The coronavirus (COVID-19) is by far the most significant theme to affect the technology industry in 2020. Even before COVID-19 struck, the industrial automation sector exhibited a flat picture in need of new thinking and inspired investment, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

GlobalData published a fully revised report, ‘Tech, Media & Telecom Trends 2020’ to reflect the impact of COVID-19 on 17 separate TMT sectors. Its analysis provides insight into the impact of COVID-19 on leading companies. This report analyses the impact of COVID-19 across 17 different technology sectors, as well as the short- and long-term impacts of COVID-19 on each sector, and ranks on a company-by-company basis the individual impact of COVID-19 alongside nine other themes that affect that sector. All sectors will be negatively impacted.

David Bicknell, Principal Analyst in the Thematic Research Team at GlobalData says: “Before COVID-19 struck, industrial automation was slowed by flat capital expenditure and declining industrial production. The virus has exposed the fact that despite the hype, advanced factory automation has not substituted human workers at scale. Technologies such as blockchain for inventory management and logistics, and cloud-orchestrated AI for assembly line robotics have either been insufficiently developed or too difficult to use.

“Had business moved with more alacrity and determination when it had the opportunity, it would now be in a different place. The virus may now focus organizations’ minds on the need to automate faster in the medium term and will accelerate an investment in factory automation when the global economy eventually rebounds. But that will take a while.”