SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Form 10-K
FOR ANNUAL AND TRANSITION REPORTS
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(Mark One)
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ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 | |
| For the fiscal year ended March 31, 2004 | ||
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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: 0-22993
Indus International, Inc.
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Delaware
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94-3273443 | |
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(State or other jurisdiction of incorporation or organization) |
(I.R.S. Employer Identification No.) |
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3301 Windy Ridge Parkway Atlanta, Georgia (Address of principal executive offices) |
30339 (Zip code) |
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Registrants telephone number, including area code
Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:
Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:
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 þ No o
Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrants 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. o
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is an accelerated filer (as defined in Exchange Act rule 12b-2). Yes þ No o
The aggregate market value of the voting stock held by non-affiliates of the Registrant, based upon the closing sale price $2.34 per share of the Common Stock on September 30, 2003, as reported on the Nasdaq National Market, was approximately $65,779,400. Shares of Common Stock held by each officer and director and by each person who owns 5% or more of the outstanding Common Stock have been excluded in that such persons may by deemed to be affiliates. This determination of affiliate status is not necessarily a conclusive determination for other purposes.
The number of shares outstanding of the registrants Common Stock, $.001 par value, was 57,062,729 at June 7, 2004.
DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE
Portions of the Registrants Proxy Statement for the Annual Meeting to be held on September 2, 2004 are incorporated by reference into Part III thereof.
INDUS INTERNATIONAL, INC.
FORM 10-K
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
This Annual Report on Form 10-K, as well as documents incorporated herein by reference, may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These forward-looking statements are not based on historical facts, but rather reflect managements current expectations concerning future results and events. These forward-looking statements generally can be identified by the use of phrases and expressions such as believe, expect, anticipate, intend, plan, foresee, likely, will or other similar words or phrases. These statements, which speak only as of the date given, are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our historical experience and our expectations or projections. These risks include, but are not limited to, projected growth in the emerging service delivery management market, market acceptance of our service delivery management strategy, current market conditions for our products and services, our ability to achieve growth in our asset management and customer management offerings, market acceptance and the success of our new products and enhancements and upgrades to our existing products, the success of our product development strategy, our competitive position, the ability to establish and retain partnership arrangements, our ability to develop our indirect sales channels, the successful integration of the acquisition of Wishbone Systems, Inc. (Wishbone Systems) including the challenges inherent in diverting our managements attention, our ability to realize anticipated or any synergies or cost-savings from the Wishbone Systems acquisition, changes in our executive management team, uncertainty relating to and the management of personnel changes, the ability to realize the anticipated benefits of our recent restructurings, timely development and introduction of new products, releases and product enhancements, current economic conditions, heightened security and war or terrorist acts in countries of the world that affect our business, and other risks identified in the section of this Report entitled Description of Business Factors Affecting Future Performance, beginning on page 15. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which reflect managements opinions only as of the date hereof. The Company undertakes no obligation to revise or publicly release the results of any revision to these forward-looking statements.
PART I
Item 1. Description of Business
General
Indus International, Inc. develops, licenses, implements, supports, and hosts service delivery management (SDM) solutions, which help clients in a broad array of industries optimize the management of their customers, assets, workforce, spare parts inventory, tools and documentation in order to maximize performance and customer satisfaction while reducing operating expenses. Our software solutions consist of three primary solution suites: customer management, asset management and field service management. These software products, along with our service offerings enable our clients to reduce costs, increase production capacity and competitiveness, improve service to their customers, facilitate billing for services and ensure regulatory compliance. Historically, our solutions have been focused on asset management, and more recently on customer management. Through our acquisitions of best-in-class customer relationship management software in March 2003 and field service management technology in January 2004, we believe that we are the first company to offer comprehensive suites of world-class customer, asset, and field service management solutions, which we market and sell as our SDM solutions.
As of March 31, 2004, our software solutions have been licensed for use by more than 400 companies, representing diverse industries, including utilities, manufacturing, chemical, oil and gas, pulp and paper, telecommunications, government, education, transportation, and consumer packaged goods. Clients include industry leaders such as Bayer Rubber, Inc., British Energy Plc., Duke Energy Corporation, Dell USA L.P. (an affiliate of Dell Inc.), Deutsche Telekom AG, GE Plastics and GE Power Systems, operating units of the General Electric Company, Electric Power Development Company Limited (also known as JPower),
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We are a Delaware corporation formed in 1997 by the merger of The Indus Group, Inc., a California corporation, and TSW International, Inc., a Georgia corporation. In March 2003, we acquired Indus Utility Systems, Inc. (IUS) (formerly known as SCT Utility Systems, Inc.) from Systems and Computer Technology Corporation (SCT). In January 2004, we acquired Wishbone Systems, Inc. (Wishbone Systems). References in this filing to the Company, Indus, we, our, and us refer to Indus International, Inc., our predecessors and our wholly-owned and consolidated subsidiaries. Our principal executive offices are located at 3301 Windy Ridge Parkway, Atlanta, Georgia 30339, and our telephone number at that location is 770-952-8444.
Service Delivery Management Background
The current economic climate, including increasing global competition, demands that organizations in diverse industries control costs while simultaneously increasing production capacity. For this reason, most organizations share very similar goals: increase revenues, reduce operations and maintenance expenses, increase the reliability and performance of production facilities and infrastructure, improve customer service and loyalty, reduce inventory, and make better use of limited capital. Many software vendors have offered solutions aimed at assisting companies with various aspects of this challenge such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), customer information systems (CIS), enterprise asset management (EAM), and workforce management (WFM). These conventional approaches, which focus only on discrete areas and systems, have yielded some marginal operational improvements, but not at levels that actually transform the business and facilitate operational excellence. We believe there is a significant opportunity for a comprehensive solution to rationalize these fragmented enterprise solutions, eliminate the inefficiencies of discrete systems, and enable companies to achieve their operational goals that are described above on a more efficient basis.
