TTEC Holdings, Inc. - Annual Report: 2018 (Form 10-K)

 

 

UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

Form 10-K

(Mark One)

☒ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2018

or

☐TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the transition period from              to             

Commission File Number: 001-11919

TTEC Holdings, Inc.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

 

9197 South Peoria Street

Englewood, Colorado 80112

(Address of principal executive offices)

Registrant’s telephone number, including area code:

(303) 397-8100

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

 

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None.

Indicate by checkmark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act.

Yes ☐ No ☒

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Yes ☐ No ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports) and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes ☒ No ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files).

Yes☒   No ☐

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K (§ 229.405) is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K.  ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

 

 

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐

 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act).  Yes ☐ No ☒

As of June 30, 2018, the last business day of the registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter, there were 46,033,516 shares of the registrant’s common stock outstanding. The aggregate market value of the registrant’s voting and non-voting common stock that was held by non-affiliates on such date was $485,565,838 based on the closing sale price of the registrant’s common stock on such date as reported on the NASDAQ Global Select Market.

As of February 28, 2019, there were 46,209,122 shares of the registrant’s common stock outstanding.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

Certain information required for Part III of this report is incorporated by reference to the proxy statement for the registrant’s 2019 annual meeting of stockholders.

 

 

 

 

TTEC HOLDINGS, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES

DECEMBER 31, 2018 FORM 10-K

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

 

 

CAUTIONARY NOTE ABOUT FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, relating to our operations, expected financial position, results of operation, and other business matters that are based on our current expectations, assumptions, and projections with respect to the future, and are not a guarantee of performance. In this report, when we use words such as “may,” “believe,” “plan,” “will,” “anticipate,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “project,” “would,” “could,” “target,” or similar expressions, or when we discuss our strategy, plans, goals, initiatives, or objectives, we are making forward-looking statements.

We caution you not to rely unduly on any forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from what is expressed in the forward-looking statements, and you should review and consider carefully the risks, uncertainties and other factors that affect our business and may cause such differences as outlined but are not limited to factors discussed in the section of this report entitled “Risk Factors”. Specifically, we would like for you to focus on risks related to our strategy execution, our ability to innovate and introduce technologies that are sufficiently disruptive to allow us to maintain and grow our market share, cybersecurity risks and risks inherent to our equity structure. Our forward-looking statements speak only as of the date that this report is filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and we undertake no obligation to update them, except as may be required by applicable laws.

 

AVAILABILITY OF INFORMATION

TTEC Holdings, Inc.’s principal executive offices are located at 9197 South Peoria Street, Englewood, Colorado 80112. Electronic copies of our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, Proxy Statements and any amendments to these reports are available free of charge by (i) visiting our website at http://www.ttec.com/investors/sec-filings/ or (ii) sending a written request to Investor Relations at our corporate headquarters or to investor.relations@ttec.com. TTEC’s SEC filings are posted on our corporate website as soon as reasonably practical after we electronically file such materials with, or furnish them to, the SEC. Information on our website is not incorporated by reference into this report.

You may also access any materials that we file with the SEC at the SEC’s Public Reference Room at 100 F. Street, N.E., Room 1580, Washington, D.C. 20549 (telephone number 1-800-SEC-0330); or via the SEC’s public website at www.sec.gov.

 

 

 

PART I

ITEM 1.  

BUSINESS

Our Business

TTEC Holdings, Inc. (“TTEC”, “the Company”, “we”, “our” or “us”) is a leading global customer experience technology and services company focused on the design, implementation and delivery of transformative solutions for many of the world’s most iconic and disruptive brands. We help large global companies increase revenue and reduce costs by delivering personalized customer experiences across every interaction channel and phase of the customer lifecycle as an end-to-end provider of customer engagement services, technologies, insights and innovations. We are organized into two centers of excellence: TTEC Digital and TTEC Engage.

TTEC Digital and TTEC Engage come together under our unified offering, HumanifyTM Customer Engagement as a Service, which drives measurable results for clients through the delivery of personalized omnichannel interactions that are seamless and relevant. Our business is supported by 52,400 employees delivering services in 23 countries from 85 customer engagement centers on six continents. Our end-to-end approach differentiates the Company by combining service design, strategic consulting, data analytics, process optimization, system integration, operational excellence, and technology solutions and services. This unified offering is value-oriented, outcome-based, and delivered on a global scale across all four of our business segments, two of which comprise TTEC Digital - Customer Strategy Services (“CSS”) and Customer Technology Services (“CTS”);  and two of which comprise TTEC Engage – Customer Growth Services (“CGS”) and Customer Management Services (“CMS”).

Our revenue for fiscal 2018 was $1.509 billion, approximately 84% or $1.270 billion of which came from our TTEC Engage center of excellence and $239 million, or 16%, came from our TTEC Digital center of excellence.

Since our establishment in 1982, we have helped clients strengthen their customer relationships, brand recognition and loyalty by simplifying and personalizing interactions with their customers. We deliver thought leadership, through innovation in programs that differentiate our clients from their competition. 

To improve our competitive position in a rapidly changing market and stay strategically relevant to our clients, we continue to invest in innovation and growth businesses, diversifying and strengthening our core customer care services with consulting, data analytics and insights technologies, and technology-enabled, outcomes-focused services.

We also invest in businesses that enable us to expand our geographic footprint, broaden our product and service capabilities, increase our global client base and industry expertise, and further scale our end-to-end integrated solutions platform. In 2018, we acquired Strategic Communications Services, a system integrator for multichannel contact center platforms based in the United Kingdom. In 2017, we acquired Motif, Inc., a digital fraud prevention and detection and content moderation services company based in India and the Philippines, and Connextions, Inc., a U.S.-based health services company focused on improving customer relationships for healthcare plan providers and pharmacy benefits managers.

We have developed tailored expertise in the automotive, communications, healthcare, financial services, government, logistics, media and entertainment, retail, technology, travel and transportation industries. We target customer-focused industry leaders in the Global 1000 and serve approximately 300 clients globally.

Our strong balance sheet, cash flows from operations and access to debt and capital markets have historically provided us the financial flexibility to effectively fund our organic growth, capital expenditures, strategic acquisitions, incremental investments, and capital distributions.  

We continue to return capital to our shareholders via semi-annual dividends and a stock repurchase program, as directed by the Board of Directors from time to time. As of December 31, 2018, our cumulative authorized share repurchase allowance was $762.3 million, of which we have repurchased 46.1 million shares for $735.8 million. Our remaining repurchase allowance is $26.6 million which may be increased from time to time by our Board of Directors, in its discretion.  For the period from January 1, 2019 through February 28, 2019,  we have not purchased any additional shares.  Our stock repurchase program does not have an expiration date.

Given our cash flow generation and balance sheet strength, we believe cash dividends and early returns to shareholders through share repurchases, in balance with our investments in innovation and strategic acquisitions, align shareholder interests with the needs of the Company. In 2015, our Board of Directors adopted a dividend policy, with the intent to distribute a periodic cash dividend to stockholders of our common stock, after consideration of, among other things, TTEC’s performance, cash flows from operations, capital needs and liquidity factors. The Company paid the initial dividend in 2015 and has continued to pay a semi-annual dividend in October and April of each year in amounts ranging between $0.18 and $0.28 per common share. On February 21, 2019, the Company’s Board of Directors authorized a semi-annual dividend of  $0.30 per common share, payable on April 18, 2019 to shareholders of record as of March 28, 2019.

Our Market Opportunity

Our end-to-end customer experience approach is designed to drive retention, affinity, growth, and customer protection, all with savings for our clients.  Our transition from multichannel to true omnichannel service requires agility and speed and TTEC’s integrated approach is growing in strategic relevance because of the following trends:

Our Strategy

We aim to grow our revenue and profitability by focusing on our core customer engagement operational capabilities linking them to higher margin, insights and technology-enabled platforms and managed services to drive a superior customer experience for our clients’ customers. To that end we continually strive to:

Our Integrated Service Offerings, Centers of Excellence and Business Segments

We have two centers of excellence that encompass our four operating and reportable segments.

TTEC Digital houses our professional services and technology platforms. These solutions are critical to enabling and accelerating digital transformation for our clients.

Customer Strategy Services Segment

Through our strategy and operations, analytics, and learning and performance consulting expertise, we help our clients design, build and execute their customer engagement strategies. We help our clients to better understand and predict their customers’ behaviors and preferences along with their current and future economic value. Using proprietary analytic models, we provide the insight clients need to build the business case for customer centricity and to better optimize their investments in customer experience. This insight-based strategy creates a roadmap for transformation.  We build customer journey maps to inform service design across automated, human and hybrid interaction and increasingly are developing and implementing strategies around Interactive Virtual Assistants (chat bots). A key component of this segment involves instilling a high-performance culture through management and leadership alignment and process optimization.

Customer Technology Services Segment

In connection with the design of the customer engagement strategy, our ability to architect, deploy and host or manage the client’s customer experience environments becomes a key enabler to achieving and sustaining the client’s customer engagement vision. Given the proliferation of mobile communication technologies and devices, we enable our clients’ operations to interact with their customers across the growing array of channels including email, social networks, mobile, web, SMS text, voice and chat. We design, implement and manage cloud, on-premise or hybrid customer experience environments to deliver a consistent and superior experience across all touch points on a global scale that we believe result in higher quality, lower costs and reduced risk for our clients. Through our Humanify™ Technology Platform, we also provide data-driven context aware software-as-a-service (“SaaS”) based solutions that link customers seamlessly and directly to appropriate resources, any time and across any channel.

TTEC Engage houses our end-to-end managed services operations for customer care, revenue growth, digital fraud prevention and detection, and content moderation services.

Customer Growth Services Segment

We offer integrated sales and marketing solutions to help our clients boost revenue in new, fragmented or underpenetrated business-to-consumer or business-to-business markets. We deliver or manage approximately $4 billion in client revenue annually via the discovery, acquisition, growth and retention of customers through a combination of our highly trained, client-dedicated sales professionals and proprietary analytics platform. This platform continuously aggregates individual customer information across all channels into one holistic view so as to ensure more relevant and personalized communications.

Customer Management Services Segment

We design and manage clients’ front-to-back office processes to deliver just-in-time, personalized, protected, multi-channel interactions. Our front-office solutions seamlessly integrate voice, chat, email, e-commerce and social media to optimize the customer experience for our clients. In addition, we manage certain client back-office processes to enhance their customer-centric view of relationships and maximize operating efficiencies. We also perform fraud prevention and content moderation services to protect our clients and their customers from malevolent digital activities. Our delivery of integrated business processes via our onshore, offshore or work-from-home associates reduces operating costs and allows customer needs to be met more quickly and efficiently, resulting in higher satisfaction, brand loyalty and a stronger competitive position for our clients.

Based on our clients’ requirements, we provide our services on an integrated cross-business segment and on a discrete basis.

Additional information with respect to our segments and geographic footprint is included in Part II, Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, Note 3 to the Consolidated Financial Statements.

Our Competitive Strengths

We believe that our differentiation lies in our integrated unified offering and our holistic approach to customer experience and engagement as an end-to-end provider of customer engagement services, technologies, insights and innovations. Humanify Customer Engagement as a Service includes customer strategy, technology services, customer management, growth and protections services. We also believe that our insight-driven technological solutions, innovative human capital strategies and globally scaled and deployed best practices in operational excellence are key elements to our continued industry leadership.

