Tag: Drive

Posted on

Agile Finance Teams Drive Healthy Growth For Midsized Companies

Agile Finance Teams Drive Healthy Growth For Midsized Companies

As firms develop, so do the needs on finance. Nevertheless even though the function begins out as accounting and evolves into a provider perform, in a thriving enterprise this is not ample. More substantial quantities signify even bigger chance. More work for the corporation implies additional complexity in the figures, and far more selections to make. Finance has to rise to the obstacle and come to be analytical and ahead-wanting.

But how to build a lifestyle of agile finance? 1 resolution is to use financial analysts on leading of the accounting team. This may well function, but it is costly, and tends not to increase analytical pondering. One more tactic is to practice administrators, who usually benefit from additional finance sophistication. But dealing with knowledge in a expanding company is tricky, and putting this requirement in non-finance staff won’t often succeed. At minimal, it distracts them from their essential pure roles – of providing, internet marketing, running and innovating.

The serious goal is to root analytical economical thinking throughout the upper tier of the small business. As an alternative of seeing finance as reactive, the function must be viewed as an critical, forward-seeking part. As the finance team emerges alongside (but distinct from) accounting, it ought to deliver not only previous experiences but predictive examination. Along the way, it need to simplify and streamline monetary reporting and support team leaders to study how to manage with quantities.

“Not only did the core finance capabilities elevate, we greater our capacity to be excellent economical stewards,” says Adanma Akujieze, CFO and Treasurer of Larson Style Team, Inc., a top national architecture, engineering and professional consulting agency with 18 workplaces in 7 states. In transforming the operate, she suggests, “We also, throughout the corporation, elevated our means to venture, our capacity to hear and study our clients and browse among the strains, our capability to certainly know our small business.”

Acquiring Agile

Key things of a extensive solution to developing an agile, analytical monetary attitude across the organization include things like:

  1. Leadership. The head of finance will have to be keen to go past accounting to guidance other features in creating better conclusions. Nothing at all will change if the leader is, in their heart, an accountant.
  2. Methods. Make assessment and reporting mostly systematized. Streamline program procedures automate them if achievable. Push effectiveness to absolutely free up time for assessment and for hunting ahead.
  3. Computer software. Put into action a excellent instrument set – an business useful resource arranging (ERP) or other organization intelligence suite – coach teams to use it and make sure it is completely leveraged throughout the organization.
  4. Understanding. Teach management on the gains of building a nimble, analytical finance device, relatively than just introducing an additional distinctive-challenge accountant or demanding another report. The senior team want to grasp the reason of analytical finance to improve the full corporation.
  5. Methods. Acquire buy-in for schedule reporting and other typical operating techniques across the company so professionals enjoy the worth of the conventional analytical info they get again on KPIs and other indicators, as perfectly as bottom-line quantities.
  6. Shopper Make contact with. Empower finance to have customer and vendor contact, and to take part in client due diligence. Get them “in the trenches” with profits and shipping and delivery teams, to deepen their being familiar with of the company and assistance guidance improved decision-earning throughout the board.

Not all people will embrace the mathmatical world of economical pondering. Some could find it complicated. Some may possibly resist. The ingrained society of functions doing the serious operate of the business though finance stays in a box counting the beans can be complicated to prevail over. The favourable obstacle is to help groups grasp the empowering capability of economical investigation, when finance work-merchandise supports operational groups to permit the firm to excel.

Elevating the Fiscal Activity

Larson Style and design Group, or LDG as it is recognised, has been on a route of expansion and change. Launched in 1986, it accomplished the transition to 100{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} employee possession in 2019. Beginning the up coming calendar year, it introduced quite a few new places of work and mergers, growing in the West and in Florida.

Amid these developments, the team was determined to enhance its finance purpose – now an 11-person staff, with four in company and common accounting, 6 on the challenge and transactional side, and a CFO, in Akujieze, who provides a blend of equally do the job-streams.