The Indus Solution
To capitalize on this opportunity, we have developed a unique approach to operational excellence called service delivery management, or SDM, which allows our customers to eliminate the inefficiencies of employing multiple discrete enterprise systems and practices and to achieve the results described above. The SDM approach allows organizations to manage all of the business processes related to its customers, assets, and workforce across the entire enterprise incorporating customer service, field service, design service, construction service, and maintenance service into a single comprehensive solution. Unlike any one of the discrete ERP, EAM, CRM, CIS or WFM solutions, which tend to be customer-centric, asset-centric, or workforce-centric, our SDM solutions are process-centric. SDM addresses the business flows within and across each of these disciplines, and optimizes business processes. The focus of our SDM solutions is on operational business flows across the entire organization, breaking down informational and operational silos.
Our SDM software products encompass three disciplines in a comprehensive solution set: customer management, asset management and field service management. Focusing on the business flows within and across these critical disciplines, Indus SDM optimizes business processes to achieve operational efficiencies that can enable superior performance. Sharing this process-centric approach to operational improvement, our three solution suites within SDM drive real-time responsiveness to service needs.
Our SDM solutions allow customers to push key analytics at the right time so that critical decisions can be made in a timely and intelligent manner via real-time performance management. With our solutions, users view and analyze key performance indicators to proactively improve efficiency and minimize costs throughout the organization. Our SDM solutions, together with our various service offerings, enable our customers to:
| | Improve Asset Performance. Our solutions help organizations control and reduce all asset lifecycle costs, as well as budget and plan more accurately, by ensuring that assets operate at peak performance to avoid unnecessary downtime and shorten planned outages. This requires that the organization have real-time visibility into the health and condition of facilities, equipment and/or critical parts. |
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| | Maximize Financial Performance. Organizations must transition from reactive to proactive decision-making in order to optimize performance and maximize financial gain. Our solutions facilitate this transition by providing the right tools to analyze and balance the financial impact of strategic and operational initiatives across the organization, and to determine best-case alternatives. | |
| | Optimize Workforce Efficiency. Organizations must operate their workforces at optimum efficiency, addressing planned and unplanned work requests in a timely and efficient manner. Instant field communications and feedback is vital. Our solutions give organizations real-time visibility into resource availability, skill sets, parts, tools, customer requirements, and documentation. | |
| | Ensure Customer Loyalty. Customer loyalty is the most accurate barometer of superior performance. Our solutions enable organizations to instantly access and analyze enterprise-wide information, rapidly respond to customer requests and issues, make timely and appropriate decisions, and provide accurate billing and collection. | |
| | Streamline the Supply Chain. Our solutions help organizations operate their supply chain more efficiently, with better planning and streamlined logistics. Our solutions provide increased visibility into the availability of spare parts, optimize inventory levels, and reduce the number of suppliers, while helping to deliver the right parts to the right place at the right time. |
Business Strategy
Our objective is to establish and maintain Indus as the leading provider of SDM solutions. We aim to achieve this objective by delivering the industrys most comprehensive set of best-in-class customer, asset, and field service management solutions. These solutions help global utilities, manufacturers, telecommunications companies, original equipment manufacturers, and third-party service providers optimize and effectively manage customers, assets, and the workforce.
Our strategies to accomplish our objective include the following:
| Develop and Enhance Software Solutions. We intend to continue to focus our product development resources on the development and enhancement of our software solutions. We offer what we believe to be the broadest solution set in the SDM marketplace and the only suite offering best-in-class solutions for customer, asset, and field service management. In order to provide additional functionality and value to our solutions, we plan to continue to provide enhancements to existing products and to introduce new products to address evolving industry standards and market needs. We identify further enhancements to our solutions and opportunities for new products through our Global Client Services organization as well as ongoing customer consulting engagements and implementations, interactions with our user groups and special interest groups and participation in industry standards and research committees, such as the Association for Services Management International, MIMOSA, and the Nuclear Energy Institute. A key near-term initiative is the development of our Indus foundation architecture (IFA), through which we are developing a common architectural platform for all of our applications. The objective of the IFA initiative is to ensure smooth and seamless integration between our applications and those of our partners utilizing XML, service-oriented architecture, and other advanced integration tools and techniques. | |
| Expand Our Strategic Alliances and Indirect Sales Channels. We currently sell our products primarily through our direct sales force. We work on joint projects and joint sales initiatives on a case-by-case basis with industry-leading consultants and software systems implementers, including most of the large consulting firms, such as Accenture, IBM Global Services, Capgemini, BearingPoint and Deloitte Consulting. This allows us to supplement our direct sales force and professional services organization. We have been expanding our indirect sales channels through reseller agreements, marketing agreements and agreements with third-party software providers, particularly internationally. Our agreements with A3 Systems Limited, a subsidiary of Yao De Computer Software Limited, in China, and Electric Power Development Company Limited (also known as JPower) in Japan, extend our market coverage and provide us with new business leads and access to trained implementation personnel. We also have strategic alliances with complementary software providers. These product partnerships, including our |
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| arrangements with BEA Systems, Inc. (BEA), Business Objects, Inc. (Business Objects), ESRI, Inc., International Business Machines Corporation, webMethods, Inc., Oracle Corporation (Oracle) and PeopleSoft, Inc. (PeopleSoft), extend our solution footprints to best meet our customers requirements. | |
| Expand International Sales. We believe that our solutions offer significant benefits for customers in international markets. We have more than 100 employees outside the United States, primarily in Europe and Asia Pacific, focused on international sales, servicing our international clients, and developing reseller channels. In addition to offices in the United Kingdom, France, Japan, Canada, and Australia, we have established reseller and referral arrangements in countries across the globe, including China, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Hungary, Russia, Egypt, and Israel. Our international strategy includes leveraging the strength of our relationships with current customers that also have significant overseas operations and the pursuit of strategic marketing partnerships with international systems integrators and third-party software application providers that are complementary to our products. | |
| Acquire or Invest in Complementary Businesses. We will continue to investigate strategic acquisitions of technologies, products, and businesses that may enable us to enhance and expand our SDM software products and service offerings. Where appropriate, we intend to investigate and pursue acquisitions that will provide us with complementary products and technologies, extend our presence into other vertical markets with similar operational challenges, and/or further solidify our leadership position within the emerging SDM market. |
Products
Our SDM software solutions help clients in a broad array of industries optimize the management of their customers, assets, workforce, spare parts inventory, tools and documentation. Our clients rely on our solutions to achieve best-in-class performance and significant savings all while minimizing operating costs, improving asset reliability, optimizing customer satisfaction, improving billing processes, and ensuring regulatory compliance. Our solutions are comprised of three distinct suites: customer management, asset management, and field service management.
