COVID-19: Industry Impact - Auto Industry

The COVID-19 pandemic is confronting every level of the World's economy with unprecedented challenges and impacts on industries and businesses. As of mid-April, data indicates that the global economy is expected to contract by 3%, while the US is shrinking by 6%, Europe by 7.5%, and growth in Asia is expected to stall at zero percent in 2020. Studies also show that each industry is experiencing its own unique set of challenges that are threatening to undermine once-thriving businesses. This means dealing with low level of demand, liquidity, supply chain disruption, lockdown, complying with “New Normal”, capacity, inflexible production, out-of-date technology, cybersecurity, remote-operation, etc. One of the industries that is taking on enormous pressure from COVID-19 is the Auto industry. OEMs have shuttered assembly plants throughout North America and Europe, and this has resulted in virtually all suppliers also ramping down production and furloughing workers. The demand side of the industry has been hit too; China production was down 50% during Q1, and North America production is expected to be down 50% in Q2. This being said, the important question for all industry experts and executives is: how quickly can we expect the crisis to pass and for businesses and industries to start up and reach the same level of capacity utilization pre COVID-19? Will the economy have a V shape come back or will it be a U or even an L shape? In this webinar, we will discuss the impact of COVID-19 across different industries and the risks ahead of them as they plan to reopen and aim for a comeback to a pre-crisis economy with the focus on Auto industry impact, status and path ahead. Farid Bichareh is an industry expert and entrepreneur with over 20 years’ experience defining solutions/strategies for smart manufacturing, IoT/IIoT, digitalization and innovative wireless communicating Li-Fi. He has co-founded 5 businesses and served as a board member and top executive.