The firm understood it wanted to be in a position to deal with its dynamic corporate ambitions amid new major social and financial uncertainties. These variables significantly accelerated the velocity at which the groups desired to re-examine, re-existing and re-circulate efficiency success and projections.

In a tricky atmosphere, they built a final decision to up their match. They understood that forecasting –especially limited- and lengthy-phrase cash-circulation planning – necessary to strengthen. This information was necessary for the leadership and team heads as well as their primary banking lover in timely, digestible projections about where they were being going, offering not only the what but also the why.

Units were a starting off stage. Organization device leaders had diverse schedules and distinctive requests, and vital performance data was submitted at diverse instances. Finance grappled to procedure the information. The close-of-month time was constantly a significant strain. Meantime interim studies have been normally requested out of time, doubling up burdens.

In partnership with operations, the finance team formulated a single set of details, agreeing what was important and what was much less vital. The goal was to go outside of, say, everyday labor or other metrics, to concentration on top rated-line trends, these kinds of as the revenue, earnings and over-all utilization traces. This streamlined the use of monetary analysts’ time and abilities.

Regardless of periodic requests for ad hoc reporting, Larson stayed committed to establishing their individual solution – a unified, much more effective method of reporting and fiscal investigation. Incorporating ERP software Deltek Eyesight presents challenge professionals visibility to pull up projections of job financials, profitability, metrics and performance, saving a excellent sum of analysts’ work.

Along with liberating up analysts’ time, the finance group was also provided increased authority to enforce policy. Formerly, the lifestyle was for finance to be responsive, to record facts and feedback with stories. “It was, ‘Tell me to jump, and I’ll ask you how significant,’” recalls Akujieze.

With the shift, finance was given the capability to challenge groups, and guarantee target is on all round operational wellbeing. A situation in position is strictly adhering to undertaking set up controls, a natural development of advancement with intentionality and modify from much more adaptability in the past.

There is also a whole lot of listening. Akujieze underlines the relevance of work shadowing. Not every person in finance understands the nitty gritty of what the teams do, so shadowing will help them recognize the challenges, as perfectly grasp personal strengths and weaknesses.

At the same time, communications and location anticipations were being significant for the finance crew. Insufficient communication sales opportunities to an erosion of efficiencies. “It’s the issues that would bring about re-work at the finish of the working day,” notes Akujieze. “And it’s a disservice to a enterprise ultimately wherever the time and talent of quite qualified analysts are not becoming used optimally.”

Allow it Move

Funds movement was one particular of the drivers for LDG’s change in the finance lifestyle, and controlling cash move as a shared endeavor illustrates a single of the vital wins from the improve.

Instead than functioning in silos, they took a holistic tactic to the obstacle. The cliché is that functions want vendors and subcontractors paid, when finance focus on Accounts Receivable. The workforce technique was to develop joint enthusiasm for both sides of the equation. They necessary to be as eager to get dollars into the firm as they have been to pay it out to get outcomes for customers.

“It was about acquiring the self-confidence to insist on payments, even whilst the organization really actively encourages a client-very first mindset,” claims Akujieze. “Client company excellence is our foremost core worth. We have to be as eager to convert that into cash simply because, ultimately, if qualified prospects really don’t make it to cash, the cycle is not finish.”

In practice, the enterprise observed this frame of mind could deepen shopper relations. For the duration of the pandemic, without having making it possible for client collection delays to grow to be a issue involving the organizations, Finance, Legal and functions groups partnered to get the job done out payment strategies wherever important. The corporation uncovered that purchasers honored their commitments to LDG. Wherever a consumer has integrity – the place it shares the identical values as its provider – going the additional mile will be rewarded.

“This was not mainly because I or any other senior leader stepped in,” Akujieze states. “There was a whole lot of because of diligence on the aspect of the venture crew. We can meet in the middle if there is some variety of trouble.”