| Customer Management Suite |
Our customer management suite for energy and utility customers provides the functionality required to optimize customer-facing activities. This seamless solution suite encompasses call center, customer information tracking, billing, and accounts receivable functions. The customer management suite is comprised of the following software applications:
| | Advantage CMS. At the core of the customer management suite is the advanced architecture of the Advantage CMS product. Built on Oracle9i application server technology, Advantage features an adaptive infrastructure and takes advantage of Oracles world-class functionality for Internet or intranet deployment and streamlined business processes. Advantage combines proven and scalable functionality to facilitate enterprise-wide access to information, cost controls, regulatory responsiveness, and reduced cycle times from meter reading to collection of accounts receivable. | |
| | CRM Essentials. Enhancing the Advantage CMS product is CRM Essentials, a layer of customer relationship management functionality built exclusively for energy and utility companies, positioning them to lower costs and improve customer service. | |
| | EnerLink. Further fortifying the Advantage CMS product is EnerLink, a complex billing solution that helps energy and utility companies use integrated applications to design, market, administer, and bill new pricing options, regardless of the market requirements. EnerLink includes flexible pricing options, robust rate modeling and bill calculation, support for a complex array of contract models, integrated data management, and meter data access. |
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| Asset Management Suite |
Our asset management suite supports an organizations operations and maintenance workforce, inventory management and procurement professionals, safety and compliance engineers, and other decision-making personnel affected by asset care decisions throughout the enterprise. This suite includes the following components: asset and work management systems; materials and procurement systems; supply chain; eProcurement systems; and safety and compliance systems. Other complementary components include: mobile computing, enterprise asset integration tools, sophisticated search capabilities, data warehousing products, and integration to leading ERP products for financial and human resources functions. Our asset management suite provides improved efficiencies to the management of assets, work orders, inventory, and purchasing. It helps organizations establish effective maintenance strategies for the assets they service and enables supply chain optimization. This proactive, condition-based strategy lowers maintenance costs and reduces production stoppages.
The asset management suite includes the following software products:
| | PassPort. Facilitates maintenance, inventory, and procurement management through integrated physical asset management, optimization, and labor/work management. PassPort features a Web-based user interface and can also be deployed on corporate portals. PassPort safety and compliance systems interoperate with other enterprise systems to improve regulatory compliance and reporting. PassPort materials and procurement systems improve overall plant performance. E-procurement capabilities add further value to PassPort by streamlining the procurement process. PassPort work management systems coordinate and communicate discrete work task requirements and priorities to all departments and disciplines throughout the enterprise. | |
| | InSite EE. InSite EE is the next generation of the Indus InSite solution and it represents the culmination of our efforts during 2002 and 2003 to re-architect the previously separate EMPAC and Indus InSite products into a single solution. InSite EE provides a compelling solution for organizations with complex asset management requirements who also desire the accessibility, ease-of-use and collaborative capabilities that only a Web-architected solution can offer. InSite EE combines the powerful features of the EMPAC solution with the innovative Web-based Indus InSite platform architecture. The comprehensive feature set provides a highly scalable and flexible EAM system for complex asset-intensive enterprises. The Web-based platform and services-oriented architecture enables cost-effective implementation and flexible access across multiple departments, geographies and computing environments. Support for open communications standards facilitates real-time performance management and push maintenance strategies enabling condition monitoring and analysis tools to push real-time asset information to InSite EE so that proactive action can be taken before assets fail. Asset and work management functionality enables customers to manage maintenance, service, and other work management requirements for all physical assets. Materials and procurement functionality focuses on the supply chain and allows customers to manage inventories and source required goods and services. |
| Field Service Management Suite |
Our field service management suite provides resource optimization to generate superior performance at low cost. This suite allows customers to dispatch resources with all the required tools, information, and parts at the promised time. Schedules are optimized based on customer or asset demands, travel times, service level agreements, technician skills requirements, and internal costs, enabling more hours on the job, able to work. The suite includes the following applications:
| | WorkCenter. Indus WorkCenter is the Web-based order entry and management module. As the starting point of work and order processing, WorkCenter provides a variety of options and tools to accommodate the needs of both customers and service providers. With WorkCenter, call center representatives can initiate service requests, schedule service appointments, and check service status from any Web browser. Appointment scheduling is immediate, and the service organization is notified |
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| automatically. Business rules and customer preferences ensure timely fulfillment by the ideal service provider. | ||
| | WorkManager. Indus WorkManager helps manage the constantly changing dynamics of field service by furnishing dispatchers with a real-time graphical representation of people, places and things in an information and response portal. All updates and changes to the schedule can be viewed as they happen. Rule violations, cost and time overruns, and other performance indicators are highlighted for action. Visual cues and filters assist management personnel with understanding the status of all work at any time. Relationships between work orders, dependencies, and the parent/child relationship within a work order are evident. Integration with leading GIS systems further enhances understanding of where personnel are deployed and how they can be routed. | |
| | WorkMobile. Indus WorkMobile equips mobile service resources with real-time interactive wireless applications and access to organizational data. WorkMobile provides online Web-based or wireless access, as well as offline/sync access. Handheld and wireless communication devices enable bi-directional updates that expedite service delivery. Service personnel have real-time access to schedules, customer details, and operational response rules. They can update, close or reschedule service orders from the field with current customer information. | |
| | WorkExecutive. Indus WorkExecutive is a planning, forecasting, and implementation tool that enables senior management to predict the business impact of all available execution alternatives and implement the one that is right for their business needs and objectives. Through management dashboards and reports, WorkExecutive provides the intelligence executives need to assess their execution strategy, performance, and organizational effectiveness. Factors such as the supply and demand of service personnel, response criteria and profitability are measured against key performance indicators and benchmark metrics. | |
| | WorkOptimizer. Indus WorkOptimizer enhances operational achievements with optimization technology. The solution employs proprietary algorithms to calculate and accommodate complex but known variables in the field service chain to help overcome operational inefficiencies and ensure the optimal balance between profitability, effectiveness, and customer satisfaction. Real-time logistical support will allow the organization to deploy field personnel with the right skills to the right place at the right time. |
Services
Our SDM solutions include consulting and other services offered as part of the Indus Service Select program. Our Service Select program is comprised of services, tools and programs that address the full lifecycle of our solutions, including implementation, production, and continuous business improvement. Our service offerings include comprehensive implementation programs, strategic consulting, e-Learning and training solutions, three-tiered maintenance and support plans, and hosting and outsourcing services. Indus offers a variety of tailored or packaged services designed to help clients continuously improve their operations, achieve a faster return on investment, and meet their unique business challenges. Our Service Select program includes the following service offerings: professional services, Indus Knowledge Delivery, Global Clients Services, and hosting services.