As the complexity and pace of technological change required to deliver our omnichannel customer engagement increases, the successful execution of our principal corporate strategies depends on our competitive strengths, which are briefly described below:

Technological Excellence

Our Humanify Technology Platforms are based on secure, cost effective infrastructure – leveraging private/public infrastructure. This architecture enables us to centralize and standardize our worldwide delivery capabilities resulting in improved scalability and quality of delivery for our clients, as well as lower capital, and lower information technology (“IT”) operating costs.

The foundation of these platforms are our regionally-based, globally synched data centers located on five continents. Our data centers provide a fully integrated suite of voice and data routing, workforce management, quality monitoring, business analytics and storage capabilities, enabling seamless operations from any location around the globe. This hub and spoke model enables us to provide our services at competitive cost while increasing scalability, reliability, asset utilization and the diversity of our service offerings. It also provides an effective redundancy for timely responses to system interruptions and outages due to natural disasters and other conditions outside our control. We monitor and manage our data centers 24 x 7, 365 days per year from several strategically located global command centers to ensure the availability of our redundant, fail-over capabilities for each data center.

Importantly, this platform has become the foundation for new, innovative offerings including TTEC’s cloud-based offerings (e.g. Humanify Operations/Insights Platform), Humanify @Home for remote omnichannel agents, and our suite of human capital solutions.

Further, our Humanify Technology Platforms leverage reference architectures for multiple scenarios whether we are operating the platforms and the services, implementing customized platforms for clients, or providing advanced managed services, continuous and automated development environments.  We also provide clients with highly secure/compliant solutions with respect to regional (e.g. GDPR) and/or specific industry standards (e.g. PCI, HIPAA, etc.).

Innovative Human Capital Strategies

Our globally located, highly trained employees are a crucial component of the success of our business. We have made significant investments in proprietary technologies, management tools, methodologies and training processes in the areas of talent acquisition, learning services, knowledge management, workforce collaboration and performance optimization. These capabilities are the culmination of more than three decades of experience in managing large, global workforces combined with the latest technology, innovation and strategy in the field of human capital management. This capability has enabled us to deliver a consistent, scalable and flexible workforce that is highly engaged in achieving or exceeding our clients’ business objectives.

Globally Deployed Best Operating Practices

Globally deployed best operating practices assure that we deliver a consistent, scalable, high-quality experience to our clients’ customers from any of our 85 customer engagement centers and work from home associates around the world. Standardized processes include our approach to attracting, screening, hiring, training, scheduling, evaluating, coaching and maximizing associate performance to meet our clients’ needs. We provide real-time reporting and analytics on performance across the globe to ensure consistency of delivery. This information provides valuable insight into what is driving customer inquiries, enabling us to proactively recommend process changes to our clients to optimize their customers’ experience.

Our global operating model includes customer engagement centers in 15 countries on six continents that operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. New customer engagement centers are established and existing centers are expanded or scaled down to accommodate anticipated business demands or specific client needs. We have significant capacity in the U.S., the Philippines, India, Mexico and Brazil to support customer demand and deliver superior cost efficiencies. We continue to explore opportunities in North America, Central Europe and Africa to diversify our client footprint enabling near-shore and off-shore locations that enable our multi-lingual service offerings and provide superior client economics.

Of the 15 countries from which we provide customer management solutions, 10 provide some services for onshore clients including the U.S., Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, Ireland, South Africa, Thailand, and the United Kingdom. The total number of workstations in these countries is 19,275, or 45% of our total delivery capacity. The other five countries from which we provide customer management solutions, partially or entirely provide services for offshore clients including Bulgaria, India, Mexico, Poland, and the Philippines. The total number of workstations in these countries is 23,725 or 55% of our total delivery capacity.

See Item 1A. Risk Factors for a description of the risks associated with our foreign operations.

Clients

We develop long-term relationships with Global 1000 companies in customer intensive industries, whose business complexities and customer focus requires a partner that can quickly and globally scale integrated technology and data-enabled services.

In 2018, our top five and ten clients represented 35% and 49% of total revenue, respectively; and one of our clients, who is in the healthcare industry, represented 10.2% of our total annual revenue. In several of our operating segments, we enter into long-term relationships that provide us with a more predictable revenue stream. Although most of our contracts can be terminated for convenience by either party, our relationships with our top five clients have ranged from 12 to 22 years including multiple contract renewals for several of these clients. In 2018, we had a 90% client retention rate for the combined Customer Management Services and Customer Growth Services segments.

Certain of our communications clients provide us with telecommunication services through arm’s length negotiated transactions. These clients currently represent approximately 12% of our total annual revenue. Expenditures under these supplier contracts represent less than one percent of our total operating costs.

Competition

We are a leading global customer experience technology and services company focused on the design, implementation and delivery of transformative solutions for many of the world’s most iconic and disruptive brands. Our competitors vary by geography and business segment, and range from large multinational corporations to smaller, narrowly-focused enterprises. Across our lines of business, the principal competitive factors include: client relationships, technology and process innovation, integrated solutions, operational performance and efficiencies, pricing, brand recognition and financial strength.

Our strategy in maintaining market leadership is to prudently invest, innovate and provide integrated value-driven services, all centered around customer engagement management. Today, we are executing on a more expansive, holistic strategy by transforming our business into higher-value offerings through organic investments and strategic acquisitions. As we execute, we are differentiating ourselves in the marketplace and entering new markets that introduce us to an expanded competitive landscape.

In our Customer Management Services business, we primarily compete with in-house customer management operations as well as other companies that provide customer care including: Alorica, Sitel, Sykes, Synnex and Teleperformance, among others. As we expand our offerings into customer engagement consulting, technology, and growth, we are competing with smaller specialized companies and divisions of multinational companies, including Bain & Company, McKinsey & Company, Accenture, IBM, AT&T, Interactive Intelligence, LiveOps, inContact, Five9, WPP, Publicis Groupe, Dentsu, and others.

Employees

Our people are our most valuable asset. As of December 31, 2018, we had 52,400 employees in 23 countries on six continents. Although a percentage of our Customer Management Services segment employees are hired seasonally to address the fourth quarter and first quarter higher business volumes in retail, healthcare and other seasonal industries, most remain employed throughout the year and work at 85 locations and through our @home environment. Approximately 66% of our employees are located outside of the U.S. Approximately 10% of our employees are covered by collective bargaining agreements, most of which are mandated under national labor laws outside of the United States. These agreements are subject to periodic renegotiations and we anticipate that they will be renewed in the ordinary course of business without material impact to our business or in a manner materially different from other companies covered by such industry-wide agreements.

Research, Innovation, Intellectual Property and Proprietary Technology

We recognize the value of innovation in our business and are committed to developing leading-edge technologies and proprietary solutions. Research and innovation have been a major factor in our success and we believe that they will continue to contribute to our growth in the future. We use our investment in research and development to create, commercialize and deploy innovative business strategies and high-value technology solutions.

We deliver value to our clients through, and our success in part depends on, certain proprietary technologies and methodologies. We leverage U.S. and foreign patent, trade secret, copyright and trademark laws as well as confidentiality, proprietary information non-disclosure agreements, and key staff non-competition agreements to protect our proprietary technology.

As of December 31, 2018 we had 2 patent applications pending in 8 jurisdictions; and own 82 U.S. and non-U.S. patents that we leverage in our operations and as market place differentiation for our service offerings. Our trade name, logos and names of our proprietary solution offerings are protected by their historic use and by trademarks and service marks registered in  29  countries.

 

ITEM 1A.  RISK FACTORS

In addition to the other information presented in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, you should carefully consider the risks and uncertainties discussed in this section when evaluating our business. If any of these risks or uncertainties actually occur, our business, financial condition, and results of operations (including revenue, profitability and cash flows) could be materially and adversely affected and the market price of our stock could decline.

Our markets are highly competitive, and we might not be able to compete effectively

The markets where we offer our services are highly competitive. Our future performance is largely dependent on our ability to compete successfully in markets we currently serve, while expanding into new, profitable markets. We compete with large multinational service providers; offshore service providers from lower-cost jurisdictions that offer similar services, often at highly competitive prices and more aggressive contract terms; niche solution providers that compete with us in specific geographic markets, industry segments or service areas; companies that utilize new, potentially disruptive technologies or delivery models, including artificial intelligence powered solutions; and in-house functions of large companies that use their own resources, rather than outsourcing customer care and customer experience services we provide. Some of our competitors have greater financial or marketing resources than we do and, therefore, may be better able to compete.

Further, the continuing trend of consolidation in the technology sector and among business process outsourcing competitors in various geographies where we have operations may result in new competitors with greater scale, a broader footprint, better technologies, or price efficiencies that may be attractive to our clients. If we are unable to compete successfully and provide our clients with superior service and solutions at competitive prices, we could lose market share and clients to competitors, which would materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

If we are unsuccessful in implementing our business strategy, our long-term financial prospects could be adversely affected

Our growth strategy is based on continuous diversification of our business beyond contact center customer care outsourcing to an integrated customer experience platform that unites innovative and disruptive technologies, strategic consulting, data analytics, client growth solutions, and customer experience focused system design and integration. These investments in technologies and integrated solution development, however, may not lead to increased revenue and profitability. If we are not successful in creating value from these investments, there could be a negative impact on our operating results and financial condition.

Our results of operations and ability to grow could be materially affected if we cannot adapt our service offerings to changes in technology and customer expectations

Our growth and profitability will depend on our ability to develop and adopt new technologies that expand our existing offerings by leveraging new technological trends and cost efficiencies in our operations, while meeting rapidly evolving client expectations. As technology evolves, more tasks currently performed by our agents may be replaced by automation, robotics, artificial intelligence, chatbots and other technological advances, which puts our lower-skill, tier one, customer care offerings at risk. These technology innovations could potentially reduce our business volumes and related revenues, unless we are successful in adapting and deploying them profitably.

We may not be successful in anticipating or responding to our client expectations and interests in adopting evolving technology solutions, and their integration in our offerings may not achieve the intended enhancements or cost reductions. Services and technologies offered by our competitors may make our service offerings not competitive or even obsolete, and may negatively impact our clients’ interest in our offerings. Our failure to innovate, maintain technological advantage, or respond effectively and timely to transformational changes in technology could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

Cyber-attacks, cyber-fraud, and unauthorized information disclosure could harm our reputation, cause liability, result in service outages and losses, any of which could adversely affect our business and results of operations

Our business involves the use, storage, and transmission of information about our clients, customers of our clients, and our employees. While we take reasonable measures to protect the security of and unauthorized access to our systems and the privacy of personal and proprietary information that we access and store, our security controls over our systems may not prevent the improper access to or disclosure of this information. Such unauthorized access or disclosure could subject us to liability under relevant law or our contracts and could harm our reputation resulting in loss of revenue and loss of business opportunities.

In recent years, there have been an increasing number of high profile security breaches at companies and government agencies, and security experts have warned about the growing risks of hackers and cyber criminals launching a broad range of attacks targeting information technology systems. Our business is dependent on information technology systems. Information security breaches, computer viruses, interruption or loss of business data, DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks, and other cyber-attacks on any of these systems could disrupt the normal operations of our contact centers, our cloud platform offerings, and our enterprise services, impeding our ability to provide critical services to our clients. 