Freedom Through Finance

Not every company can decide on and choose who they do the job with. Many have to get any possibilities out there. Not only did these finance-revenue collaboration benefit the income-circulation position, they also emphasized the ways in which expansion – backed by agile finance – opens up chances. Choosing perform (and trustworthy consumers), reducing possibility and empowering workers can guide to expanding to new strains or new places. The journey requires effort. But it’s a virtuous circle that retains on offering.

LDG Finance is now closer to Akujieze’s personalized eyesight of an agile finance group – their drive obtained them more and quicker than they could have imaged only a number of many years prior.

“The shift has aided take away sound and streamline the program non-crucial day-to-day responsibilities, so we focus on what is significant,” she says. “It pressured a transformation that was currently less than way. But it designed us do it faster. A large amount of the time when we forged a strategic vision it is geographic, it is M&A, it is a few numbers right here and there – what we want to expand to. Here’s a much more intangible, a softer style of purpose I believe providers should really be reaching for: to get to the level, by expansion and agile systems, where by they have freedom of preference.”

Posted on

Premarket stocks: These three big unknowns will drive markets in 2023

Premarket stocks: These three big unknowns will drive markets in 2023

A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here. You can listen to an audio version of the newsletter by clicking the same link.


New York
CNN
 — 

We’re in the salad days of the New Year — that period where many feel refreshed and motivated and perhaps even optimistic about the year to come. There’s a certain clarity that comes during this time in January.

That said, the big question weighing on everyone’s mind is whether or not the United States will enter a recession this year. And there are three big “ifs” that will determine the health of the economy: The strength of the labor market, the American consumer and the Federal Reserve.

Will the labor market cool off?

Jobs has been the word of the week as investors eye a slew of data highlighting a strong labor market that is confoundingly resistant to the Fed’s attempts to cool the economy.

The US labor market is historically tight, with the unemployment rate, as of November, at just 3.7{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} and about 1.7 available jobs for every job seeker. If job numbers come in as expected on Friday, 2022 will be the second-best year on record for job growth.

This is all happening as the Fed tries to actively cool the labor market. Policymakers fear that persistent wage growth in a tight labor market will keep already sky-high inflation levels elevated.

For the Fed to reach its desired target of 2{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} inflation, jobs will have to take a hit, with unemployment rising to about 4.6{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} this year, according to the central bank’s projections released in December. The central bank will likely continue to put pressure on the economy by instituting painful rate hikes until we get there.

In an interview with the Financial Times this week, Gita Gopinath, second in command at the International Monetary Fund, urged the Fed to continue with rate increases this year, citing the labor market’s resilience.

So will wages moderate this year? Analysts at Goldman Sachs predict that they will. They believe that unemployment will grow and wage growth will slow from above 5{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} in 2022 to about 4{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} by the end of this year.

“This would still be a bit too hot, but any sizeable drop would provide Fed officials with a proof of concept for the idea that gradual labor market rebalancing can dampen wage and eventually price pressures without a recession,” they write.

If 2022 taught investors anything, it’s that you can’t beat the Fed. So expect more good-is-bad economic news, since a strong monthly jobs report will likely continue to correlate to a weak market.

Will Americans continue to spend?

American consumers carried the weight of the economy on their backs last year. Even as interest rates rose and growth weakened, they kept on shopping.

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan told CNN around the holidays that the continued strength of the US consumer is nearly single-handedly staving off recession.

But weaker-than-expected retail sales in November pummeled market sentiment last month and raised the odds that the Fed’s punishing interest rate hikes would push the economy into recession.

US retail sales fell 0.6{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} in November, the weakest performance in nearly a year. Weak sales are likely to continue, say analysts, and if they do, retailers’ earnings will suffer.

Disposable income fell from the spring of 2021 through the summer of 2022 as inflation outran wage growth and pandemic savings dried up. While American bank accounts are still fairly robust, consumers are borrowing more. In the third quarter of 2022, credit card balances jumped 15{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} year over year. That’s the largest annual jump since the New York Fed began tracking the data in 2004.