| Professional Services |
Our professional services include sophisticated implementation services, as well as strategic consulting in pre-implementation assessment/selection analysis, project justification, business case support, performance benchmarking, root cause analysis, and post-implementation optimization. Extended services include migration and upgrade assistance. Our professional services are provided by subject matter experts that typically have a long tenure with Indus. These regionally located experts support our sales organization by helping customers implement advanced principles, theories, and other advanced best practice strategies designed to provide a competitive advantage to the customer. The knowledge gained from prior customer implementations, the extensive experience of our employees, and the global experience of our user community
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Indus products are typically implemented through our proprietary ABACUS tools and methodology. ABACUS consists of software-driven analytical tools, implementation plans, and educational resources that consolidate our extensive experience in implementing software products. ABACUS provides a step-by-step implementation lifecycle framework for all installation, integration, education, and business review activities. In addition, ABACUS enhances the ongoing effectiveness of Indus software products and assists customers in improving their business processes.
We have also developed relationships with large systems integrators, as well as smaller third-party implementers and providers. This ensures that customers with specific requirements can leverage the value-added services of these firms when implementing Indus software products. These relationships are further described under Business Strategic Relationships.
| Indus Knowledge Delivery |
We also provide education and training solutions, including off-the-shelf and customized e-Learning programs. These solutions include standalone Web-based training courses and easy-to-use online classroom and job-aids called Desktop Navigators. These Desktop Navigators provide detailed step-by-step tutorials and a means to deliver business process workflow integration to communicate, implement, and deliver leading work practices across an entire enterprise. We also provide in-depth classroom training at Indus sites worldwide or in clients facilities.
| Global Client Services |
We offer three levels of comprehensive maintenance and support plans that provide our customers with timely access to support professionals, client advocate engagement, product updates, and new software releases that offer improved functionality. Our Global Client Service Centers are strategically located in North America, the United Kingdom, and the Asia-Pacific region. Two of our three service programs provide extended telephone service after business hours for production-down and critical issues, 24 hours a day, either 5 or 7 days a week. Regardless of the calls time or point-of-origin, our toll-free number automatically routes the customers call to a fully staffed Global Client Service Center.
| Hosted Services |
PassPort, InSite EE, and Advantage CMS products are available as hosted services fully supported through remote data centers. We are responsible for the customers hosted system, and we are the single point of contact for any functionality issues. The hosted service offers comprehensive functionality, reduces implementation time, and guarantees service levels. Additionally, our hosted service integrates with customer legacy systems, delivering a true best-in-class product that includes many touch points with other industry software application leaders such as Oracle, PeopleSoft and SAP.
The hosted service contains robust, layered security to protect customer data. Our hosted infrastructure partners provide a suite of services that expertly manage mission-critical software. With a large, multi-specialized, technical staff of certified engineers, the infrastructure partners provide the level of services and expertise necessary to ensure secure, scalable, high-performance operation 24x7. Their services include installation and maintenance of hardware and software, core software expertise, high-volume backup and recovery systems, and constant, proactive monitoring by their server operations center.
Sales and Marketing
| Global Organization |
We market and sell our products and services to customers around the world in a variety of industries. To address our markets effectively, we divide our target markets by geography and by industry segment and tailor our sales strategy to suit the specific needs of each market segment. In a given market segment, we may sell
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| | Americas, with direct sales representatives in the United States and Canada, and strategic partnerships to expand the scope of sales opportunities. | |
| | Europe, Middle East and Africa, with direct sales representatives in the United Kingdom and France, as well as partnerships which extend our selling capability into continental Europe, the Middle East and Africa. | |
| | Asia-Pacific, with direct sales representatives in Australia and Japan and strategic partnerships to expand the scope of sales opportunities. |
In each of these regions, we view the market opportunities as consisting of multiple vertical business segments. We focus our sales and marketing efforts on the following industries:
| | Utilities | |
| | Water and waste treatment | |
| | Nuclear power generation | |
| | Fossil power generation | |
| | Hydroelectric power generation | |
| | Energy transmission and substations | |
| | Energy distribution and delivery | |
| | Energy resource extraction and process industries | |
| | Chemical, petrochemical, oil and gas | |
| | Metals and mining | |
| | Pulp, paper and forest products | |
| | Process manufacturing | |
| | Discrete manufacturing | |
| | Consumer packaged goods | |
| | Facilities management | |
| | Managed services | |
| | Telecommunications | |
| | High-tech and electronics |
By addressing the needs of various vertical industries separately, we can package and deliver our product offerings to meet the specific needs of the industries we serve. We conduct comprehensive industry-specific vertical marketing programs, which include public relations, trade advertising, industry seminars, trade shows, and ongoing customer communication programs such as IndusWorld, our international user group conference.
