My take on this whole offshoring / automation conundrum is that although the current crisis won't immediately constitute a boon for automation, it will certainly pose the question in countless boardroom meetings. It's a question that's been asked before, but it's never been as top-of-mind as it is now, and that's first step to get the human and capital resources behind it to actually see this come to fruition.

From what I've heard in the manufacturing industry, automation is great conceptually but there are still many finer motor tasks for which the technology just isn't there yet, so cheap labor is the solution. Perhaps in hindsight these managers will find that concentrating all of that cheap labor in pretty much just one geography (China) isn't exactly the definition of redundancy, so supply chains in the long term will need to be redefined.

Slowly, geographies like Vietnam, Mexico, India and even the U.S. should benefit from this desire to diversify away from China. This "next generation" of factories will be smarter and pave the way for more advanced automation involving finer motor tasks.

> "The demand for smart factories is likely to grow with increased diversification of production locations – from China to Vietnam, India, and even the US." (Morgan Stanley Research. Investing in the Second Machine Age – Picking the Winners. July 19, 2019)