Will the Fed pivot?

This is the main question on every investor’s mind — and the answer will not only help determine what happens to markets this year, but also whether the economy will fall into recession.

In the minutes from the December Fed meeting, central bank officials spelled it out for interested parties: No policy makers anticipated that rate cuts would be appropriate in 2023. The minutes warned that “an unwarranted easing in financial conditions … would complicate the Committee’s effort to restore price stability.”

And while officials welcomed softer inflation reports in recent months, they stressed that “substantially more evidence of progress” was required and said that inflation was still “unacceptably high.”

So while rate cuts may be off the table this year, the Fed could opt for more modest increases, or even none at all as the year progresses. That would be welcome relief to investors after four hikes of three-quarters of a point last year.

Mortgage rates rose again last week, beginning 2023 twice as high as they were a year ago. The hike also reverses six straight weeks of falling rates.

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.48{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} in the week ending January 5, up from 6.42{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} the week before, according to Freddie Mac. A year ago, the 30-year fixed rate was 3.22{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}.

Mortgage rates rose throughout most of 2022, spurred by the Federal Reserve’s unprecedented campaign of harsh interest rate hikes to tame soaring inflation. But mortgage rates dropped in November and December, following data that showed inflation may have finally reached its peak, reports my colleague Anna Bahney.

The current market is driving away would-be buyers, partially because there’s little inventory as Americans are uninterested in selling and parting ways with their ultra-low mortgage rates.

Still, this week’s drive upwards could be a fluke and as inflation begins to ease, rates are expected to also drop.

“Mortgage application activity sunk to a quarter-century low this week as high mortgage rates continue to weaken the housing market,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “While mortgage market activity has significantly shrunk over the last year, inflationary pressures are easing and should lead to lower mortgage rates in 2023.”

The future looks grim for Bed Bath & Beyond. The long-suffering retailer issued an ominous message on Thursday, warning about possible bankruptcy.

There is “substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue” because of its worsening financial situation, the home goods chain said in a regulatory filing.

The company said that it was still looking into alternatives, like restructuring its debt, seeking additional cash and selling assets.

But the Wall Street Journal reported that Bed Bath & Beyond is preparing to file for bankruptcy within weeks, citing sources familiar with the matter. Bed Bath & Beyond did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNN.

Bed Bath & Beyond’s (BBY) stock plunged nearly 30{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} Thursday. It dipped below $2 a share, an all-time low.

“Bed Bath & Beyond is too far gone to be saved in its present form,” Neil Saunders, an analyst at GlobalData Retail, said in a note to clients Thursday. “All of this points to bankruptcy as being the most likely outcome.”

Posted on

Bank of England warns Sunak over City deregulation drive

Bank of England warns Sunak over City deregulation drive

Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey has warned Rishi Sunak’s governing administration in opposition to likely far too considerably with its flagship programme to no cost the City from post-crisis polices, insisting that the procedures continue being critical extra than a decade following the crash.

Bailey’s intervention arrived as the central lender stated it would have out the world’s first strain exams on non-lender monetary marketplaces, right after September’s implosion of Uk pension cash discovered systemic pitfalls that caught policymakers off guard.

“The idea that we’re previous the monetary disaster and we consequently don’t will need the regulation that we had post the money crisis, I would not go together with that,” Bailey stated.

His comments arrived just times right after chancellor Jeremy Hunt introduced the greatest shake up of British isles economical regulation in many years, even though insisting that the reforms ended up remaining carried out “very, pretty carefully”.

The United kingdom authorities hopes a liberalised economical regulation regime will reinvigorate the Metropolis right after Brexit. But the Lender argues powerful policies boost the monetary sector’s competitiveness and handle risk extra properly than ahead of the crisis.

Bailey claimed it was “important to make obvious, that the basis on which the regulatory [regime] was completed was not carried out just to handle a particular trouble that then went away”. He extra: “It was performed to set down some rather basic planks of the regulatory technique.”