| Sales Cycle and Customer Life Cycle |
While the sales cycle varies depending on the customer and the product being sold, our sales cycles generally require from three to 18 months. The direct sales cycle begins with the generation of a sales lead or the receipt of a request for proposal from a prospect, followed by qualification of the lead, analysis of the customers needs, response to a request for proposal, one or more presentations to the customer utilizing the
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After implementation of an Indus solution, our account executive program provides regional support and specialized attention for each of our customers. Account executives assist in implementing licensed applications over multi-year engagements, promote licensing of additional applications and encourage existing customers to identify and help fund new applications and expanded core offerings.
Product Development
Our development efforts are focused on adding new functionality to existing products, integrating our various product offerings, enhancing the operability of our products across distributed and alternative hardware platforms, operating systems and database systems, and developing new products. We believe that our future success depends in part upon our ability to continue to enhance existing products, to respond to rapidly changing customer requirements, and to develop new or enhanced products that incorporate new technological developments and emerging maintenance and industry standards. To that end, our development efforts frequently focus on base system enhancements and the incorporation into our products of new user requirements and features identified and created through customer and industry interactions and systems implementations. As a result, we are able to continue to offer our customers a packaged, highly configurable product with increasing functionality rather than a custom-developed software program.
A key near term initiative in our development program is the development of our IFA, through which we are developing a common architectural platform for all of our applications. The objective of the IFA initiative is to ensure smooth and seamless integration between our applications and those of our partners utilizing XML, service-oriented architecture, and other advanced integration tools and techniques.
We believe that research and development is most effectively accomplished if customers are involved in the process. Through direct customer involvement and consensus input from user group oversight committees, product content is improved and the customer acceptance of new software deployment is significantly increased. In addition, the interactive development process promotes increased customer awareness of our products technological features and fosters greater product loyalty. For this reason, we regularly incorporate customers into the product development process and compile direct feedback through special interest groups, user conferences, and early adopter programs.
We plan to principally conduct our development efforts internally in order to retain development knowledge and promote the continuity of programming standards; however, some projects that can be performed separately have been and will continue to be outsourced in the foreseeable future. We have established an off-shore development center in Bangalore, India, where significant development activities are performed.
Our research and development expenses for the years ended December 31, 2001 and 2002, the three-month period ended March 31, 2003 and the year ended March 31, 2004 were $49.5 million, $45.7 million, $8.7 million, and $35.0 million, respectively. We intend to continue to make significant investments in product development.
Strategic Relationships
Through a network of strategic relationships established with more than 50 technology and service partners, we leverage our internal sales and marketing efforts, expand our implementation capabilities, and enhance the breadth of our solutions.
| Systems Integrators |
We typically work with large systems integrators, such as Accenture, IBM Global Services, BearingPoint, Capgemini and Deloitte Consulting, as well as smaller implementers, on an opportunity-by-opportunity basis. In some instances, we have agreements with systems integrators that provide the framework for the relationship, such as our agreements with Capgemini U.S. LLC and Deloitte Tohmatsu Consulting Co.,
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| Channel Partners |
In addition to working with large systems integrators to expand our sales channels and marketing efforts, we also enter into reseller agreements, referral agreements, and marketing agreements with third parties that can extend our market coverage, particularly internationally. For example, our agreements with A3 Systems Limited, a subsidiary of Yao De Computer Software Limited, in China, and Electric Power Development Company Limited (also known as JPower) in Japan, extend our market coverage and provide us with new business leads and access to trained implementation and support personnel.
| Software Product Partners |
We enter into strategic relationships with software product partners to expand the functionality of our existing solutions, enabling us to continue our focus on developing and delivering SDM solutions. We plan to continue our strategy of leveraging strategic partnerships as the needs of our customers continually evolve and the global marketplace expands. By combining our own SDM software solutions with our partners market-focused products and services, we provide our customers with the ability to maximize their return on investment, while providing us with additional software license fees and services.
Our strategic relationships with third party software providers take a variety of forms, such as reseller agreements, embedded software arrangements, and development arrangements. Reseller agreements, such as our agreement with Oracle, typically allow us to develop software solutions using third party software, and resell that third party software in connection with our software solutions. Embedded software arrangements, such as our agreements with BEA and Business Objects, typically allow us to develop software solutions using third party software, and resell that third party software embedded in our software solutions. Development agreements allow us to develop software to integrate our solutions with that of the third party, which extends the functionality of our software solutions by making them interoperable with various third party applications. Examples of these types of arrangements include our agreements with PeopleSoft and Oracle, which allow us to develop solutions that integrate with PeopleSofts corporate financial, payroll and human resources applications and Oracle corporate financial applications.
The following highlights several of our software product partners:
| | BEA supports Indus customers need to design and automate business processes that integrate back-end applications and e-commerce technologies. | |
| | Oracle provides database platform as well as Oracle Financials integration. We are a member of the Oracle Partner Network, as a Certified Advantage Partner. | |
| | Business Objects provides business intelligence that lets organizations access, analyze, and share information internally with employees and externally with customers, suppliers, and partners. |
Customers
The Company provides software products and services to customers in the following industries:
| | Utilities, including water and waste water treatment, power generation, and energy transmission and distribution; | |
| | Manufacturing; |
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| | Chemical and petrochemical; | |
| | Oil and gas; | |
| | Pulp and paper; | |
| | Metals and mining; | |
| | Telecommunications; | |
| | Government and education; | |
| | Transportation; and | |
| | Consumer packaged goods. |
Customers include industry leaders such as Bayer Rubber, Inc., British Energy Plc., Duke Energy Corporation, Dell USA L.P. (an affiliate of Dell Inc.), Deutsche Telekom AG, GE Plastics and GE Power Systems, operating units of the General Electric Company, Electric Power Development Company Limited (also known as JPower), Progress Energy Service Company LLC, Shaw Industries, Inc., Smurfit-Stone Container Corporation, The Kroger Co., Tokyo Electric Power Company, and Xcel Energy Services, Inc..