We are experiencing an increase in frequency of cyber-fraud attempts, such as so-called “social engineering” attacks and phishing scams, which typically seek unauthorized money transfers or information disclosure. We actively train our employees to recognize these attacks and have implemented proactive risk mitigation measures to curb them. There are no assurances, however, that these attacks, which are also growing in sophistication, may not deceive our employees, resulting in a material loss.

While we have taken reasonable measures to protect our systems and processes from intrusion and cyber-fraud, we cannot be certain that advances in cyber-criminal capabilities, discovery of new system vulnerabilities, and attempts to exploit such vulnerabilities will not compromise or breach the technology protecting our systems and the information that we manage and control, which could result in damage to our systems, our reputation and our profitability.

Our need for consistent improvements in cybersecurity may force us to expend significant additional resources to respond to system disruptions and security breaches, including additional investments in repairing systems damaged by such attacks, reconfiguring and rerouting systems to reduce vulnerabilities, and resolution of legal claims that may arise from data breaches. A significant cyber security breach could materially harm our business, financial condition, and operating results.

A large portion of our revenue is generated from a limited number of clients and the loss of one or more of our clients could adversely affect our business

We rely on strategic, long-term relationships with large, global companies in targeted industries. As a result, we derive a substantial portion of our revenue from relatively few clients. Our five and ten largest clients collectively represented 35% and 49% of our revenue in 2018 while the largest client represented 10.2% of our revenue in 2018.

Although we have multiple engagements with all of our largest clients and all contracts are unlikely to terminate at the same time, the contracts with our five largest clients expire between 2020 and 2023 and there can be no assurance that these contracts will continue to be renewed at all or be renewed on favorable terms. The loss of all or part of a major client’s business could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations, if the loss of revenue was not replaced with profitable business from other clients.

We serve clients in industries that have historically experienced a significant level of consolidation. If one of our clients is acquired (including by another of our clients) our business volume and revenue may materially decrease due to the termination or phase out of an existing client contract, volume discounts or other contract concessions which could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

If we cannot recruit, hire, train, and retain qualified employees to respond to client demands, our business will be adversely affected

Our business is labor intensive and our ability to recruit and train employees with the right skills, at the right price point, and in the timeframe required by our client commitments is critical to achieving our growth objective. Demand for qualified personnel with multiple language capabilities and fluency in English may exceed supply. Employees with specific backgrounds and skills may also be required to keep pace with evolving technologies and client demands. While we invest in employee retention, we continue to experience high employee turnover and are continuously recruiting and training replacement staff. Some of our facilities are located in geographies with low unemployment, which makes it costly to hire personnel, and in several jurisdictions, jurisdiction-specific wage regulations are changing rapidly making it difficult to recruit new employees at price points acceptable for our business model. Our inability to attract and retain qualified personnel at costs acceptable under our contracts, our costs associated with attracting, training, and retaining employees, and the challenge of managing the continuously changing and seasonal client demands could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

Uncertainty related to cost of labor across various jurisdictions in the United States could adversely affect our results of operating

As a labor intensive business, we sign multi-year client contracts that are priced based on prevailing labor costs in jurisdictions where we deliver services. Yet, in the United States, our business is confronted with a patchwork of ever changing minimum wage, mandatory time off, and rest and meal break laws at the state and local levels. As these jurisdiction-specific laws change with little notice or grace period for transition, we often have no opportunity to adjust and change how we do business and pass cost increases to our clients. The frequent changes in the law and inconsistencies in laws across different jurisdictions in the United States, may result in higher costs, lower contract profitability, higher turnover, and reduced operational efficiencies, which could in the aggregate have material adverse impact on our results of operations.

Our delivery model involves geographic concentration exposing us to significant operational risks

Our business model is dependent on our customer engagement centers and enterprise support functions being located in low cost jurisdictions around the globe. We have on the ground presence in 23 countries, but our customer care and experience management delivery capacity and our back-office functions are concentrated in the Philippines, Mexico, India, and Bulgaria and our technology solutions centers are concentrated in a few locations in the United States. Natural disasters (floods, winds, and earthquakes), terrorist attacks, pandemics, large-scale utilities outages, telecommunication and transportation disruptions, labor or political unrest, and restriction on repatriation of funds at some of these locations may interrupt or limit our ability to operate or may increase our costs. Our business continuity and disaster recovery plans, while extensive, may not be effective, particularly if catastrophic events occur.

Our dependence on our customer engagement centers and enterprise services support functions in the Philippines, which is subject to frequent severe weather, natural disasters, and occasional security threats, represents a particular risk. For these and other reasons, our geographic concentration could result in a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Although we procure business interruption insurance to cover some of these exposures, adequate insurance may not be available on an ongoing basis for a reasonable price.

Compliance with laws, including unexpected changes to such laws, could adversely affect our results of operations

Our business is subject to extensive regulation by U.S. and foreign national, state and provincial authorities relating to confidential client and customer data,  customer communications, telemarketing practices, and licensed healthcare and financial services activities, among other areas. Costs and complexity of compliance with existing and future regulations could adversely affect our profitability. If we fail to comply with regulations relevant to our business, we could be subject to civil or criminal liability, monetary damages and fines. Private lawsuits and enforcement actions by regulatory agencies could also materially increase our costs of operations and impact our ability to serve our clients.

As we provide services to clients’ customers residing in countries across the world, we are subject to numerous, and sometimes conflicting, legal regimes on matters as diverse as import/export controls, communication content requirements, trade restrictions and sanctions, tariffs, taxation, data privacy, labor relations, wages and severance, health care requirements, internal and disclosure control obligations, and immigration. Violations of these regulations could impact our reputation and result in financial liability, criminal prosecution, unfavorable publicity, restrictions on our ability to process information and breach of our contractual commitments.

Adverse changes in laws or regulations that impact our business may negatively affect the sale of our services, slow the growth of our operations, or mandate changes to how we deliver our services, including our ability to use offshore resources. These changes could threaten our ability to continue to serve certain markets.

Our growth of operations could strain our resources and cause our business to suffer

We plan to continue growing our business organically through expansion, sales efforts, and strategic acquisitions, while maintaining tight controls on our expenses and overhead. Lean overhead functions combined with focused growth may place a strain on our management systems, infrastructure and resources, resulting in internal control failures, missed opportunities, and staff attrition which could impact our business and results of operations.

Our profitability could suffer if our cost-management strategies are unsuccessful

Our ability to improve or maintain our profitability is dependent on our ability to engage in continuous management of our costs. Our cost management strategies include optimizing the alignment between the demand for our services and our resource capacity, including engagement center utilization; the costs of service delivery; the cost of sales and general and administrative costs as a percentage of revenues, and the use of process automation for standard operating tasks. If we are not effective in managing our operating and administrative costs in response to changes in demand and pricing for our services, or if we are unable to absorb or pass on to our clients the increases in our costs of operations, our results of operations could be materially adversely affected.

Uncertainty and inconsistency in privacy and data protection laws that impact our business and high cost of compliance with such laws may impact our ability to deliver services and our results of operations

Recently, there has been a significant increase in data protection and privacy laws and enforcement in many jurisdictions where we and our clients do business. Some of these laws are complex and at times they impose conflicting regulatory requirements. For example, the recently enacted General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) expands the European Union’s authority to oversee data protection for controllers and processers of personally identifiable information collected in Europe; while the State of California in the U.S. imposed similar regulations with a different reach. Failure to comply with all relevant privacy and data protection laws may result in legal claims, significant fines, sanctions, or penalties, or may make it difficult for us to secure business. Compliance with these evolving regulations may require significant investment which would impact our results of operations.

Our financial results depend on our capacity utilization and our ability to forecast demand and make timely decisions about staffing levels, investments, and operating expenses

Our ability to meet our strategic growth and profitability objectives depends on how effectively we manage our customer engagement center capacity against the fluctuating and seasonal client demands. Predicting customer demand and making timely staffing level decisions, investments, and other operating expenditure commitments in each of our delivery center locations is key to our successful execution and profitability maximization. We can provide no assurance that we will continue to be able to achieve or maintain desired delivery center capacity utilization, because quarterly variations in client volumes, many of which are outside our control, can have a material adverse effect on our utilization rates. If our utilization rates are below expectations, because of our high fixed costs of operation, our financial conditions and results of operations could be adversely affected.

Our sales cycles for new client relationships and new lines of business with existing clients can be long, which results in a long lead time before we receive revenues

We often face a long selling cycle to secure contracts with new clients or contracts for new lines of business with existing clients. When we are successful in securing a new engagement, it is generally followed by a long implementation period when clients must give notice to incumbent service providers or transfer in-house operations to us. There may also be a long ramp up period before we commence our services, and for certain contracts we receive no revenue until we start performing the work. If we are not successful in obtaining contractual commitments after the initial prolonged sales cycle or in maintaining the contractual relationship for a period of time necessary to offset new project investment costs and appropriate return on that investment, the investments may have a material adverse effect on our results of operations.

Contract terms typical in our industry can lead to volatility in our revenue and our margins

Our contracts do not have guaranteed revenue levels. Most of our contracts require clients to provide monthly forecasts of volumes, but no guaranteed or minimum volume levels. Such forecasts vary from month to month, which can impact our staff utilizations, our cost structure, and our profitability.

Many of our contracts have termination for convenience clauses with short notice periods, which could have a material adverse effect on our results of operation. Although many of our contracts can be terminated for convenience, our relationships with our top five clients have ranged from 12 to 22 years with the majority of these clients having completed multiple contract renewals with us. Yet, our contracts do not guarantee a minimum revenue level or profitability, and clients may terminate them or materially reduce customer interaction volumes, which would reduce our earning potential. This could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations and makes it harder to make projections.

Many of our contracts utilize performance pricing that link some of our fees to the attainment of performance criteria, which could increase the variability of our revenue and operating margin. These performance criteria can be complex, and at times they are not entirely within our control. If we fail to satisfy our contract performance metrics, our revenue under the contracts and our operating margin are reduced.

We may not always offset increased costs with increased fees under long-term contracts. The pricing and other terms of our client contracts, particularly on our long-term contact center agreements, are based on estimates and assumptions we make at the time we enter into these contracts. These estimates reflect our best judgments regarding the nature of the engagement and our expected costs to provide the contracted services but these judgments could differ from actual results. Not all our larger long-term contracts allow for escalation of fees as our cost of operations increase. Moreover, those that do allow for such escalations, do not always allow increases at rates comparable to increases that we experience due to rising minimum wage costs and related payroll cost increases. If and to the extent we do not negotiate long-term contract terms that provide for fee adjustments to reflect increases in our cost of service delivery, our business, financial conditions, and results of operation could be materially impacted.

Our pricing depends on effectiveness of our level of effort forecasts. Pricing of our services in our technology and strategic consulting businesses is contingent on our ability to accurately forecast the level of effort and cost necessary to deliver our services, which is data dependent and can be inaccurate. The errors in level of effort estimations could yield lower profit margins or cause projects to become unprofitable, resulting in adverse impacts on our results of operations.