The government’s programs, dubbed the “Edinburgh reforms”, include comforting ringfencing policies close to the separation of retail and investment decision banking and simplifying rules for pieces of the investment industry.

There will be a evaluation of the “senior professionals regime”, developed to keep executives to account for infractions on their view, whilst the UK’s top rated regulators — which include the BoE — will have a mandate to increase the City’s competitiveness.

Hunt insists the reforms are not the bonfire of rules some hoped for following Brexit, and explained to the FT’s World wide Boardroom meeting previous 7 days his programs ended up a “considered and well balanced package”.

“We have to make sure we don’t unlearn the classes of 2008 but at the exact time recognise that banking institutions today have significantly more powerful stability sheets,” the chancellor said.

Hunt’s allies explained on Tuesday that there had been no dissimilarities on plan involving the chancellor and BoE governor.

Bailey explained Brexit gave the United kingdom the possibility to tweak some outdated procedures as properly as those ill-suited to the UK, this sort of as for cash specifications for insurers.

But he hinted at a probable clash with the governing administration around its ideas to redraw the senior supervisors routine, whose rewards he defended. The 2016 routine, which bankers as soon as claimed produced them “terrified”, sets private accountability requirements so that executives as perfectly as establishments are held responsible for crises.

“[The senior managers’ regime] moved us from a entire world the place the judgment was a single of culpability to just one of duty,” the governor stated. “That has established a useful dynamic.”

In its common monetary stability update, the BoE claimed on Tuesday that put up-crisis reforms also contributed to what it termed a “robust” British isles financial institution sector with superior stages of funds. It added that both equally banking companies and the UK’s corporate sectors were now properly positioned to endure the country’s worsening financial outlook.

The Bank claimed that, although United kingdom households had been getting “stretched” by growing desire fees and soaring inflation, they ended up not however displaying “widespread signs of monetary difficulties” or an incapacity to repay loans.

But the BoE’s Monetary Coverage Committee — designed up of senior bank officials and external industry experts — expressed increased problem about the non-banking economical sector and identified as for “urgent” worldwide motion.

“We’ve experienced a entire collection of non-financial institution incidents across distinctive jurisdictions and I think it is unquestionably critical . . . to recognise this is a sector that is really internationally diversified [and needs global rules],” stated Bailey.

Non-lender money institutions’ share of the worldwide monetary providers market has additional than doubled given that the 2007-08 economic crisis.

In its prepared worry tests, BoE is organizing a “deep dive into precise risks” in marketplaces dominated by institutions this kind of as hedge resources, mutual cash and pension money so that policymakers can “propose solutions”. But, compared with its banking tension checks, it will not publish results for unique establishments or purchase steps these kinds of as elevating capital or withholding dividends.

The tests will glance at issues such as how a shock in just one economical market can ripple by way of one more, the potential risks of highly concentrated threats and how behaviours evolve by a crisis, with further more information to be disclosed in the very first 50 percent of 2023.

Individuals spots ended up pointed out as weak points by the BoE right after September’s legal responsibility-driven financial investment disaster, when a surge in Uk federal government bond yields led to a quick sale of gilts by pension cash in the wake of then primary minister Liz Truss’s badly been given “mini” Spending budget.

The central lender also recognized “deficiencies” in how banking institutions, which were being involved in LDI derivative trades, “monitor and manage risks”, as very well as “a lack of common and granular data”.

The BoE in the end experienced to stage in with an £65bn bond-buying programme to stabilise Uk govt bond marketplaces.

Jon Cunliffe, deputy governor for monetary security, said that though the BoE did not have powers to supervise some non-banks, it could request these types of powers at a afterwards phase and could make “pretty strong recommendations”.

The central financial institution is separately contacting for additional stringent oversight of LDIs. On Tuesday, it asked regulators in Ireland and Luxembourg, which oversee most of the British isles pension industry’s LDI money, and The Pensions Regulator, which displays the pension resources them selves, to set out a permanent security internet that funds need to keep to endure shocks.