For the fiscal year ended March 31, 2004, 8.4% of the Companys revenues related to our contract with Magnox Electric plc, a wholly owned subsidiary of British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL), which operates BNFLs nuclear power stations.
Competition
Our products are targeted at the SDM market, which is highly fragmented. The customer, asset, and field service management software products businesses with which we compete are highly competitive and characterized by rapid technological change. They are significantly affected by new product and technology innovations brought about by industry participants. We believe that the principal competitive factors in our businesses will be:
| | Product quality, return on investment, performance, and functionality; | |
| | Adaptability to new trends driven by technology and customer requirements; | |
| | Cost of internal product development as compared with cost of purchase of products from outside vendors; | |
| | Ease and speed of implementation; | |
| | Cost of ongoing maintenance; and | |
| | Time-to-market with, and market acceptance of, new products, enhancements, functionality and services. |
In the asset management market, our main competitors are MRO Software, Inc., Datastream Systems, Inc., SAP, Oracle, Mincom Corp., Industrial and Financial Systems, Invensys, Severn Trent Systems and Synercom. In the customer management market, our primary competitors include SPL WorldGroup, PeopleSoft, Inc., SAP, Peace Software, Cayenta (a subsidiary of Titan), and Orcaom. In the field service management market, our primary competitors include Siebel Systems, Inc., Mobile Data Solutions Inc., ClickSoftware Technologies Ltd., Astea International, SAP, Metrix, Amdocs, and FieldCentrix.
We believe that we have key competitive strengths that will help us establish and maintain leadership in the emerging SDM market. Our strategic assets and competitive advantages include:
| | Depth and breadth of products. We believe that no other software vendor offers the breadth of customer, asset, and field service management applications, coupled with the depth of functionality offered in our solutions. | |
| | Scalability of our products. Our solutions are able to scale up to multiple thousands of users. |
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| | Substantial installed base. Over the past 25 years, we have attained the leading market share position in the Tier 1 market (customers having annual revenues greater than $1 billion dollars) for asset management software solutions especially among utilities and process manufacturers. This installed base provides us with a fertile source for selling our comprehensive SDM solutions, including our recently acquired workforce management software, as well as providing us with numerous client references that can help us close deals with new prospects. | |
| | Industry expertise. Our professional services are provided by experts with extensive industry experience. This experience and domain knowledge gained from prior implementations allows us to enhance new implementations with industry-specific best practices. |
International Operations
Our international revenue was approximately $72.2 million, $39.8 million, $9.5 million and $30.6 million for the years ended December 31, 2001 and 2002, the three-month period ended March 31, 2003 and the year ended March 31, 2004, respectively, which represents approximately 41%, 34%, 35% and 21% of our total revenue for each of those periods, respectively. International revenue includes all revenue derived from sales to customers outside the United States. We now have more than 100 employees outside the United States, most of who are located in the United Kingdom and Australia. We also have offices in Canada, France, and Japan.
We conduct our direct European operations principally out of our office in the United Kingdom, where we have approximately 70 employees. Total revenue for European operations was approximately $19.5 million for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2004, which represents approximately 13.3% of our total revenue for the year. Our direct Asia-Pacific operations are conducted out of our office in Brisbane, Australia. Total revenue for Asia-Pacific operations was approximately $6.0 million for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2004, which represents approximately 4.1% of our total revenue for the year. We have a growing presence in Japan where deregulation of the nuclear industry is helping to fuel demand for our asset management solutions in particular.
Proprietary Rights and Licensing
We rely on a combination of the protections provided under applicable copyright, trademark, and trade secret laws, as well as on confidentiality procedures, licensing arrangements, and other contractual arrangements to establish and protect our rights in our software. Despite our efforts, it may be possible for unauthorized third parties to copy certain portions of our products or to reverse engineer or obtain and use information that we regard as proprietary. In addition, the laws of certain countries do not protect our proprietary rights to the same extent as do the laws of the United States. Furthermore, we have no patents, and existing copyright laws afford only limited protection. Accordingly, there can be no assurance that we will be able to protect our proprietary software against unauthorized third-party copying or use, which could adversely affect our competitive position.
We license our applications to customers under license agreements, which are generally in standard form, although each license is individually negotiated and may contain variations. The standard form agreement allows the customer to use our products solely on the customers computer equipment for the customers internal purposes, and the customer is generally prohibited from sub-licensing or transferring the applications. The agreements generally provide that the warranty for our products is limited to correction or replacement of the affected product, and in most cases the warranty liability may not exceed the licensing fees from the customer. Our standard form agreement also includes a confidentiality clause protecting proprietary information relating to the licensed applications.
Our products are generally provided to customers in object code (machine-readable) format only. From time to time, in limited circumstances, we licensed source code (human-readable form) for asset management software, subject to customary protections such as use restrictions and confidentiality agreements. We have historically licensed source code for certain customer management applications, subject to customary protections such as use restrictions and confidentiality agreements. In addition, customers can be beneficiaries of a master source code escrow for the applications, pursuant to which the source code will be released to end
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We may from time to time receive notices from third parties claiming infringement by our products of proprietary rights of others. As the number of software products in the industry increases and the functionality of these products further overlap, we believe that software developers may become increasingly subject to infringement claims. Any such claims, with or without merit, can be time consuming and expensive to defend or could require us to enter into royalty and licensing agreements. Such agreements, if required, may not be available on terms acceptable to us.