Our contracts seldom address the impacts of currency fluctuation on our costs of delivery. As we continue to leverage our global delivery model, more of our expenses may be incurred in currencies other than those in which we bill for services. An increase in the value of certain currencies, such as U.S. or Australian dollar against the Philippine peso and India rupee, could increase costs for our delivery at offshore sites by increasing our labor and other costs that are denominated in local currencies. Our contractual provisions, cost management efforts, and currency hedging activities may not be sufficient to offset the currency fluctuation impact, resulting in the decrease of the profitability of our contracts.

Increases in income tax rates, changes in income tax laws or disagreements with tax authorities could adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations

We are subject to income taxes in the United States and in certain foreign jurisdictions in which we operate. Increases in income tax rates or other changes in income tax laws in any particular jurisdiction could reduce our after-tax income from such jurisdictions and could adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations. Our operations outside the United States generate a significant portion of our income and many of the other countries in which we have significant operations, have recently made or are actively considering changes to existing tax laws. For example, in December 2017, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (“2017 Tax Act”) was signed into law in the United States. While our accounting for the recorded impact of the 2017 Tax Act is deemed to be complete, these amounts are based on prevailing regulations and currently available information, and any additional guidance issued by the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) could impact our recorded amounts in future periods.

Additional changes in the U.S. tax regime or in how U.S. multinational corporations are taxed on foreign earnings, including changes in how existing tax laws are interpreted or enforced, could adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations.

There are no assurances that we will be able to implement effective contracting structures that are necessary to optimize our tax position under the 2017 Tax Act. If we are unable to implement cost effective contracting structure, our effective tax rate and our results of operations would be impacted.

We face special risks associated with our business outside of the United States

An important component of our business strategy is service delivery outside of the United States and our continuing international expansion. In 2018 we derived approximately 43% of our revenue from operations outside of the United States. Conducting business abroad is subject to a variety of risks, including:

While we monitor and endeavor to mitigate timely the relevant regulatory, geopolitical, and other risks related to our operations outside of the United States, we cannot assess with certainty what impact such risks are likely to have over time on our business, and we can provide no assurance that we will always be able to mitigate these risks successfully and avoid adverse impact on our business and results of operations.

Our profitability may be adversely affected if we are unable to expand and maintain our delivery centers in countries with stable wage rates and find new “near shore” locations required by our clients.

Our business is labor-intensive and therefore cost of wages, benefits and related taxes constitute a large component of our operating expenses. As a result, expansion of our business is dependent upon our ability to maintain and expand our operations in cost-effective locations, in and outside of the United States. Most of our customer engagement centers are located in jurisdictions subject to minimum wage regulations, which may result in increased wages in the future, thus impacting our profitability.

Our clients often dictate where they wish for us to locate the delivery centers that serve their customers, such as “near shore” jurisdictions located in close proximity to the United States, that have grown in popularity recently. There is no assurance that we will be able to find and secure locations suitable for delivery center operations in “near shore” jurisdictions which meet our cost-effectiveness and security standards. Our inability to expand our operations to such “near shore” locations, however, may impact our ability to secure new and additional business from clients, and could adversely affect our growth and results of operations.

Increases in the cost of communication and data services or significant interruptions in such services could adversely affect our business

Our business is significantly dependent on telephone, internet and data service provided by various domestic and foreign communication companies. Any disruption of these services could adversely affect our business. We have taken steps to mitigate our exposure to service disruptions by investing in complex and multi-layered redundancies, and we can transition services among our different customer engagement centers around the world. Despite these efforts, there can be no assurance, that the redundancies we have in place would be sufficient to maintain operations without disruption.

Our inability to obtain communication and data services at favorable rates could negatively affect our results of operations. Where possible, we have entered into long-term contracts with various providers to mitigate short term rate increases and fluctuations. There is no obligation, however, for the vendors to renew their contracts with us, or to offer the same or lower rates in the future, and such contracts may be subject to termination or modification for various reasons outside of our control. A significant increase in the cost of communication services that is not recoverable through an increase in the price of our services could adversely affect our business.

Defects or errors in software utilized in our service offerings could adversely affect our business.

The third-party software and systems that we use to conduct our business and serve our clients are highly complex and may, from time to time, contain design defects, coding errors or other software errors that may be difficult to detect or correct, and which are outside of our control. Although our commercial agreements contain provisions designed to limit our exposure to potential claims and liabilities, these provisions may not always effectively protect us against claims in all jurisdictions. As a result, problems with software and systems that we use may result in damages to our clients for which we are held responsible, causing damage to our reputation, adversely affecting our business, our results of operations, and financial condition.

Restrictions on mobility of people across borders may affect our ability to compete for and provide services to clients

Our business depends on the ability of some of our employees to obtain the necessary visas and entry permits to do business in the countries where our clients and contact centers are located. In recent years, in response to terrorist attacks and global unrest, immigration authorities generally, and those in the United States in particular, have increased the level of scrutiny in granting such visas, and even imposed bans on immigration and commercial travel for citizens of certain countries. If further terrorist attacks occur or global unrest intensifies, these restrictions are likely to further increase. Furthermore, immigration laws in most countries where we do business are subject to legislative change and varying standards of application and enforcement due to political forces, economic conditions or other events unrelated to our operations. If we are unable to obtain the necessary visas for our personnel with need to travel to or from the United States in a timely manner, we may not be able to continue to provide services on a timely and cost-effective basis, receive revenues as early as expected or manage our customer engagement centers efficiently. Any of these developments could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

If the transfer pricing arrangements we have among our subsidiaries are determined to be inappropriate, our tax liability may increase

We have transfer pricing arrangements among our subsidiaries in relation to various aspects of our business, including operations, marketing, sales, and delivery functions. U.S., Australia, Mexico, Philippines and other transfer pricing regulations in other countries where we operate, require that cross-border transactions between affiliates be on arm’s-length terms. We carefully consider the pricing among our subsidiaries to assure that they are at arm’s-length. If tax authorities were to determine that the transfer prices and terms we have applied are not appropriate, we may incur increased tax liability, including accrued interest and penalties, which would cause material increase in our tax liability, thereby impacting our profitability and cash flows, and potentially resulting in a material adverse effect on our operations, effective tax rate and financial condition.

Our strategy of growing through acquisitions may impact our business in unexpected ways

Our growth strategy involves acquisitions that help us expand our service offerings and diversify our geographic footprint. We continuously evaluate acquisition opportunities, but there are no assurances that we will be able to identify acquisition targets that complement our strategy and are available at valuation levels accretive to our business.

Even if we are successful in making acquisitions, the acquired businesses may subject our business to risks that may impact our results of operation; including:  

We have incurred and may in the future incur impairments to goodwill, long-lived assets or strategic investments

As a result of past acquisitions, as of December 31, 2018, we have approximately $204.6 million of goodwill and $80.9 million of intangible assets included on our Consolidated Balance Sheet. We review our goodwill and intangible assets for impairment at least once annually, and more often when events or changes in circumstances indicate the carrying value may not be recoverable. We perform an assessment of qualitative and quantitative factors to determine whether the existence of events or circumstances leads to a determination that it is more likely than not that the fair value of the goodwill or intangible asset is less than its carrying amount. In the event that the book value of goodwill or intangible asset is impaired, such impairment would be charged to earnings in the period when such impairment is determined. We have recorded goodwill and intangible impairments in the past, and there can be no assurance that we will not incur impairment charges in the future that could have material adverse effects on our financial condition or results of operations.

If we are unable to attract and retain talented and experienced executives for key positions in our business, our business and our strategy execution could be adversely impacted

Our business success depends on contributions of senior management and key personnel. Our ability to attract, motivate and retain key senior management staff is conditioned on our ability to pay adequate compensation and incentives. We compete for top senior management candidates with other, often larger, companies that at times have access to greater resources. Our ability to attract qualified individuals for our senior management team is also impacted by our requirement that members of senior management sign non-compete agreements as a condition to joining TTEC. If we are not able to attract and retain talented and experienced executives, we would be unable to compete effectively, and our growth may be limited, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and prospects.

Intellectual property infringement by us and by others may adversely impact our ability to innovate and compete

Our solutions could infringe intellectual property of others impacting our ability to deploy them with clients. From time to time, we and members of our supply chain receive assertions that our service offerings or technologies infringe on the patents or other intellectual property rights of third parties. While to date we have been successful in defending such claims and many of these claims are without basis, the claims could require us to cease activities, incur expensive licensing costs, or engage in costly litigation, which could adversely affect our business and results of operation.

Our intellectual property may not always receive favorable treatment from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the European Patent Office or similar foreign intellectual property adjudication and registration agencies; and our “patent pending” intellectual property may not receive a patent or may be subject to prior art limitations.

The lack of an effective legal system in certain countries where we do business or lack of commitment to protection of intellectual property rights, may prevent us from being able to defend our intellectual property and related technology against infringement by others, leading to a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Our financial results may be adversely impacted by foreign currency exchange rate risk

Many contracts that we service from customer engagement centers based outside of the United States are typically priced, invoiced, and paid in U.S. and Australian dollars or Euros, while the costs incurred to deliver the services and operate are incurred in the functional currencies of the applicable operating subsidiary. The fluctuations between the currencies of the contract and operating currencies present foreign currency exchange risks. Furthermore, because our financial statements are denominated in U.S. dollars, but approximately 23% of our revenue is derived from contracts denominated in other currencies, our results of operations could be adversely affected if the U.S. dollar strengthens significantly against foreign currencies.

While we hedge at various levels against the effect of exchange rate fluctuations, we can provide no assurance that we will be able to continue to successfully manage this foreign currency exchange risk and avoid adverse impacts on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

The current trend to outsource customer care may not continue and the prices that clients are willing to pay for the services may diminish, adversely affecting our business

Our growth depends, in large part, on the willingness of our clients and potential clients to outsource customer care and management services to companies like TTEC. There can be no assurance that the customer care outsourcing trend will continue; and our clients and potential clients may elect to perform in-house customer care and management services that they currently outsource. Reduction in demand for our services and increased competition from other providers and in-house service alternatives would create pricing pressures and excess capacity that could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

Legislation discouraging offshoring of service by U.S. companies or making such offshoring difficult could significantly affect our business

A perceived association between offshore service providers and the loss of jobs in the United States has been a focus of political debate in recent years. As a result, current and prospective clients may be reluctant to hire offshore service providers like TTEC to avoid negative perceptions and regulatory scrutiny. If they seek customer care and management capacity onshore that was previously available to them through outsourcers outside of the United States, they may elect to perform these services in-house instead of outsourcing the services onshore. Possible tax incentives for U.S. businesses to return offshored, including outsourced and offshored, services to the U.S. could also impact our clients’ continuing interest in using our services.

Legislation aimed to expand protections for U.S. based customers from having their personal data accessible outside of the United States could also impact offshore outsourcing opportunities by requiring notice and consent as a condition for sharing personal identifiable information with service providers based outside of the United States. Any material changes in current trends among U.S. based clients to use services outsourced and delivered offshore would materially impact our business and results of operations.

