Sven Frischen-Nocher, Operations / COO, INGUN USA, Inc.

How has Covid-19 affected your business in 2020?

Our start-up company released its first set of products this fall, just as the North American and European markets restricted further as a result of increasing Covid infections. Our sales so far has therefore languished. The silver lining in this cloud, however, is that we now find a very receptive audience among SMT manufacturers and Sales Representatives for our disruptive products.

Our sales activities are almost exclusively web based and we now reach people at the factories or where they work from home. We are offering manufacturers to make their own superior dedicated tooling in house for <$100 ea.in material. The lull in the market provides engineers more time and interest in investigating new improved ways to run their manufacturing.

Has the pandemic affected your business plans for 2021?

Yes, definitely. Many countries in Asia have recovered faster than the rest of the world.
We are therefore moving up our entry into Asia by 6 months to start right after the lunar new year. Many of our prospective customers are hesitant to invest in capital equipment at the moment, so we are finding investors that will enable us to get over the hump until vaccines become available, and to get us ready for rapid growth in 2021.

What are your expectations for the electronics assembly industry next year?

Businesses tend to become risk averse in periods of uncertainty. Regardless of anybody’s political views, uncertainty regarding the US Presidential election is subsiding. The excellent news regarding likely availability of several promising vaccines in second quarter 2021 will calm the jitters further. We believe that Asia is already doing well, perhaps held back by lack of demand from the rest of the world, and that starting in Q2 2021 we will see rapid growth in many market segments around the world.

I am also personally of the opinion that it takes a crisis to really fuel new thinking and move beyond old habits. That should bode well for investment in things like Industry 4.0 and disruptive technologies like inspīre's with a strong value proposition.