Bernard Ginns: What comes after offshoring, onshoring and northshoring?

But onshoring followed when management teams brought them home again after realising that emerging markets were becoming too expensive.

Next came northshoring, as businesses looked to move back office operations to cheaper locations within the UK.

Now a new trend could be emerging, as suggested by Sir David Higgins, the so-called Lean Controller at the helm of Britain’s £50bn high-speed rail project.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, he highlighted the fact that just six FTSE 100 companies are located north of Birmingham.

Sir David pointed out that those based in or around London are paying a premium in staff costs and higher rents.

He argued that these costs that are making them increasingly uncompetitive compared to their international rivals that have relocated to cheaper sites.

“If I look at global best practice, our companies here are going to struggle to survive unless they radically change their cost structures when I compare them to international comparators,” said Sir David.

The implication is that FTSE 100 firms should relocate not just their back offices but also their headquarters to the North.

The ambitious HS2 and HS3 rail infrastructure schemes could make this shift a realistic prospect. By moving to the North, corporates can flatten cost structures and cap rises in salaries and rents. Otherwise known as flatcapping.

* FTSE 100 firms will be most welcome in Yorkshire.

They will find amazing entrepreneurial spirit, first-class professional and financial services, outstanding countryside and excellent food and drink, not to mention to the best tea in Britain.

On the subject of a cuppa, I provoked a social media storm in a teacup over the weekend after sharing information from Which? about tea brand preferences.

The consumer champion surveyed more than 1,100 members to find out their favourite brand for an everyday brew.

The results revealed a stark north-south divide: northerners prefer Yorkshire Tea, while southerners prefer Twinings.

I have always found Twinings to be a little too weak for my taste, but won’t be drawing any prejudicial conclusions from this study, beyond the obvious one.

* OF ALL the so-called disruptive businesses to emerge from the US technology industry, Uber is perhaps the most controversial.

I can’t think of many others whose presence on these shores has brought parts of central London to a standstill.

Yet that is exactly what happened this summer when London taxi drivers staged a protest against the Silicon Valley company and what they saw as a lack of regulation.

The UK subsidiary of the firm has filed an application with Leeds City Council for a private hire vehicle operator’s licence.

It will be the company’s third city in the UK after London and Manchester.

Uber works by using a smart phone application to connect passengers and drivers, cutting out the middlemen of the taxi companies.

The company’s stance that it abides by all local regulations has done little to quell opposition. According to the Financial Times, Uber’s success in the UK has cast a cloud over the planned sale of Addison Lee, the London private car hire giant owned by the Carlyle Group.

But Liam Griffin, chief executive of Addison Lee, questioned whether the business was truly disruptive.

“They have taken elements of the industry and cobbled it together in a neat package which they have marketed very well,” he told the FT.

So well that Uber has a $18.2bn price tag, disrupter or not.