Posted on

Aviva adds human rights to ethical investment drive

The Aviva brand sits exterior the corporation head business in the city of London, Britain March 7, 2019. REUTERS/Simon Dawson

Sign up now for No cost endless obtain to Reuters.com

LONDON, Jan 24 (Reuters) – Aviva Buyers will broaden its definition of sustainable investments this 12 months to include things like biodiversity and human legal rights so companies contemplate the “entire picture of sustainability”.

Bonuses awarded to business executives really should also reflect how effectively sustainability targets have been achieved, Chairman Mark Versey wrote in his yearly letter to 1,500 providers in 30 countries.

Corporations in which the asset supervisor has invested need to deliver tangible and transparent progress on a broader definition of sustainability this calendar year, together with human rights and biodversity, he claimed.

Sign up now for Cost-free limitless entry to Reuters.com

“Simply reducing emissions but allowing for the destruction of the rain forest to continue on will do very little to reverse world-wide warming,” Vasey said.

“Organizations need to undertake an built-in method for highest reward.”

The subsidiary of insurance group Aviva (AV.L) manages 262 billion kilos ($354.62 billion) of property and will now rank biodiversity and human legal rights along with local climate and govt shell out when it selects investments.

“We assume all organizations to build local weather transition ideas, and companies in larger-impact sectors ought to current these for shareholder approval,” Versey reported.

Firms should begin building voluntary disclosures based on local climate-related requirements staying drawn up by the new Global Sustainability Benchmarks Board, which was launched at the COP26 world summit past November, he added.

“We recognise the normal is however to be thoroughly made and would help a phased method to reporting, with comprehensive compliance by 2024,” Versey said.

Company govt reward designs really should involve “sturdy, stretching and externally validated sustainability targets” that are evidently joined to business technique, he added.

Past June Axa Financial investment Supervisors reported it was increasing its palm oil financial commitment approach to exclude providers included in big land use controversies or in leading to biodiversity decline owing to soy, cattle and timber.

($1 = .7388 kilos)

Register now for Totally free unrestricted entry to Reuters.com

Reporting by Huw Jones
Enhancing by Carolyn Cohn and David Goodman

Our Requirements: The Thomson Reuters Have confidence in Rules.

Posted on

Five9 Poised to Continue to Transform Customer Engagement and Drive Industry-Leading Growth and Profitability for Shareholders as Standalone Company

Third Quarter 2021 Financial Results to be Released on November 8

Financial Analyst Day to be Held on November 18

SAN RAMON, Calif., September 30, 2021–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Five9, Inc. (NASDAQ:FIVN), a leading provider of the intelligent cloud contact center, today highlighted its strong foundation and the significant opportunity ahead as a standalone company.

“Five9 has built an industry-leading and differentiated cloud contact center platform that has transformed the way businesses engage with their customers,” said Rowan Trollope, Chief Executive Officer of Five9. “Over the past few months, we have continued to execute relentlessly in the market. With a focus on product innovation, excellence in go-to-market execution and a strong and evolving partner ecosystem, we continue to strengthen our relationships with customers and bring new businesses onto the Five9 platform. We also hosted our largest ever annual CX Summit and, this week, were recognized by expert industry analysts as having the best application of Artificial Intelligence. The contact center is the new front door for business and, as the market shifts from on-premises to cloud and digital transformation accelerates, we believe we are positioned to build on this momentum and grow market share.”

Mr. Trollope continued, “We had the opportunity to engage extensively with our shareholders since our transaction announcement. We greatly appreciate their feedback and confidence in Five9’s future prospects and share their views regarding the significant potential for value creation as a standalone company. We look forward to sharing additional information on our plans to deliver continued industry outperformance and profitable growth in connection with our third quarter financial results on November 8 and Financial Analyst Day on November 18.”

