How the automation impacts on the reshoring strategy in the financial and business services

The reshoring has recently started to gain some consistency in the academic research as well. Most of current literature, however, has focused the attention mainly in the definition and positioning of this phenomenon on manufacturing companies (Fratocchi et al., 2014, 2015, 2016). By analyzing the literature, we could highlight that there is no significant theoretical nor empirical study on the relationship between automation and reshoring, which so far has been limited to the identification of automation as driver in the re-location decision process. As underlined by Arlbjørn and Mikkelsen (2014) this relationship is under-researched and to be addressed in the future, investigating “at least three aspects related to automation: 1) types of automation solutions within a single company and in supply networks and business clusters; 2) incentive programs to apply automation; 3) the true creation of new jobs through automation.” Moreover, the analysis of literature showed that the researches that have been engaged so far are almost exclusively notable only in the sphere of manufacturing, creating the need for a deeper focus on Financial and Business Services, following the evident and growing trend of the reshoring phenomenon. In such a context, where academic research about the relationship between automation and reshoring is meagre, the purpose of this “work in progress” exploratory-conceptual paper is to provide some reflections on such an important theme, answering the following research question: - How does the Automation, and specifically the Robotic Process Automation (RPA), impact on the reshoring and location decisions in the Financial and Business companies?