How Will COVID-19 Affect Machinery and Industrial Automation?

2020-06-16 By Ina Wicker, Markus Lorenz, and Roland Haslehner

Given the outsize impact of the 2008 financial crisis on the machinery and industrial-automation industry and the strong correlation of its sales with GDP, businesses are rightly concerned. Many aspects of this crisis are unique, increasing the uncertainty surrounding the potential impact and recovery time each sector can expect—especially those sectors most heavily affected by changing consumer patterns and production lockdowns. We recommend that companies take advantage of the ongoing time lag of the hit on the industry to continually monitor the crisis as it unfolds, using this data to challenge their scenarios and prepare for what’s to come.