Health epidemics could disrupt our business and adversely affect our financial results

Our customer engagement centers typically seat hundreds of employees in one location. Accordingly, an outbreak of a contagious infection in one or more of the locations in which we do business may result in significant worker absenteeism, lower capacity utilization rates, voluntary or mandatory closure of our customer engagement centers, travel restrictions on our employees, and other disruptions to our business. Any prolonged or widespread health epidemic could severely disrupt our business operations and have a material adverse effect on our business, its financial condition and results of operations.

The volatility of our stock price may result in loss of investment

Our share price has been and may continue to be subject to substantial fluctuation. We believe that market prices for securities of companies that provide outsourced customer care management services have experienced volatility in recent years and such volatility may affect our stock price as well. As we continue to diversify our service offerings to include growth, technology and strategic consulting, our stock price volatility may stabilize, or it may be further impacted by stock price fluctuations in these new industries. In addition to fluctuations specific to our industry and service offerings, we believe that various other factors such as general economic conditions, changes or volatility in the financial markets, and changing market condition for our clients could impact the valuation of our stock. The quarterly variations in our financial results, acquisition and divestiture announcements by us or our competitors, strategic partnerships and new service offering, our failure to meet our growth objectives or exceed our targets, and securities analysts’ perception about our performance could cause the market price of our shares to fluctuate substantially in the future.

Our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer controls a  majority of our stock and has control over all matters requiring action by our stockholders

Kenneth D. Tuchman, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, directly and beneficially owns approximately 68% of TTEC’s common stock. As a result, Mr. Tuchman could and does exercise significant influence and control over our business practices and strategy, including the direction of our business and our dividend policy, and all matters requiring action by our stockholders, including the election of our entire Board of Directors and our capital structure. Further, a change in control of our company or significant capital transactions could not be affected without Mr. Tuchman’s approval, even if such a change in control or other capital transactions could benefit our other stockholders.

 

ITEM 1B.  UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS

 

We have not received written comments regarding our periodic or current reports from the staff of the SEC that were issued 180 days or more preceding the end of our 2018 fiscal year that remain unresolved.

 

ITEM 2.  PROPERTIES

Our corporate headquarters are located in Englewood, Colorado, which consists of approximately 264,000 square feet of owned office space. In addition to our headquarters and the customer engagement centers used by our Customer Management Services and Customer Growth Services segments discussed below, we also maintain sales and consulting offices in several countries around the world which serve our Customer Technology Services and Customer Strategy Services segments.

As of December 31, 2018 we operated 85 customer engagement centers that are classified as follows:

As of December 31, 2018, our customer engagement centers were located in the following countries:

 

 

The leases for our customer engagement centers have remaining terms ranging from one to 15 years and generally contain renewal options. We believe that our existing customer engagement centers are suitable and adequate for our current operations, and we have plans to build additional centers to accommodate future business.

 

ITEM 3.  LEGAL PROCEEDINGS

From time to time, the Company has been involved in legal actions, both as plaintiff and defendant, which arise in the ordinary course of business. The Company accrues for exposures associated with such legal actions to the extent that losses are deemed both probable and reasonably estimable. To the extent specific reserves have not been made for certain legal proceedings, their ultimate outcome, and consequently, an estimate of possible loss, if any, cannot reasonably be determined at this time.

Based on currently available information and advice received from counsel, the Company believes that the disposition or ultimate resolution of any current legal proceedings, except as otherwise specifically reserved for in its financial statements, will not have a material adverse effect on the Company’s financial position, cash flows or results of operations.

 

ITEM 4.  MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURES

 

Not applicable.

 

 

PART II

 

ITEM 5.  MARKET FOR REGISTRANT’S COMMON EQUITY, RELATED STOCKHOLDER
MATTERS AND ISSUER PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES

 

Our common stock is traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol “TTEC.” The following table sets forth the range of the high and low sales prices per share of the common stock for the quarters indicated as reported on the NASDAQ Global Select Market:

 

 

As of December 31, 2018, we had 265 holders of record of our common stock and during 2018 we declared and paid a $0.27 per share dividend and a $0.28 per share dividend on our common stock. During 2017 we declared and paid a $0.22 per share dividend and a $0.25 per share dividend on our common stock as discussed below.

In 2015, our Board of Directors adopted a dividend policy, with the intent to distribute a periodic cash dividend to stockholders of our common stock, after consideration of, among other things, TTEC’s performance, cash flows, capital needs and liquidity factors. The Company paid the initial dividend in 2015 and has continued to pay a semi-annual dividend in October and April of each year in amounts ranging between $0.18 and $0.28 per common share. On February 21, 2019, the Board of Directors authorized a  $0.30 dividend per common share, payable on April 18, 2019, to shareholders of record as of March 28, 2019. While it is our intention to continue to pay semi-annual dividends in 2019 and beyond, any decision to pay future cash dividends will be made by our Board of Directors. In addition, our credit facility restricts our ability to pay dividends in the event we are in default or do not satisfy certain covenants.

Stock Repurchase Program

We continue to return capital to our shareholders via an ongoing stock repurchase program (originally authorized by the Board of Directors in 2001). As of December 31, 2018, the cumulative authorized repurchase allowance was $762.3 million, of which we have purchased 46.1 million shares for $735.8 million.

Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities During the Fourth Quarter of 2018

The following table provides information about our repurchases of equity securities during the quarter ended December 31, 2018:

 

 

From January 1, 2019 through February 28, 2019, we have not purchased  any additional shares. The stock repurchase program does not have an expiration date and the Board authorizes additional stock repurchases under the program from time to time.

Stock Performance Graph

The graph depicted below compares the performance of TTEC common stock with the performance of the NASDAQ Composite Index; the Russell 2000 Index; and customized peer group over the period beginning on December 31, 2012 and ending on December 31, 2018. We have chosen a “Peer Group” composed of Sykes Enterprises, Incorporated (NASDAQ: SYKE) and Teleperformance (NYSE Euronext: RCF). We believe that the companies in the Peer Group are relevant to our current business model, market capitalization and position in the overall Business Process Outsourcing (“BPO”) industry.

The graph assumes that $100 was invested on December 31, 2013 in our common stock and in each comparison index, and that all dividends were reinvested. We declared per share dividends on our common stock of $0.47 during 2017 and $0.55 during 2018. Stock price performance shown on the graph below is not necessarily indicative of future price performance.

COMPARISON OF 5 YEAR CUMULATIVE TOTAL RETURN

Among TTEC Holdings, Inc., The NASDAQ Composite Index,

The Russell 2000 Index, And A Peer Group

 

 

 

 

ITEM 6.  SELECTED FINANCIAL DATA

 

The following selected financial data should be read in conjunction with Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations, the Consolidated Financial Statements and the related notes appearing elsewhere in this Form 10-K (amounts in thousands except per share amounts).

 

 

 

ITEM 7.  MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

 

Executive Summary

TTEC Holdings, Inc. (“TTEC”, “the Company”, “we”, “our” or “us”) is a leading global customer experience technology and services company focused on the design, implementation and delivery of transformative solutions for many of the world’s most iconic and disruptive brands. We help large global companies increase revenue and reduce costs by delivering personalized customer experiences across every interaction channel and phase of the customer lifecycle as an end-to-end provider of customer engagement services, technologies, insights and innovations. We are organized into two centers of excellence: TTEC Digital and TTEC Engage.

TTEC Digital and TTEC Engage come together under our unified offering, HumanifyTM Customer Engagement as a Service, which drives measurable results for clients through the delivery of personalized omnichannel interactions that are seamless and relevant. Our offering is supported by 52,400 employees delivering services in 23 countries from 85 customer engagement centers on six continents. Our end-to-end approach differentiates the Company by combining service design, strategic consulting, data analytics, process optimization, system integration, operational excellence, and technology solutions and services. This unified offering is value-oriented, outcome-based, and delivered on a global scale across four business segments: two of which comprise TTEC Digital - Customer Strategy Services (“CSS”) and Customer Technology Services (“CTS”); and two of which comprise TTEC Engage - Customer Growth Services (“CGS”) and Customer Management Services (“CMS”).

Our revenue for fiscal 2018 was $1.509 billion, approximately 84% or $1.270 billion of which came from our TTEC Engage center of excellence and $239 million, or 16%, came from our TTEC Digital center of excellence.

Since our establishment in 1982, we have helped clients strengthen their customer relationships, brand recognition and loyalty by simplifying and personalizing interactions with their customers. We deliver thought leadership, through innovation in programs that differentiate our clients from their competition.

To improve our competitive position in a rapidly changing market and stay strategically relevant to our clients, we continue to invest in innovation and growth businesses, diversifying and strengthening our core customer care services with consulting, data analytics and insights technologies, and technology-enabled, outcomes-focused services.

We also invest in businesses that enable us to expand our geographic footprint, broaden our product and service capabilities, increase our global client base and industry expertise, and further scale our end-to-end integrated solutions platform. In 2018, we acquired Strategic Communications Services, a system integrator for multichannel contact center platforms based in the United Kingdom. In 2017, we acquired Motif, Inc., a digital fraud prevention and detection and content moderation services company based in India and the Philippines, and Connextions, Inc., a U.S.-based health services company focused on improving customer relationships for healthcare plan providers and pharmacy benefits managers.

We have developed tailored expertise in the automotive, communications, healthcare, financial services, government, logistics, media and entertainment, retail, technology, travel and transportation industries. We target customer-focused industry leaders in the Global 1000 and serve approximately 300 clients globally.

Our Integrated Service Offerings, Centers of Excellence and Business Segments

We have two centers of excellence that encompass our four operating and reportable segments.

TTEC Digital houses our professional services and technology platforms. These solutions are critical to enabling and accelerating digital transformation for our clients.

Customer Strategy Services Segment

Through our strategy and operations, analytics, and learning and performance consulting expertise, we help our clients design, build and execute their customer engagement strategies. We help our clients to better understand and predict their customers’ behaviors and preferences along with their current and future economic value. Using proprietary analytic models, we provide the insight clients need to build the business case for customer centricity and to better optimize their investments in customer experience. This insight-based strategy creates a roadmap for transformation. We build customer journey maps to inform service design across automated, human and hybrid interactions and increasingly are developing and implementing strategies around Interactive Virtual Assistants (chat bots). A key component of this segment involves instilling a high-performance culture through management and leadership alignment and process optimization.

Customer Technology Services Segment

In connection with the design of the customer engagement strategy, our ability to architect, deploy and host or manage the client’s customer experience environments becomes a key enabler to achieving and sustaining the client’s customer engagement vision. Given the proliferation of mobile communication technologies and devices, we enable our clients’ operations to interact with their customers across the growing array of channels including email, social networks, mobile, web, SMS text, voice and chat. We design, implement and manage cloud, on-premise or hybrid customer experience environments to deliver a consistent and superior experience across all touch points on a global scale that we believe result in higher quality, lower costs and reduced risk for our clients. Through our Humanify™ Technology Platform, we also provide data-driven context aware software-as-a-service (“SaaS”) based solutions that link customers seamlessly and directly to appropriate resources, any time and across any channel.

TTEC Engage houses our end-to-end managed services operations for customer care, revenue growth, digital fraud prevention and detection, and content moderation services.

Customer Growth Services Segment

We offer integrated sales and marketing solutions to help our clients boost revenue in new, fragmented or underpenetrated business-to-consumer or business-to-business markets. We deliver or manage approximately $4 billion in client revenue annually via the discovery, acquisition, growth and retention of customers through a combination of our highly trained, client-dedicated sales professionals and proprietary analytics platform. This platform continuously aggregates individual customer information across all channels into one holistic view so as to ensure more relevant and personalized communications.