Five9 has a strong foundation and clear plan to build on its momentum:

  • Capitalize on favorable market dynamics and the enterprise opportunity: Five9 is well positioned as customers focus on business agility in the move to the cloud and seek AI-driven automation to increase efficiency in the contact center. The resulting savings are especially appealing to larger enterprises, which need to scale efficiently. Five9 has successfully capitalized on this opportunity, driving sustained 30{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}+ year-over-year enterprise subscription revenue growth. Enterprise customers now represent 84{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} of total revenues, up from 60{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} at the Company’s 2014 IPO, and Five9 is poised for continued strong growth by continuing to expand into the up-market opportunity.

  • Innovate and expand the Five9 platform to meet and anticipate customers’ evolving needs: Five9 maintains its competitive advantage by continuing to evolve its products to meet and anticipate customers’ changing needs. Innovations and enhancements in the Company’s products have enabled businesses to deliver a more seamless experience for both their customers and their agents and supervisors. The latest set of offerings is focused on helping businesses leverage the power of a Digital Workforce through AI-enabled Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVAs) and AI-assisted live agents.

  • Continue investment in go-to-market execution: With significant investments in its go-to-market team, Five9 has ensured that it is fully capitalizing on the market opportunity. This includes both North America and International investments across direct sales and the extended partner ecosystem of channel partners, master agents, value added resellers, system integrators and technology partners. The Company will continue to invest in expanding and strengthening its go-to-market capabilities and building upon the trust it has developed with customers as shown by its consistently high 80{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}+ NPS scores for professional services.

Five9 is confident in its ability to deliver continued value across its stakeholder groups and looks forward to sharing more information in connection with its third quarter 2021 financial results and Financial Analyst Day. Additional details can be found below.

Five9 Third Quarter 2021 Financial Results to be Announced on November 8

Five9 will release financial results for the third quarter 2021 ended September 30, 2021 following the close of market on Monday, November 8, 2021. The Company will host a corresponding live webcast at 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time on that day. Details to follow in a separate press release in the coming weeks.

Five9 to Hold Financial Analyst Day on November 18

Five9 will hold a virtual Financial Analyst Day to discuss the Company’s strategy, outlook and business opportunities on Thursday, November 18, 2021. Members of the Five9 management team will host a series of presentations beginning at 11:30 a.m. Eastern Time. Details to follow in a separate press release in the coming weeks.

In a separate press release issued today, Five9 announced the termination of its merger agreement with Zoom, pursuant to which Zoom would have acquired Five9 in an all-stock transaction. A link to the press release can be found on the Investor Relations section of the Company’s website at http://investors.five9.com/.

About Five9

Five9 is an industry-leading provider of cloud contact center solutions, bringing the power of cloud innovation to more than 2,000 customers worldwide and facilitating billions of customer engagements annually. The Five9 Intelligent Cloud Contact Center provides digital engagement, analytics, workflow automation, workforce optimization, and practical AI to help customers reimagine their customer experience. Designed to be reliable, secure, compliant, and scalable, the Five9 platform helps increase agent and supervisor productivity, connects the contact center to the business, and ultimately deliver tangible business results including increased revenue and enhanced customer trust and loyalty.

For more information visit www.five9.com.

Engage with us @Five9, LinkedIn, Facebook, Blog, That’s Genius Podcast.

Forward-Looking Statements

This communication contains certain forward-looking information related to Five9 and its future as a standalone company. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date they were first issued and were based on our current expectations and involve numerous risks and uncertainties that may cause these forward-looking statements to be inaccurate. Forward-looking statements in this communication include, among other things, statements about Five9’s future plans as a standalone company and our growth prospects.