Indus, Indus Solution Series, IndusWorld, Advantage, PassPort, PassPort Software Solutions, EMPAC, Enterprise MPAC, Indus InSite, InSite EE, Service Delivery Management, SDM, ABACUS, IndusKnowledgeWarehouse, IndusConnect, IndusBuyDemand, IndusAnyWare, IndusASP, and Curator are trademarks and service marks of the Company. All other brand names or trademarks referenced in this Annual Report are the property of their respective holders.
Employees
At April 30, 2004, Indus had approximately 850 full-time employees. None of our employees are covered by a collective bargaining agreement, and we have never experienced a work stoppage, strike or labor dispute. We believe that our relations with our employees are good.
Executive Officers
The executive officers of the Company are as follows:
| Name of Executive Officer | Age | Principal Occupation | ||||
|
Thomas R. Madison, Jr.
|
58 | Chairman of the Board of Directors | ||||
|
Gregory J. Dukat
|
43 | President and Chief Executive Officer | ||||
|
Thomas W. Williams
|
47 | Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer | ||||
|
John D. Gregg
|
55 | Executive Vice President of Field Operations | ||||
Mr. Madison has served as Chairman of the Board of Indus since December 2001 and as a director of Indus since April 2001. From July 2002 through January 2004, Mr. Madison served as Chief Executive Officer of Indus. From January 2001 until December 2001, Mr. Madison served as an independent management consultant. From May 1999 until January 2001, Mr. Madison served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Talus Solutions, a developer of products and services that optimize pricing strategies and practices based upon customer buying behaviors. From March 1994 until May 1999, Mr. Madison served as Group President and Corporate Vice President of Computer Sciences Corp. Mr. Madison also serves as a director of Alogent, Inc., EVANT, Inc. and Kiodex, Inc.
Mr. Dukat has served as President of Indus since August 2003 and as Chief Executive Officer of Indus since February 2004. From August 2003 until his promotion in February 2004, Mr. Dukat served as President and Chief Operating Officer. Mr. Dukat joined Indus in September 2002 as Executive Vice President of Worldwide Operations to lead the Companys global sales and marketing efforts, and was promoted to President and Chief Operating Officer in August 2003 with responsibility for all sales, marketing, customer service, product strategy, and product development functions. From September 2001 to April 2002, Mr. Dukat served as the Chief Executive Officer for 180 Commerce, Inc., a start-up reverse supply chain enterprise software company. From October 1989 to September 2001, Mr. Dukat served in various positions at J.D. Edwards, an enterprise software provider, most recently as Vice President and General Manager. Mr. Dukat is a board member of CSS Consulting Corporation and holds a Bachelors of Science degree in business administration from the University of New York at Buffalo.
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Mr. Williams joined Indus as its Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer in June 2004. Prior to joining Indus, Mr. Williams served as Chief Financial Officer of Cendian Corporation, a provider of logistics services to the chemical industry, from October 2002 to May 2004. From February 2000 to September 2002, Mr. Williams served as Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of Manhattan Associates, Inc., a leading supplier of supply chain software. From February 1996 to February 2000, Mr. Williams served as Group Vice President, Finance and Administration for Sterling Commerce, a worldwide leader in providing e-business solutions for the Global 5000 companies. From December 1994 to January 1996, Mr. Williams served as Division Vice President, Finance and Administration for Sterling Software, one of the 20 largest independent software companies in the world. Although Mr. Williams assumed the title of Chief Financial Officer in June 2004, he will not be performing the functions of principal accounting and financial officer until after the filing of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, and therefore will not be signing this report.
Mr. Gregg was promoted to Executive Vice President of Field Operations in February 2004. Prior to his promotion, Mr. Gregg served as President of the IUS division since March 2003, when Indus acquired SCT Utility Systems, Inc. from SCT. From November 1993 to March 2003, Mr. Gregg served in various positions with SCT Utility Systems, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of SCT, most recently as President from November 2000 until the acquisition by Indus. Mr. Gregg served as the Executive Coordinator of Northside Baptist Church during a 10-month sabbatical in 1999.
Employment Agreements
All the current executive officers of the Company have employment contracts with the Company.
Exchange Act Reports
We maintain an Internet web site at the following address: www.indus.com. The information on our web site is not incorporated by reference in this annual report on Form 10-K.
We make available on or through our website certain reports and amendments to those reports that we file or furnish to the Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC) in accordance with the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These include our annual reports on Form 10-K, our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and our current reports on Form 8-K. We make this information available on our web site free of charge as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file the information with, or furnish it to, the SEC.
FACTORS AFFECTING FUTURE PERFORMANCE
| Our operating results have fluctuated in the past and may continue to fluctuate significantly from quarter-to-quarter which could negatively affect our results of operations and our stock price. |
Our operating results have fluctuated in the past, and our results may fluctuate significantly in the future. Our operating results may fluctuate from quarter-to-quarter and may be negatively affected as a result of a number of factors, including:
| | the relatively long sales cycles for our products; | |
| | the variable size and timing of individual license transactions; | |
| | delays associated with product development, including the development and introduction of new products and new releases of existing products; | |
| | the development and introduction of new operating systems and/or technological changes in computer systems that require additional development efforts; | |
| | our success in, and costs associated with, developing, introducing and marketing new products; | |
| | changes in the proportion of revenues attributable to license fees, hosting fees and services; |
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| | personnel changes, including changes in our management; | |
| | changes in the level of operating expenses; | |
| | software defects and other product quality problems and the costs associated with solving those problems; and | |
| | successful completion of customer funded development. |
Changes in operating expenses or variations in the timing of recognition of specific revenues resulting from any of these factors can cause significant variations in operating results from quarter-to-quarter and may in some future quarter result in losses or have a material adverse effect on our business or results of operations.
