the years, and most importantly, those that have gotten stronger over the years have all had these two basic criteria. There may be many more of course but these two are always there. So all our friends out there, our fellow Mavericks, and you know who you are….hope you’ll will agree with the criteria. And once that bond is established it never goes away! And in times of need, this friendshoring, this connection is what pulls us through regardless of the difficulties.
Years and distance doesn’t matter. One may speak every day, or not for months, but the connect is always there. With friends all over the world, we’re definitely practicing ‘friendshoring’. We experienced this first hand during the pandemic. All of us were stuck in different parts of the world. And this friendshoring is what pulled us through. Our daughters, both in different continents, stayed with our friends who are like family for different periods of time, when needed which made a huge difference and helped us get through that unpredictable period. It was this friendshoring that held fast when I faced a medical emergency and got immediate treatment when family was not around. And I could go on…many examples over the years.
Fellow Mavericks I urge you to think about these terms and reflect on your experiences with onshoring, near shoring and friend shoring. The criteria you apply and your approach may surprise and present you with some insights about yourself. Just like it did for me!
Do keep writing your comments and sharing feedback at ‘theordinarymaverick@gmail.com’ and follow me on Instagram #theordinarymaverick. I love hearing from you. This is Ajey, signing off and wishing you have an amazing day and a super amazing year! Keep well.
This podcast series was put together as a team effort from the Bhardwaj family. Concept, design, title, researchers and reviewers: Ajey, Sanjana, Avantika and Niharika Bhardwaj; Script– Sanjana; Cover design – Niharika. All rights reserved.