Risks and uncertainties that may cause these forward-looking statements to be inaccurate include, among others: (i) the risk that the termination of the merger agreement may adversely affect Five9’s business, the price of Five9’s common stock and Five9’s ability to pursue these strategic transactions; (ii) potential adverse reactions or changes to Five9’s business relationships with clients, employees, suppliers or other parties or other business uncertainties resulting from the termination of the transaction with Zoom, including but not limited to such changes that could affect Five9’s financial performance; (iii) potential legal proceedings that may be instituted against Five9 related to the termination of the merger agreement; (iv) the impact of significant transaction costs and unknown liabilities on Five9’s operating results; (v) our quarterly and annual results may fluctuate significantly, including as a result of the timing and success of new product and feature introductions by us, may not fully reflect the underlying performance of our business and may result in decreases in the price of our common stock; (vi) if we are unable to attract new clients or sell additional services and functionality to our existing clients, our revenue and revenue growth will be harmed; (vii) our recent rapid growth may not be indicative of our future growth, and even if we continue to grow rapidly, we may fail to manage our growth effectively; (viii) failure to adequately retain and expand our sales force will impede our growth; (ix) if we fail to manage our technical operations infrastructure, our existing clients may experience service outages, our new clients may experience delays in the deployment of our solution and we could be subject to, among other things, claims for credits or damages; (x) our growth depends in part on the success of our strategic relationships with third parties and our failure to successfully maintain, grow and manage these relationships could harm our business; (xi) we have established, and are continuing to increase, our network of master agents and resellers to sell our solution; our failure to effectively develop, manage, and maintain this network could materially harm our revenues; (xii) adverse economic conditions may harm our business; (xiii) the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have materially affected how we, our clients and business partners are operating, and the duration and extent to which this will impact our future results of operations and overall financial performance remains uncertain; (xiv) security breaches and improper access to or disclosure of our data or our clients’ data, or other cyber attacks on our systems, could result in litigation and regulatory risk, harm our reputation and our business; (xv) we may acquire other companies or technologies, or be the target of strategic transactions, or be impacted by transactions by other companies, which could divert our management’s attention, result in additional dilution to our stockholders and otherwise disrupt our operations and harm our operating results; (xvi) the markets in which we participate involve numerous competitors and are highly competitive, and if we do not compete effectively, our operating results could be harmed; (xvii) if our existing clients terminate their subscriptions or reduce their subscriptions and related usage, our revenues and gross margins will be harmed and we will be required to spend more money to grow our client base; (xviii) we sell our solution to larger organizations that require longer sales and implementation cycles and often demand more configuration and integration services or customized features and functions that we may not offer, any of which could delay or prevent these sales and harm our growth rates, business and operating results; (xix) because a significant percentage of our revenue is derived from existing clients, downturns or upturns in new sales will not be immediately reflected in our operating results and may be difficult to discern; (xx) we rely on third-party telecommunications and internet service providers to provide our clients and their customers with telecommunication services and connectivity to our cloud contact center software and any failure by these service providers to provide reliable services could cause us to lose clients and subject us to claims for credits or damages, among other things; (xxi) we have a history of losses and we may be unable to achieve or sustain profitability; (xxii) the contact center software solutions market is subject to rapid technological change, and we must develop and sell incremental and new products in order to maintain and grow our business; (xxiii) we may not be able to secure additional financing on favorable terms, or at all, to meet our future capital needs; (xxiv) failure to comply with laws and regulations could harm our business and our reputation; (xxv) we may not have sufficient cash to service our convertible senior notes and repay such notes, if required, and other risks attendant to our convertible senior notes and increased debt levels; and (xxvi) the other risks detailed from time-to-time under the caption “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in our Securities and Exchange Commission filings and reports, including, but not limited to, our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. Such forward-looking statements speak only as of the date hereof and readers should not unduly rely on such statements. We undertake no obligation to update the information contained in this press release, including in any forward-looking statements.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210930006015/en/

Contacts

Five9 Press Relations
Allison Wilson
352-502-9539
allison.wilson@five9.com

Five9 Investor Relations
Barry Zwarenstein
Chief Financial Officer
925-201-2000 ext. 5959
ir@five9.com

The Blueshirt Group for Five9, Inc.
Lisa Laukkanen
415-217-4967
lisa@blueshirtgroup.com