Customer Management Services Segment

We design and manage clients’ front-to-back office processes to deliver just-in-time, personalized, protected, multi-channel interactions. Our front-office solutions seamlessly integrate voice, chat, email, e-commerce and social media to optimize the customer experience for our clients. In addition, we manage certain client back-office processes to enhance their customer-centric view of relationships and maximize operating efficiencies. We also perform fraud prevention and content moderation services to protect our clients and their customers from malevolent digital activities. Our delivery of integrated business processes via our onshore, offshore or work-from-home associates reduces operating costs and allows customer needs to be met more quickly and efficiently, resulting in higher satisfaction, brand loyalty and a stronger competitive position for our clients.

Based on our clients’ requirements, we provide our services on an integrated cross-business segment and on a discrete basis.

Additional information with respect to our segments and geographic footprint is included in Part II, Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, Note 3 to the Consolidated Financial Statements.

Our 2018 Financial Results

In 2018, our revenue increased 2.2% to $1,509 million over the same period in 2017,  including a decrease of 0.5% or $8.0 million due to foreign currency fluctuations. The increase in revenue is primarily related to a $31.6 million revenue increase for CTS and a $12.6 million revenue increase for CGS offset by a $12.7 million net revenue decrease for CMS, which includes a $7.5 million decrease related to foreign exchange fluctuations offset by a $9.0 million net increase related to the adoption of ASC 606 for revenue.

Our 2018 income from operations decreased $8.4 million to $92.1 million or 6.1% of revenue, from $100.5 million or 6.8% of revenue for 2017.  The change in operating income is attributable to a number of different factors across the segments. The decline in income from operations relates exclusively to CMS, with all other segments experiencing improvement year over year. CMS’s income from operations declined on increases in labor costs related to wage and healthcare benefits within our U.S. business. This increased cost is tied to macroeconomic factors including a lower unemployment rate and rising wages. Additionally, an increase in business ramps associated with a higher volume of new business signings during the second and third quarters led to a spike in launch costs in the second half of 2018. Launch costs are incurred in transitioning new business from our clients to TTEC and historically are not specifically compensated for by our clients.

The CTS operating income expanded significantly with a 121% improvement over the prior year primarily on the growth of its higher margin recurring cloud business and its system integration business which provides services pre and post buildout of each client cloud platform, the write-off of a trade name in the prior year, and large second half of the year product sales. The CSS operating income improved 164% due primarily to the write-off of a trade name in the prior year and the rationalization of certain practice areas as they were integrated. The CGS operating income increased due to new business adds during the year.

Income from operations in 2018 and 2017 included a total of  $7.6 million and $20.0 million of restructuring and integration charges and asset impairments, respectively. 

Our offshore customer engagement centers serve clients based in the U.S. and in other countries and span five countries with 23,725 workstations representing 55% of our global delivery capabilities. Revenue for our CMS and CGS segments provided in these offshore locations was $438 million and represented 35% of our 2018 revenue, as compared to $450 million and 35% of our 2017 revenue.

As of December 31, 2018, the overall capacity utilization in our centers was 80%. The table below presents workstation data for all of our centers as of December 31, 2018 and 2017. Our utilization percentage is defined as the total number of utilized production workstations compared to the total number of available production workstations.

 

We continue to see demand from all geographic regions to utilize our offshore delivery capabilities and expect this trend to continue. On the other hand, some of our clients may be subject to  regulatory pressures to bring more services onshore to the United States. In light of these trends, we plan to continue to selectively retain and grow capacity in and expand into new offshore markets, while maintaining appropriate capacity in the United States. As we grow our offshore delivery capabilities and our exposure to foreign currency fluctuations increases, we continue to actively manage this risk via a multi-currency hedging program designed to minimize operating margin volatility.

Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates

Management’s Discussion and Analysis of our financial condition and results of operations are based upon our Consolidated Financial Statements, which have been prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the U.S. (“GAAP”). The preparation of these financial statements requires us to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, revenue and expenses as well as the disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities. We regularly review our estimates and assumptions. These estimates and assumptions, which are based upon historical experience and on various other factors believed to be reasonable under the circumstances, form the basis for making judgments about the carrying values of assets and liabilities that are not readily apparent from other sources. Reported amounts and disclosures may have been different had management used different estimates and assumptions or if different conditions had occurred in the periods presented. Below is a discussion of the policies that we believe may involve a high degree of judgment and complexity.

Revenue Recognition – 2018 Revenue

The Company recognizes revenue from contracts and programs when control of the promised goods or services is transferred to the customers, in an amount that reflects the consideration it expects to be entitled to in exchange for those goods or services. Revenue is recognized when or as performance obligations are satisfied by transferring control of a promised good or service to a customer. A performance obligation is a promise in a contract to transfer a distinct good or service to the customer. Performance obligation is the unit of accounting for revenue recognition under the provisions of ASC Topic 606, “Revenue from Contracts with Customers” and all related amendments (“ASC 606”). A contract’s transaction price is allocated to each distinct performance obligation in recognizing revenue.

The BPO inbound and outbound service fees are based on either a per minute, per hour, per FTE, per transaction or per call basis, which represents the majority of our contracts. These contracts have a single performance obligation as the promise to transfer the individual goods or services is not separately identifiable from other promises in the contracts and, therefore, not distinct. For example, services for the training of the Company’s agents (which are separately billable to the customer) are a separate promise in our BPO contracts, but they are not distinct from the primary service obligations to transfer services to the customers. The performance of the customer service by the agents is highly dependent on the initial, growth, and seasonal training services provided to the agents during the life of a program. The training itself is not considered to have value to the customer on a standalone basis, and therefore, training on a standalone basis cannot be considered a separate unit of accounting. The Company therefore defers revenue from certain training services that are rendered mainly upon commencement of a new client contract or program, including seasonal programs. Revenue is also deferred when there is significant growth training in an existing program. Accordingly, recognition of initial, growth, and seasonal training revenues and associated costs (consisting primarily of labor and related expenses) are deferred and amortized over the period of economic benefit. With the exception of training which is typically billed upfront and deferred, the remainder of revenue is invoiced on a monthly or quarterly basis as services are performed and does not create a contract asset or liability.

In addition to revenue from BPO services, revenue also consists of fees from services for program launch, professional consulting, fully-hosted or managed technology and learning innovation services. The contracts containing these service offerings may contain multiple performance obligations. For contracts with multiple performance obligations, the Company allocates the contract’s transaction price to each performance obligation using the best estimate of the standalone selling price of each distinct good or service in the contract. The primary method used to estimate standalone selling price is the expected cost plus a margin approach, under which the Company forecasts its expected costs of satisfying a performance obligation and then adds an appropriate margin for that distinct good or service. The Company forecasts its expected cost based on historical data, current prevailing wages, other direct and indirect costs incurred in recently completed contracts, market conditions, and client specific other cost considerations. For these services, the point at which the transfer of control occurs determines when revenue is recognized in a specific reporting period. Where there are product sales, the attribution of revenue is made when FOB-destination delivery occurs (control transfers), which is the standard shipment terms, and therefore at a point in time. Where services are rendered to a customer, the attribution is aligned with the progress of work and is recognized over time (i.e. based on measuring the progress toward complete satisfaction of a performance obligation using an output method or an

input method). Where output method is used, revenue is recognized on the basis of direct measurements of the value to the customer of the goods or services transferred relative to the remaining goods or services promised under the contract. The majority of the Company’s services are recognized over time using the input method in which revenue is recognized on the basis of efforts or inputs toward satisfying a performance obligation (for example, resources consumed, labor hours expended, costs incurred, or time elapsed) relative to the total expected inputs to satisfy the performance obligation. The measures used provide faithful depiction of the transfer of goods or services to the customers. For example, revenue is recognized on certain consulting contracts based on labor hours expended as a measurement of progress where the consulting work involves input of consultants’ time. The progress is measured based on the hours expended over total number of estimated hours included in the contract multiplied by the total contract consideration. The contract consideration can be a fixed price or an hourly rate, and in either case, the use of labor hours expended as an input measure provides a faithful depiction of the transfer of services to the customers. Deferred revenues for these services represent amounts collected from, or invoiced to, customers in excess of revenues recognized. This results primarily from i) receipt of license fees that are deferred due to one or more of the revenue recognition criteria not being met, and ii) the billing of annual customer support agreements, annual managed service agreements, and billings for other professional services that have not yet been performed by the Company. The Company records amounts billed and received, but not earned, as deferred revenue. These amounts are recorded in Deferred revenue or Other long-term liabilities, as applicable, in the accompanying Consolidated Balance Sheets based on the period over which the Company expects to render services. Costs directly associated with revenue deferred, consisting primarily of labor and related expenses, are also deferred and recognized in proportion to the expected future revenue from the contract.

Variable consideration exists in contracts for certain client programs that provide for adjustments to monthly billings based upon whether the Company achieves, exceeds or fails certain performance criteria. Adjustments to monthly billings consist of contractual bonuses/penalties, holdbacks and other performance based conditions. Variable consideration is estimated at contract inception at its most likely value and updated at the end of each reporting period as additional performance data becomes available. Revenue related to such variable consideration is recognized only to the extent that a significant reversal of any incremental revenue is not considered probable.

Contract modifications are routine in the performance of the customer contracts. Contracts are often modified to account for customer mandated changes in the contract specifications or requirements, including service level changes. In most instances, contract modifications relate to goods or services that are incremental and distinctly identifiable, and, therefore, are accounted for prospectively. 

Direct and incremental costs to obtain or fulfill a contract are capitalized, and the capitalized costs are amortized over the corresponding period of benefit, determined on a contract by contract basis. The Company recognizes an asset for the incremental costs of obtaining a contract with a customer if it expects to recover those costs. The incremental costs of obtaining a contract are those costs that the Company incurs to obtain a customer contract that it would not have incurred if the contract had not been obtained. Contract acquisition costs consist primarily of payment of commissions to sales personnel and are incurred when customer contracts are signed. The deferred sales commission amounts are amortized based on the expected period of economic benefit and are classified as current or non-current based on the timing of when they are expected to be recognized as an expense. Costs to obtain a contract that would have been incurred regardless of whether the contract was obtained are recognized as an expense when incurred, unless those costs are explicitly chargeable to the customer regardless of whether the contract is obtained. Sales commissions are paid for obtaining new clients only and are not paid for contract renewals or contract modifications. Capitalized costs of obtaining contracts are periodically reviewed for impairment.

In certain cases, the Company negotiates an upfront payment to a customer in conjunction with the execution of a contract. Such upfront payments are critical to acquisition of new business and are often used as an incentive to negotiate favorable rates from the clients and are accounted for as upfront discounts for future services. Such payments are either made in cash at the time of execution of a contract or are netted against the Company’s service invoices. Payments to customers are capitalized as contract acquisition costs and are amortized in proportion to the expected future revenue from the contract, which in most cases results in straight-line amortization over the life of the contract. Such payments are considered a reduction of the selling prices of the Company’s products or services, and therefore, are accounted for as a reduction of revenue when amortized. Such capitalized contract acquisition costs are periodically reviewed for impairment taking into consideration ongoing future cash flows expected from the contract and estimated remaining useful life of the contract.

