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Benefits of sourcing within the EU: A qualitative study

Harink, Pieter Marc (2022) Benefits of sourcing within the EU: A qualitative study.

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Abstract:In recent decades, international or global sourcing seems to ever increase in importance. A distinction can be made within international sourcing into transcontinental sourcing and continental sourcing. In the context of this research, continental sourcing implies intra-EU sourcing. During the last 15 to 20 years a trend of declining importance of intra-EU sourcing and increasing importance of transcontinental sourcing has been established. Transcontinental suppliers can offer lower prices and other advantages that intra-EU suppliers cannot always offer, so more and more companies within the EU move to a more transcontinental sourcing strategy. In this paper several benefits of sourcing within the EU will be identified within an environment of decreasing importance of intra-EU sourcing. Qualitative research will be performed by interviewing 25 different purchasing experts from several industries. These purchasing experts seem to see similar relevance in factors relating to intra-EU sourcing as identified in the theoretical framework of this paper. Factors such as the single European market, the Euro, similar regulations and laws, and similar culture all can provide benefits to sourcing within the EU as opposed to sourcing transcontinental. Furthermore, the results show that the purchasing experts put a main emphasis on shorter distances between buyer and supplier which in its turn can provide significant benefits. The reliability of supply seems to gain importance during recent years, especially due to current event such as the covid-19 pandemic and wars which cause supply chain disruptions to happen more often. The problems that these disruptions cause seem to slowly start to outweigh significant benefits of transcontinental sourcing with price being the most significant benefit of sourcing transcontinental.
Item Type:Essay (Bachelor)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:85 business administration, organizational science
Programme:International Business Administration BSc (50952)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/91011
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