| If we are unable to maintain profitability and become cash flow positive in the near future, our business and long-term prospects may be harmed. |
We generated a net loss of $12.0 million in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2004, and used cash of $3.8 million in operating activities during the same period. For the three-month period ended March 31, 2004, we generated net income of $651,000 and used cash of $850,000 in operating activities. If we are unable to maintain profitability or produce positive cash flow from operations in the near future it will negatively affect our capacity to implement our business strategy and may require us to take actions in the short-term that will impair the long-term prospects of our business. If we are unable to maintain profitability or produce positive cash flow from operations in the near future it may also result in liquidity problems and impair our ability to finance our continuing business operations on terms that are acceptable to us. Further, we may need to enter into financing transactions that are dilutive to our stockholders equity ownership in our company.
| If the market for service delivery management solutions does not grow as anticipated or if our service delivery management solutions are not accepted in the market, we may not be able to grow our business. |
From time to time, we expand into new markets. For example, in January 2004, we announced our service delivery management solutions for utilities. The market for service delivery management solutions is an emerging market. If customers demand in this emerging market does not grow as anticipated or if our service delivery management solution is not accepted in the market place, then we may not be able to grow our business.
| If the market does not accept our new products and enhancements or upgrades to the existing products that we launch from time to time, our operating results and financial condition would be materially adversely affected. |
From time to time, we acquire new products, launch new products, and release enhancements or upgrades to existing products. For example, in March 2004, we released PassPort 10.0, one of our asset management solutions. In January 2004, we acquired the Wishbone Service Suite, a suite of field service management modules that forms a part of our service delivery management offering. In addition, in December 2003, we introduced InSite EE, the consolidation of our EMPAC and Indus InSite enterprise asset management products into a single software solution. There can be no assurance that any of our new or enhanced products, including PassPort 10.0, the field service management suite acquired from Wishbone Systems, and InSite EE, will be sold successfully or that they can achieve market acceptance. Our future success with these products and other next generation product offerings will depend on our ability to accurately determine the functionality and features required by our customers, as well as the ability to enhance our products and deliver them in a timely manner. We cannot predict the present and future size of the potential market for our next generation of products, and we may incur substantial costs to enhance and modify our products and services in order to meet the demands of this potential market.
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| Demand for enterprise asset management solutions and customer relationship management software may grow slowly or decrease in upcoming quarters, which may impair our business and could materially adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition. |
Overall demand for enterprise asset management software and customer relationship management software in general may grow slowly or decrease in upcoming quarters and years because of unfavorable general economic conditions, decreased spending by companies in need of our solutions or otherwise. This may reflect a saturation of the market for enterprise asset management software and customer relationship management software generally, as well as deregulation and retrenchments affecting the way companies purchase our software. To the extent that there is a slowdown in the overall market for our solutions, our business, results of operations and financial condition are likely to be materially adversely affected.
| If we experience delays in product development or the introduction of new products or new versions of existing products, our business and sales will be negatively affected. |
We have, in the past, experienced delays in product development that have negatively affected our relationships with existing customers and have resulted in lost sales of our products and services to existing and prospective customers and our failure to recover our product development costs. There can be no assurance that we will not experience further delays in connection with our current product development or future development activities. If we are unable to develop and introduce new products, or enhancements to existing products, in a timely manner in response to changing market conditions or customer requirements, our business, operating results and financial condition will be materially and adversely affected. Because we have limited resources, we must effectively manage and properly allocate and prioritize our product development efforts and our porting efforts relating to newer products and operating systems. There can be no assurance that these efforts will be successful or, even if successful, that any resulting products or operating systems will achieve customer acceptance.
| Delays in implementation of our software or the performance of our professional services may negatively affect our business. |
Following license sales to new customers, the implementation of our products and their extended solutions generally involves a lengthy process, including customer training and consultation. In addition, we are often engaged by our existing customers for other lengthy professional services projects. A successful implementation or other professional services project requires a close working relationship between us, the customer and, if applicable, third-party consultants and systems integrators who assist in the process. These factors may increase the costs associated with completion of any given sale, increase the risks of collection of amounts due during implementation or other professional services projects, and increase risks of cancellation or delay of such projects. Delays in the completion of a product implementation or with any other professional services project may require that the revenues associated with such implementation or project be recognized over a longer period than originally anticipated, or may result in disputes with customers regarding performance by us and payment by the customers. Such delays in the implementation have caused, and may in the future cause, material fluctuations in our operating results. Similarly, customers may typically cancel implementation projects at any time without penalty, and such cancellation could have a material adverse effect on our business or results of operations. Because our expenses are relatively fixed, a small variation in the timing of recognition of specific revenues can cause significant variations in operating results from quarter-to-quarter and may in some further quarter result in losses or have a material adverse effect on our business or results of operations.
| We have experienced significant change in our executive management team during the last several months and the current executive management team has only begun to work together. |
We have experienced significant change in our executive management team in recent months. In October 2003, Gregory Dukat was promoted from Executive Vice President of Worldwide Operations to President and Chief Operating Officer, and in February 2004, he was promoted to President and Chief Executive Officer. In February 2004, John Gregg was promoted to Executive Vice President of Field Operations. In June 2004, we
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| Our success depends upon our ability to attract and retain key personnel. |
Our future success depends, in significant part, upon the continued service of our key technical, sales and senior management personnel, as well as our ability to attract and retain new personnel. Competition for qualified sales, technical and other personnel is intense, and there can be no assurance that we will be able to attract, assimilate or retain additional highly qualified employees in the future. Our ability to attract, assimilate and retain key personnel may be adversely impacted by the fact that we have reduced our work force by 12% in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2004 and that, in order to reduce our operating expenses, we have generally not increased wages or salaries over the last two years. If we are unable to offer competitive salaries and bonuses, our key technical, sales and senior management personnel may be unwilling to continue service for us, and it may be difficult for us to attract new personnel. If we were unable to hire and retain personnel, particularly in senior management positions, our business, operating results and financial condition would be materially adversely affected. Further additions of new personnel and departures of existing personnel, particularly in key positions, can be disruptive and have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results and financial condition.
| Our failure to realize the expected benefits of our recent restructurings, includ |