Some of the Company’s service contracts are short-term in nature with a contract term of one year or less. For those contracts, the Company has utilized the practical expedient in ASC 606-10-50-14 exempting the Company from disclosure of the transaction price allocated to remaining performance obligations if the performance obligation is part of a contract that has an original expected duration of one year or less. Also in alignment with ASC 606-10-50-14, the Company does not disclose the value of unsatisfied performance obligations for contracts for which it recognizes revenue at the amount to which it has the right to invoice for services performed. Additionally, the Company’s standard payment terms are less than one year. Given the foregoing, the Company has elected the practical expedient under ASC 606-10-32-18 to not assess whether a contract has a significant financing component. Pursuant to the Company’s election of the practical expedient under ASC 606-10-32-2A, sales, value add, and other taxes that are collected from customers concurrent with revenue-producing activities, which the Company has an obligation to remit to the governmental authorities, are excluded from revenue.

Revenue Recognition – 2017 and prior years

We recognize revenue when evidence of an arrangement exists, the delivery of service has occurred, the fee is fixed or determinable and collection is reasonably assured. The BPO inbound and outbound service fees are based on either a per minute, per hour, per full-time employee, per transaction or per call basis. Certain client programs provide for adjustments to monthly billings based upon whether we achieve, exceed or fail certain performance criteria. Adjustments to monthly billings consist of contractual bonuses/penalties, holdbacks and other performance based contingencies. Revenue recognition is limited to the amount that is not contingent upon delivery of future services or meeting other specified performance conditions.

Revenue also consists of services for agent training, program launch, professional consulting, fully-hosted or managed technology and learning innovation. These service offerings may contain multiple element arrangements whereby we determine if those service offerings represent separate units of accounting. A deliverable constitutes a separate unit of accounting when it has standalone value and delivery or performance of the undelivered items is considered probable and substantially within our control. If those deliverables are determined to be separate units of accounting, revenue is recognized as services are provided. If those deliverables are not determined to be separate units of accounting, revenue for the delivered services are bundled into one unit of accounting and recognized over the life of the arrangement or at the time all services and deliverables have been delivered and satisfied. We allocate revenue to each of the deliverables based on a selling price hierarchy of vendor specific objective evidence (“VSOE”), third-party evidence, and then estimated selling price. VSOE is based on the price charged when the deliverable is sold separately. Third-party evidence is based on largely interchangeable competitor services in standalone sales to similarly situated customers. Estimated selling price is based on our best estimate of what the selling prices of deliverables would be if they were sold regularly on a standalone basis. Estimated selling price is established considering multiple factors including, but not limited to, pricing practices in different geographies, service offerings, and customer classifications. Once we allocate revenue to each deliverable, we recognize revenue when all revenue recognition criteria are met.

Periodically, we will make certain expenditures related to acquiring contracts or provide up-front discounts for future services. These expenditures are capitalized as contract acquisition costs and amortized in proportion to the expected future revenue from the contract, which in most cases results in straight-line amortization over the life of the contract. Amortization of these contract acquisition costs is recorded as a reduction to revenue.

Income Taxes

Accounting for income taxes requires recognition of deferred tax assets and liabilities for the expected future income tax consequences of transactions that have been included in the Consolidated Financial Statements or tax returns. Under this method, deferred tax assets and liabilities are determined based on the difference between the financial statement and tax basis of assets and liabilities using tax rates in effect for the year in which the differences are expected to reverse. When circumstances warrant, we assess the likelihood that our net deferred tax assets will more likely than not be recovered from future projected taxable income.

We continually review the likelihood that deferred tax assets will be realized in future tax periods under the “more-likely-than-not” criteria. In making this judgment, we consider all available evidence, both positive and negative, in determining whether, based on the weight of that evidence, a valuation allowance is required.

We follow a two-step approach to recognizing and measuring uncertain tax positions. The first step is to determine if the weight of available evidence indicates that it is more likely than not that the tax position will be sustained on audit. The second step is to estimate and measure the tax benefit as the amount that has a greater than 50% likelihood of being realized upon ultimate settlement with the tax authority. We evaluate these uncertain tax positions on a quarterly basis. This evaluation is based on the consideration of several factors including changes in facts or circumstances, changes in applicable tax law, and settlement of issues under audit.

Interest and penalties relating to income taxes and uncertain tax positions are accrued net of tax in the Provision for income taxes in the accompanying Consolidated Statements of Comprehensive Income (Loss).

In the future, our effective tax rate could be adversely affected by several factors, many of which are outside our control. Our effective tax rate is affected by the proportion of revenue and income before taxes in the various domestic and international jurisdictions in which we operate. Further, we are subject to changing tax laws, regulations and interpretations in multiple jurisdictions in which we operate, as well as the requirements, pronouncements and rulings of certain tax, regulatory and accounting organizations. We estimate our annual effective tax rate each quarter based on a combination of actual and forecasted results of subsequent quarters. Consequently, significant changes in our actual quarterly or forecasted results may impact the effective tax rate for the current or future periods.

Tax Reform

The United States recently enacted comprehensive tax reform legislation known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the "2017 Tax Act") that, among other things, reduces the U.S. federal corporate income tax rate from 35% to 21% and implements a territorial tax system, but imposes an alternative “base erosion and anti-abuse tax” (“BEAT”), and an incremental tax on global intangible low taxed foreign income (“GILTI”) effective January 1, 2018. In addition, the law imposes a one-time mandatory repatriation tax on accumulated post-1986 foreign earnings on domestic corporations effective for the 2017 tax year. As of December 31, 2018, we have completed our accounting for the tax effects of the 2017 Tax Act and no material adjustment was recorded to the 2017 estimate.

While our accounting for the recorded impact of the 2017 Tax Act is deemed to be complete, these amounts are based on prevailing regulations and currently available information, and any additional guidance issued by the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) could impact our recorded amounts in future periods.

The Company’s selection of an accounting policy with respect to both the new GILTI and BEAT rules is to compute the related taxes in the period the entity becomes subject to either. A reasonable estimate of the effects of these provisions has been included in the 2018 annual financial statements.

Impairment of Long-Lived Assets

We evaluate the carrying value of property, plant and equipment and definite-lived intangible assets for impairment whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate that the carrying amount may not be recoverable. An asset is considered to be impaired when the forecasted undiscounted cash flows of an asset group are estimated to be less than its carrying value. The amount of impairment recognized is the difference between the carrying value of the asset group and its fair value. Fair value estimates are based on assumptions concerning the amount and timing of estimated future cash flows and assumed discount rates.

Goodwill and Indefinite-Lived Intangible Assets

We evaluate goodwill and indefinite-lived intangible assets for possible impairment at least annually or whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate that the carrying amount of such assets may not be recoverable.

We use a two step process to assess the realizability of goodwill. The first step, Step 0, is a qualitative assessment that analyzes current economic indicators associated with a particular reporting unit. For example, we analyze changes in economic, market and industry conditions, business strategy, cost factors, and financial performance, among others, to determine if there would be a significant decline to the fair value of a particular reporting unit. A qualitative assessment also includes analyzing the excess fair value of a reporting unit over its carrying value from impairment assessments performed in previous years. If the qualitative assessment indicates a stable or improved fair value, no further testing is required.

If a qualitative assessment indicates that a significant decline to fair value of a reporting unit is more likely than not, or if a reporting unit’s fair value has historically been closer to its carrying value, we will proceed to Step 1 testing where we calculate the fair value of a reporting unit based on discounted future probability-weighted cash flows. If Step 1 indicates that the carrying value of a reporting unit is in excess of its fair value, we will record an impairment equal to the amount by which a reporting unit’s carrying value exceeds its fair value.

We estimate fair value using discounted cash flows of the reporting units. The most significant assumptions used in these analyses are those made in estimating future cash flows. In estimating future cash flows, we use financial assumptions in our internal forecasting model such as projected capacity utilization, projected changes in the prices we charge for our services, projected labor costs, as well as contract negotiation status. The financial and credit market volatility directly impacts our fair value measurement through our weighted average cost of capital that we use to determine our discount rate. We use a discount rate we consider appropriate for the country where the business unit is providing services.

Similar to goodwill, the Company may first use a qualitative analysis to assess the realizability of its indefinite-lived intangible assets. The qualitative analysis will include a review of changes in economic, market and industry conditions, business strategy, cost factors, and financial performance, among others, to determine if there would be a significant decline to the fair value of an indefinite-lived intangible asset. If a quantitative analysis is completed, an indefinite-lived intangible asset (such as a trade name) is evaluated for possible impairment by comparing the fair value of the asset with its carrying value. Fair value is estimated as the discounted value of future revenues arising from a trade name using a royalty rate that a market participant would pay for use of that trade name. An impairment charge is recorded if the trade name’s carrying value exceeds its estimated fair value.

Restructuring and Liability

We routinely assess the profitability and utilization of our customer engagement centers and existing markets. In some cases, we have chosen to close under-performing customer engagement centers and complete reductions in workforce to enhance future profitability. Severance payments that occur from reductions in workforce are made in accordance with postemployment plans and/or statutory requirements that are communicated to all employees upon hire date; therefore, we recognize severance liabilities when they are determined to be probable and reasonably estimable. Other liabilities for costs associated with an exit or disposal activity,  (i.e. lease termination penalties), are recognized when the liability is incurred, rather than upon commitment to a plan.

Derivatives

We enter into foreign exchange forward and option contracts to reduce our exposure to foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations that are associated with forecasted revenue earned in foreign locations. We enter into interest rate swaps to reduce our exposure to interest rate fluctuations associated with our variable rate debt. Upon proper qualification, these contracts are accounted for as cash flow hedges under current accounting standards. From time-to-time, we also enter into foreign exchange forward contracts to hedge our net investment in a foreign operation.

All derivative financial instruments are reported in the accompanying Consolidated Balance Sheets at fair value. Changes in fair value of derivative instruments designated as cash flow hedges are recorded in Accumulated other comprehensive income (loss), a component of Stockholders’ Equity, to the extent they are deemed effective. Based on the criteria established by current accounting standards, all of our cash flow hedge contracts are deemed to be highly effective. Changes in fair value of any net investment hedge are recorded as cumulative translation adjustment in Accumulated other comprehensive income (loss) in the accompanying Consolidated Balance Sheets offsetting the change in cumulative translation adjustment attributable to the hedged portion of our net investment in the foreign operation. Any realized gains or losses resulting from the foreign currency cash flow hedges are recognized together with the hedged transactions within Revenue. Any realized gains or losses resulting from the interest rate swaps are recognized in Interest expense. Gains and losses from the settlements of our net investment hedges remain in Accumulated other comprehensive income (loss) until partial or complete liquidation of the applicable net investment.

We also enter into fair value derivative contracts to reduce our exposure to foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations associated with changes in asset and liability balances. Changes in the fair value of derivative instruments designated as fair value hedges affect the carrying value of the asset or liability hedged, with changes in both the derivative instrument and the hedged asset or liability being recognized in Other income (expense), net in the accompanying Consolidated Statements of Comprehensive Income (Loss).

