Michael Frederickson, Co-Founder, Insituware

What a rollercoaster ride! Just when you think you have seen everything; a new obstacle impacts all facets of your business, causes you to reevaluate and change course almost daily, and of course, there is no case study on how to successfully navigate through this disaster.

As a global manufacturer of dispensing and coating systems, we saw Covid-19 storm through our business as the pandemic spread. China shutdowns began just as were prepared to unveil our new Excellence Center in Suzhou. In New York, the governor's daily press conference would often dictate our next course of action.

From a business standpoint, we saw our mix tilt toward the medical device and defense markets. We experienced a softening in exports during Q2 of 2020. Uncertainty due to the pandemic and trade conflicts caused project timelines to expand. The US market grew considerably to offset any adverse impacts of lockdowns elsewhere. In the end, Q4 sales were up double digits over 2019 as we see market optimism.

We enter 2021 continuing to battle a surge in Covid-19 cases. Much of our staff continues to work remotely as we forge ahead with plans for a new state of the art global headquarters that we will occupy by mid-2021. Indications are that we will see a rebound in the electronics assembly market in 2021 and we expect most of this growth to skew to North America.