Bakgrund och problematisering Under 90-talet flyttade många företag sin produktion till lågkostnadsländer långt bort för att minska sina produktionskostnader och därmed öka konkurrensfördelarna. Nu menar forskare att denna trend börjat vända, och företag väljer att flytta tillbaka sin produktion till hemlandet eller i ett närliggande lågkostnadsland då det visat sig att totalkostnaden inte blev lägre. En produktion i eller nära hemlandet kan resultera i minskad totalkostnad, minskade risker och ett ökat värde för kunden. Valet av produktionsland kan också starkt influeras av företagets hållbarhetsarbete. Majoriteten av forskningen är fokuserad kring jämförandet av Sverige med ett lågkostnadsland i Asien men väldigt lite forskning finns som jämför Sverige med ett lågkostnadsland i Europa. Syfte och metod Syftet för studien är att jämföra strategierna inshoring och nearshoring genom att undersöka svenska hållbara mikroföretags val av produktionsland. För att jämföra strategierna kommer vi undersöka dessa utifrån faktorerna kostnad, risk och värde. Det empiriska materialet samlas in med hjälp av semistrukturerade intervjuer med företag som har sin produktion i antingen Sverige eller Portugal. Resultatet kommer sedan att analyseras och kopplas till den teoretiska referensramen kring Supply Chain Management, hållbarhet och de tre faktorerna ovan för att kunna besvara syftet. Resultat och slutsats Efter att den empiriska datan analyserats kom vi fram till att företagen till en hög grad delade forskarnas syn på att en produktion i Sverige på många sätt var mer kostnads effektiv, mindre riskfylld och ökade värdet för konsumenterna då varumärket och produkterna sågs mer hållbara. Däremot märkte vi också att design spelade en stor roll in på vilket produktionsland man väljer, något som litteraturen inte tagit upp. Vi konstaterade att det inte finns en sourcingstrategi som ansågs vara bäst, utan företagets storlek, framtidsplaner, produktdesign och materialanvändning istället påverkar vilket produktionsland som är mest lämpligt. / Background and problematisation During the 1990’s many companies moved their production to remote low cost countries to reduce their production costs and create an increased competitive advantage. Research has now shown that this trend is reversing and companies are now starting to move their production to their home country or a close by low cost country due to the revelation that the total cost did not increase. Placing the production in or near the home country can result in a lower total cost, reduced risks and an increase of value to the consumer. The production location choice can also strongly be influenced by the companies’ sustainability work. The majority of research is focused around the comparison of Sweden and a low cost country in Asia but very little research has been done comparing Sweden and Europe. Purpose and method The purpose of the study is to compare the strategies inshoring and nearshoring by investigating Swedish sustainable micro companies’ choice of production location. To compare the strategies we will evaluate these through the factors cost, risk and value. The empirical material will be collected through semi-structured interviews with companies producing in either Sweden or Portugal. The result will then be analysed and connected to the theoretical framework around Supply Chain Management, sustainability and the three factors above to answer our research questions. Result and conclusion After the empirical data had been analysed we saw that the companies more or less shared there searchers’ views on that a production in Sweden in many ways was more cost effective, less prone to risks and increased the value to the consumers due to the brand being perceived as more sustainable. Also the design of the product played a big part in the choice of production location, something the literature did not bring up. Our conclusion was that none of the sourcing strategies were considered the best, but the size of the company, product design and the choice of material affected which production country that was deemed the most suitable. This thesis is written in Swedish.

Background: A growing reshoring trend has recently been discovered, when companies bring back their manufacturing to the domestic country. Reshoring has received more public attention recently and the interest in reshoring strategies is growing. The knowledge about the reshoring decision is however limited and there is not a great deal of research addressing this. The knowledge about how companies have performed their cost analysis is limited as well as the risk assessments behind the reshoring decision. Hence, there is a knowledge gap regarding what cost and risk factors that are critical to consider in a reshoring decision. Purpose: The purpose of this master's thesis is to identify critical cost and risk factors to consider in a reshoring decision within Swedish companies. Method: The research design includes a literature review to identify what cost and risk factors that already have been stated. A literature review was essential in order to demonstrate current knowledge in the field. The search included four databases involving several search terms. Since the purpose is to gain a deeper understanding about the phenomenon and to investigate in depth within a real-life context a multiple case study was viewed as a proper method to use. The multiple case study included four companies and was performed using semi structured interviews and investigations of cost analyses and risk assessments.   Findings: This thesis shows that there is a great deal of factors that are critical in a reshoring decision. However, Coordination, Inventory, Management, Quality and Transportation were the most common cost factors to consider when deciding for reshoring. The most frequent risk factors mentioned by the case companies were Control, Engineering and Innovation and Undesirable reaction. Implications: Different factors are critical depending on what type of company considering the reshoring decision. This is due to deviations in such as products, company strategy, customers and manufacturing techniques. Since each company and each product is unique it is overall important to identify which costs to include in the cost analysis in a reshoring decision for one specific company. The result of the thesis indicates that critical cost factors that are more difficult to measure and compare, so called soft factors, have a great effect on the reshoring decision. Further, companies seem to consider risks with remaining in the offshored country to a higher extent than the risks of reshoring. These risks that appear if not reshoring seem to be of an importance to consider since they generate costs. The findings of the thesis are believed to be evidential to the fact that there is a lack of research since critical factors found in the multiple case study are more than the existing literature indicates.