While we expect that our derivative instruments will continue to be highly effective and in compliance with applicable accounting standards, if our hedges did not qualify as highly effective or if we determine that forecasted transactions will not occur, the changes in the fair value of the derivatives used as hedges would be reflected currently in earnings.

Contingencies

We record a liability for pending litigation and claims where losses are both probable and reasonably estimable. Each quarter, management reviews all litigation and claims on a case-by-case basis and assigns probability of loss and range of loss.

Explanation of Key Metrics and Other Items

Cost of Services

Cost of services principally include costs incurred in connection with our customer management services, including direct labor and related taxes and benefits, telecommunications, technology costs, sales and use tax and certain fixed costs associated with the customer engagement centers. In addition, cost of services includes income related to grants we may receive from local or state governments as an incentive to locate customer engagement centers in their jurisdictions which reduce the cost of services for those facilities.

Selling, General and Administrative

Selling, general and administrative expenses primarily include costs associated with administrative services such as sales, marketing, product development, legal, information systems (including core technology and telephony infrastructure), accounting and finance. It also includes outside professional fees (i.e., legal and accounting services), building expense for non-engagement center facilities and other items associated with general business administration.

Restructuring and Integration Charges, Net

Restructuring charges, net primarily include costs incurred in conjunction with reductions in force or decisions to exit facilities, including termination benefits and lease liabilities, net of expected sublease rentals. Integration charges represent the activities related to the re-hiring and retraining of the agents, the consolidation of facilities, the transfer of IT systems and other duplicative expenses incurred as the acquisitions are fully integrated.

Interest Expense

Interest expense includes interest expense, amortization of debt issuance costs associated with our Credit Facility, and the accretion of deferred payments associated with our acquisitions.

Other Income

The main components of other income are miscellaneous income not directly related to our operating activities, such as foreign exchange gains and reductions in our contingent consideration.

Other Expenses

The main components of other expenses are expenditures not directly related to our operating activities, such as foreign exchange losses and increases in our contingent consideration.

RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

Year Ended December 31, 2018 Compared to December 31, 2017

The tables included in the following sections are presented to facilitate an understanding of Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations and present certain information by segment for the years ended December 31, 2018 and 2017 (amounts in thousands). All inter-company transactions between the reported segments for the periods presented have been eliminated.

Customer Management Services

 

 

The decrease in revenue for the Customer Management Services segment was attributable to a $101.5 million net increase in organic and inorganic client programs including the Connextions and Motif acquisitions, a $9.0 million increase related to the adoption of ASC 606 for revenue recognition, offset by a $7.5 million decrease due to foreign currency fluctuations and by program completions of $115.7 million.

The operating income as a percentage of revenue decreased to 4.4% in 2018 as compared to 6.8% in 2017.  The operating margin declined primarily due to an increase in U.S. related labor costs and increased launch costs associated with the higher new business volumes and a $3.6 million increase in amortization related to acquisitions. Investments in strategy, rebranding, product development, marketing programs and incremental sales resources also negatively affected operating income as similar expenses were not as high during 2017. These were offset by the acquisitions, a $4.4 million increase related to the adoption of ASC 606 and a $5.8 million positive benefit due to foreign currency fluctuations.  Included in the operating income was amortization related to acquired intangibles of $8.2 million and $4.6 million for the years ended December 31, 2018 and 2017, respectively.

Customer Growth Services

 

 

The increase in revenue for the Customer Growth Services segment was due to several client adds in 2018 leading to  a  $21.4 million increase in client programs offset by program completions of $8.8 million.

The operating income as a percentage of revenue increased to 7.0% in 2018 as compared to 6.1% in 2017. This was attributable to the increased revenue as noted above offset by a $1.7 million cease use lease expense for a center that was exited as of March 31, 2018.

Customer Technology Services

 

 

The increase in revenue for the Customer Technology Services segment was driven by significant increases in the cloud platform and the systems integration practice as well as large product sales during 2018, offset by decreases in the Avaya offerings as we wound down and then sold a business unit in the second quarter of 2017.

The operating income as a percentage of revenue increased  to  15.6% in 2018 as compared to 8.7% in 2017.  This increase is primarily due to significant growth in the segment’s higher margin recurring cloud platform and the systems integration practice and consolidation and modernization of the information technology functions of the Company. In addition, 2017 included a $3.3 million impairment of a trade name intangible asset (see Part II. Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, Note 7 to the Consolidated Financial Statements). Included in the operating income was amortization related to acquired intangibles of $1.3 million and $1.1 million for the years ended December 31, 2018 and 2017, respectively.

Customer Strategy Services

 

 

The revenue for the Customer Strategy Services segment remained flat year over year.

The operating income as a percentage of revenue increased to 9.4% in 2018 as compared to 3.6% in 2017.  The increase is primarily related to the 2018 rationalization of certain practice areas as they were integrated together and a $2.0 million impairment of a trade name intangible asset recorded in 2017 (see Part II. Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, Note 7 to the Consolidated Financial Statements). Included in the operating income was amortization expense related to acquired intangibles of $1.3 million and $1.8 million for the years ended December 31, 2018 and 2017, respectively.

Interest Income (Expense)

Interest income increased to $4.5 million in 2018 from $2.8 million in 2017 primarily due to increased cash balances. Interest expense increased to $28.7 million during 2018 from $13.7 million during 2017, primarily due to larger utilization of the line of credit related to acquisitions, higher interest rates, the upsizing of the credit facility completed in October 2017, and a $9.9 million charge related to the future purchase of the remaining 30% of the Motif acquisition.

Other Income (Expense), Net

Included in the year ended December 31, 2018 was a $15.6 million impairment of the full value of an equity investment and a related bridge loan, a net $1.6 million loss related to a business unit which was classified as assets held for sale but was reclassified to assets held and used at December 31, 2018, a $2.0 million gain related to royalty payments in connection with the sale of a business unit, a $0.7 million gain related to the bargain purchase for the Percepta acquisition closed on March 31, 2018, and a $0.3 million benefit related to  a fair value adjustment of the contingent consideration based on revised estimates of performance against targets for one of our acquisitions.

Included in the year ended December 31, 2017 was a net $2.6 million loss related to a business unit which was sold effective December 22, 2017,  a $5.3 million expense related to the Connextions acquisition and the finalization of the transition services agreement offset by a $3.2 million gain related to dissolution of a foreign entity and a release of its cumulative translation adjustment.

For further information on the above items, see Part II. Item 8. Financial Statements, Note 2 to the Consolidated Financial Statements. 

Income Taxes

The reported effective tax rate for 2018 was 29.3% as compared to 87.8% for 2017. The effective tax rate for 2018 was impacted by earnings in international jurisdictions currently under an income tax holiday, $1.6 million of expense related to changes in tax contingent liabilities,  a  $3.4 million benefit related to provision to return adjustments, a $4.2 million benefit related to the impairment of an equity investment, $0.5 million of expense related to the disposition of assets, $1.5 million of expense related to changes in valuation allowances, a $0.7 million benefit related to excess taxes on equity compensation, a  $2.1 million benefit related to restructuring charges, and $0.5 million of other benefits.  Without these items our effective tax rate for the year ended December 31, 2018 would have been 25.6%. 

For the year ended December 31, 2017, our effective tax rate was 87.8%.  The effective tax rate for 2017 was impacted by earnings in international jurisdictions currently under an income tax holiday, $62.4 million of expense related to the US 2017 Tax Act, $0.6 million of benefit related to provision to return adjustments, a $1.9 million benefit related to impairments, $0.4 million of expense related to the disposition of assets, $0.6 million of expense related to changes in valuation allowances, a $2.2 million benefit related to excess taxes on equity compensation,  a $5.8 million benefit related to restructuring charges, and a $2.1 million benefit related to the finalization of a transition service. Without these items our effective tax rate for the year ended December 31, 2017 would have been 24.4%.

Year Ended December 31, 2017 Compared to 2016

The tables included in the following sections are presented to facilitate an understanding of Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations and present certain information by segment for the years ended December 31, 2017 and 2016 (amounts in thousands). All inter-company transactions between the reported segments for the periods presented have been eliminated.

Customer Management Services

 

 

The increase in revenue for the Customer Management Services segment was attributable to a $246.0 million net increase in organic and inorganic client programs including the Atelka, Connextions and Motif acquisitions and a $2.3 million increase due to foreign currency fluctuations, offset by program completions of $30.9 million.

The operating income as a percentage of revenue increased to 6.8% in 2017 as compared to 5.5% in 2016. The operating margin increased due to higher revenue, a $12.1 million benefit due to improved foreign exchange trends, increased capacity utilization, and efficiencies realized from the expense rationalization activities completed during the second half of 2016. This increase was offset by $13.6 million of 2017 planned restructuring and integration charges for the Connextions acquisition related to severance, center closure costs, the hiring, training and licensing of employees in new delivery centers and the integration of the IT systems (see Part II. Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, Note 2 to the Consolidated Financial Statements) and an increase of $9.3 million for variable incentive compensation. The increase was also due to the 2016 $11.1 million impairment for internally developed software and technology assets and a $1.4 million impairment of goodwill (see Part II. Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, Note 6 to the Consolidated Financial Statements). Included in the operating income was amortization related to acquired intangibles of $4.6 million and $0.9 million for the years ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively.

Customer Growth Services

 

 

The decrease in revenue for the Customer Growth Services segment was due to a $9.0 million increase in client programs and a decrease for program completions of $21.3 million.

The operating income as a percentage of revenue increased to 6.1% in 2017 as compared to 4.9% in 2016. This was attributable to pricing improvements and other profit optimization actions, along with reductions in amortization expense and a reduction in the operating loss for the Digital Marketing unit, which was sold effective December 22, 2017 (see Part II. Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, Note 2 to the Consolidated Financial Statements). Included in the operating income was amortization related to acquired intangibles of zero and $1.8 million for the years ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively.

Customer Technology Services

 

 

The decrease in revenue for the Customer Technology Services segment was driven by an increase in the CISCO offerings offset by a decrease in the Avaya offerings as we wound down and then sold the business unit in the second quarter of 2017.

The operating income as a percentage of revenue increased to 8.7% in 2017 as compared to 0.7% in 2016.  This increase was primarily due to a $12.1 million charge recorded in 2016 related to the impairment of customer relationships, trade name, non-compete intangible assets and technology fixed assets due to the lower financial performance of the Avaya business unit offset by the 2017 $3.3 million impairment of a trade name intangible asset (see Part II. Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, Note 7 to the Consolidated Financial Statements). Included in the operating income was amortization related to acquired intangibles of $1.1 million and $4.6 million for the years ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively.

Customer Strategy Services

 

 

The decrease in revenue for the Customer Strategy Services segment was related to growth in the Content and Collaboration and Service Optimization practices offset by decreases in the Mindset and Sales Transformation and Customer Insights practices across multiple delivery regions.

The operating income as a percentage of revenue was 3.6% in 2017 as compared to an operating loss of (8.3)% in 2016. The increase is primarily related to the 2016 $7.5 million charge for the impairment of two trade name intangibles offset by the 2017 $2.0 million impairment of one trade name intangible asset (see Part II. Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, Note 7 to the Consolidated Financial Statements). Included in the operating income was amortization expense related to acquired intangibles of $1.8 million and $2.9 million for the years ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively.